MiSTer FPGA Forum

I'm thinking about jumping in and putting one of these together, but I'm not sure if I should get a digital or analog I/O board. I don't currently have a CRT to hook anything up to. Would I be better off getting the digital board or is the analog worth having if I can find a good CRT down the road?

It depends on the posibility of using a CRT. Even so, there is always the chance of getting a HDMI-VGA converter -Direct Video works perfectly fine-.

I wouldn’t worry about it. HDMI works great for LCDs. I use a cheap HDMI to VGA converter to hook my MiSTer up to a CRT in my arcade cabinet, which works great (using a J-Pac and sound amp). Make sure you get a HDMI to VGA converter with sound out as well.

The advantage of having the analog IO board is that you can have CRT and HDMI output at the same time. A HDMI to VGA converter will give you 24 bit instead of 18 bit color though. Those adapters are indeed very inexpensive.

You can technically get analog video out of the HDMI port using direct video and a HDMI->VGA converter.

I would recommend getting the analog IO board though. The analog audio jack is what sold me. I can have my gameplay on my monitor, with the audio routed through my headphone amp.

Without the IO board, you’d have to pull the audio from the TV or from a breakout box on your HDMI cable. In my experience the audio gets out of sync if I have to do that.

And of course the component output is great when you’re visiting your buddy who has a big CRT

The DAC on the analog I/O is pretty crap though. If you're going through the trouble of a headphone amp, you'll get vastly better sound with a $10 DAC and mini-TOSlink cable, and both the analog and digital boards support TOSlink.

FoxbatStargazer wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:10 pm The DAC on the analog I/O is pretty crap though. If you're going through the trouble of a headphone amp, you'll get vastly better sound with a $10 DAC and mini-TOSlink cable, and both the analog and digital boards support TOSlink.

Second this thought. Switching to an inexpensive TOSlink setup was night and day improvement in sound quality for me.

As a start for HDMI you don't need an I/O board at all as the DE10 already has an HDMI out so you don't need to decide right away. The buttons on the I/O board help, but a keyboard works just as well.

Potential benefit of the digital board is it leaves open an extra interface port for potential expansion, but no plans to use that for anything yet.

Of course if you ever want to use a CRT then you'll need the analog board. Personally, I plan on building a 2nd MiSTer for analog use. Another option... buy both boards and swap them out as needed, lol.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback and help on this. I have a friend that has an old working Sony CRT that he is giving me so I figured the analog version is the one to go for after all. I will look use the toslink for audio output. I have a dac I can use with it.

FoxbatStargazer wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:10 pm The DAC on the analog I/O is pretty crap though. If you're going through the trouble of a headphone amp, you'll get vastly better sound with a $10 DAC and mini-TOSlink cable, and both the analog and digital boards support TOSlink.

This is true. It doesn't bother me much. Although I'm always open to more excuses to buy audio equipment.