This is a pretty long post but I hope that anyone on the fence or veterans alike will read and appreciate it.
Find exactly what BOTHERS you and do the thing that prevents that.
Don't find what you like; find what you dislike and remove that from the equation.
For me its input lag..
I tried, too; I did. Just two years ago I had an Atari 2600 with AV mod, an Atari 800 with a multicart, and a Commodore 64 with the Ultimate 64 board in it. All hooked up to a Commodore 1084 monitor and I had a switch system to switch between them. While it was nice, it was costly, and I could tell the Atari 800 was on its last legs, let alone the CRT, which my sons constantly complained about the high-pitched noise (they eventually lose that hearing frequency in their early 20's, I'm told). I'm 54 years old, my eyesight isn’t what it used to be, and it is not talked about much, but as good as those Commodore monitors are, they are only 13", just too small. There's no way I was gonna spend some more cash and lug in a nice Trinitron, which takes up MORE space. The big issue was I am VERY sensitive to input lag. Plus, all of these 40-year-old parts could fail at any moment; I don’t solder; it’s just not my thing and CRTs take up too much space in my area and as we approach 40 years with them I worry about safety too.
So, for years, I waited. How can I get these systems I love to produce near-zero input lag in my HDMI monitor?
Retrotink
Pretty nice, something felt off about it. The picture was never as crisp as I liked it, and I still had these large keyboards I had to shift around every time I wanted to play. Plus, I am still using 40-year-old hardware.
Retroarch
Filled in some gaps for a while. However some computer emulators didn't support the "read-ahead" function, so the lag was there. And even though I eventually figured it out, I absolutely hate how brutal the UI is.
Atari 2600+ and the Atari 400 mini
So the Atari 2600+ came out last year, and although it is exciting, it is just a ROM dumper that requires actual old cartridges. I still, to this day, don't GET the product. I tried it and was not happy and felt it was not as accurate as the Stella 2600 emulator because with the emulator, you are using a powerful CPU, not this new fad (2600+ and the horrible 400mini, and C64mini), which are powered by phone CPUs from 8 years ago. You're supposed to take your 40-year-old cartridges filled with corrosion and place them into this new unit. But it just dumps the rom! You can't even use a multi-cart with it. That did not last for me more than an hour. With all the Atari stuff and ways to buy it through various collections and rom dumper systems, somewhere deep inside of me, there is an article I would like to write called "Atari is trying to get you to buy Asteroids 5 times in your life".
Mister FPGA Solution
A month ago, I purchased a Mister FPGA, cased and completely set up and ready to go on eBay for $500. It was a tough sell, and took me years to finally take the chance. It’s the best retro purchase I’ve ever made, and maybe the best hardware purchase ever (outside of my 6800XT purchase last year, which was on sale AND included Starfield deluxe for free!
For $500, I got an all-in-one device, and for that kind of accuracy with a CRT for all the systems I wanted, it would cost me easily over $1,000.
The scan-line and shadow mask choices are amazing, the sound is crisp, and after extensive testing with the corresponding emulators, I can easily see the difference and can't go back. I get CRT-like response time on my nice 1ms 2k HDMI monitor for everything I want (Atari 8-bit, 2600, 5200, 7800, C64, Arcade, NES, SNES, Genesis, Neo Geo, etc, etc)
I bought a retro-style keyboard (with colors that match Commodore and Atari computers) and USB switch to easily switch between my main system and the Mister, see below. Nice mechanical clicking, backlit and sits on my lap while I'm in a recliner.
Add the VCS classic joystick (pictured below) and it is total gaming bliss.
Messing around with the cores is so much fun. Plus, I am finally now an Amiga user! The DOS cores have been great, and I love the Arcade cores as well. I am also discovering NEO GEO and purchased that new 8bitdo joystick, which I love for some good NEO GEO fun, and it's perfect for arcade games.
Atari 800 and Commodore 64 feel like I am using the exact hardware. The sound is also underrated, and while it is not 100% with the original, the sound is miles better than an emulator. The Stella 2600 is pretty great, so there isn’t much room for improvement on the Atari 2600 side but it's still awesome. I wish I could get my Atari VCS controller (pictured below) spinner to work right on paddle games.
People claim that the FPGA crowd is very egotistical, and maybe there is some of that in my post. But I am happy, and finally found what I was looking for, and hope that anyone who has been lost for several years looking for a solution will find this post and appreciate my quest completion..lol
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In closing...
I argue that some of the anti-FPGA crowd is almost worse. They get really upset and "don't want to hear about it". Now, I'm not here to rip CRT monitors because I think they are amazing. There is an overlap between the original console owners who use a CRT and the Mister FPGA crowd. There are overlaps all over the place, and technically the Mister is emulation, hardware emulation.
But the big overlap is we all love these games and want to play them as accurately as possible, and I feel that Mister 100% achieves that.
