MiSTer FPGA Forum

Similar to BSNES/HIGAN, the SNES core has been perfected by our genius MiSTer developers.
Fewer bug reports are made on github each release, very soon they will completely stop.
100% of official library is fully playable with no bugs.

Have we reached 100% SNES preservation?
Is this not a historic year for SNES?

Well, it's pretty much perfect for me at the current state.

It might not be for more purists though (maybe because of two shogi games not supported)?

Long live MiSTer!

Yes I think so !
Maybe there is no more space for adding two more shogi games or SuFami Turbo or Satellaview or Super GameBoy on the SNES Core.

Currently supernt + sd2snes cart leads In SNES perfection however that combo is like $1000 when you add everything up (Australia dollerydoos). You also just get a SNES, MiSTer exceeds In excellence across many systems. I’m probably going to eBay my supernt combo due to MiSTer.

Might get a second MiSTer to put in a candy cab but that’s a project.

Flain wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2020 2:55 pm Currently supernt + sd2snes cart leads In SNES perfection however that combo is like $1000 when you add everything up (Australia dollerydoos). You also just get a SNES, MiSTer exceeds In excellence across many systems. I’m probably going to eBay my supernt combo due to MiSTer.

Might get a second MiSTer to put in a candy cab but that’s a project.

Does SD2sNES support "Tengai Makyou Zero"? If not, I would say it's far from perfect!

No SD2SNES does not support SPC7110.

I'd say the SNES core surpassed a real 1CHIP in terms of compatibility and PPU accuracy.
A lot of people made that happen,, srg320, Sorgelig, paulbnl, and countless issue reports that helped to find and debug the core.

This is my favorite core.

Original question is not about if absolutely everything snes related is supported, but rather how accurate the fundamental SNES hardware implementation and the most common special chips (SA1, SuperFX,etc.).
I'd say it is very close to 100%, if not already.

It's more of an appreciation thread really.

sorry, i was mixed two threads

Either this core is perfect and no reason to complain, or there are way more Genesis (or rather MegaCD) fans here.

The things that are in there seem to be working perfectly, and the things lacking vs super nt+sd2snes seem unlikely to be added.

So this is as perfect as it will get I guess?

My one wish is to have the RTC behavior of the GBA core and most emulators.

Otherwise it’s pretty damn perfect. Oh wait, I actually have some bugs in store that I should report now that most things have calmed down.

The one thing I miss is clean BSX support. There's some decent stuff for that I would play once in a while. MSU-1 hopefully will just die off and end up like all the old incompatible nesticle and zsnes hacks of yore, since it's basically the same (relying on system behavior that wasn't present originally). For purists there's also native support for Sufami Turbo, which is probably stupidly easy to add.

There's some kind of extremely minor timing difference that interferes with TAS stuff working correctly, but they get pretty far so it can't be much. Every second is millions of accurate cycles and they get a few minutes in.

The two shogi games are completely useless. One is probably not bad to add, the other is a nightmare. Both are just a waste of everyone's time. There's always higan if you're deadset on playing those.

I have never even heard of Sufami Turbo before, going to have to watch a video on that as I don't fully get what it is from the wiki entry. Learn something new every day.

What is wrong with with BSX support? I haven't tried but assumed Satellaview games would work fine.

Going to assume nobody has added support for the LifeCycle.

How is the RTC implementation different in the GBA core and emulators? As an aside someone should really update the RTC wiki entry to mention it is used in SNES and GBA cores, which are much more popular than the computer cores that support it.

The problem with the BSX support is that there isn’t any.

I don’t think MSU-1 will go away any time soon since some communities love it and use it a lot.
What I’d like to see is support for the network stuff people use for multiplayer hacks, crowd control and the like.
But I realise both of these are off the menu since they’re not available on original hardware(unless using an sd2snes)

It’s interesting that the super nt jailbreak supports the st011 with the much more limited fpga in it, but ultimately nobody really cares about the game it enables. Not really a loss.

most (if not all) BSX games are converted to standard mapper and should work already.

Moondandy wrote: ↑Tue Jun 02, 2020 2:28 pmHow is the RTC implementation different in the GBA core and emulators? As an aside someone should really update the RTC wiki entry to mention it is used in SNES and GBA cores, which are much more popular than the computer cores that support it.

The RTC add-on is only for having the DE10-Nano keep time while turned off. With an internet connection Linux will get the current time via NTP, so that will provide the same/better functionality.

As for RTC behavior from the replicated cartridge point of view:
The RTC chips included in both SNES and GBA cartridges support reading as well as writing the current time. Writing is done when the game asks you to set the time, which is usually done when starting a new game. Here's where the GBA core differs in behavior: when writing to the RTC the difference from the Linux side "real world time" is saved. This makes it possible to write an arbitrary time and the "cartridge RTC" will behave as expected, that is, keep ticking based on the time written. Consequently you can set the cartridge CRT to a time around the game in questions launch time frame, and trigger events only available at that time.

The SNES RTC behavior does not save this offset, but still supports RTC writes. As a consequence the time reported is what you set it to until you reset and load up the game the next time. At that point, the Linux side real world time is reported.

Anyway, I posted this issue when SPC7110 was introduced. Now that the GBA behaves the right way, perhaps it could be revisited.

Worth reopening the RTC issue then?

Schooled up on the Sufami Turbo, was an interesting idea, a real shame it didn't take off. Will probably pick one up as a curio to have a play with. Thanks for mentioning, always fun to come across things I had never heard of!

Are there ways to play the games currently on Mister? Assuming there are converted ROMs like BSX games?

There's some technical information on the Sufami Turbo over here, along with IPS patches to convert them into "normal" ROMs, which requires merging in the BIOS ROM from the Sufami Turbo itself. Of course, you lose the combining abilities of the Sufami Turbo in the process. The guy who made those patches was doing so to make reproductions, but I don't see any reason they wouldn't work on MiSTer.

The hardware here is not complicated, so implementing Sufami Turbo support "correctly" would probably be a simple matter, but you'd have to add extra junk to the system menu for loading multiple ROMs and you'd have another BIOS to add into the mix. I don't think it's worth it just for a pretty minor ability in a handful of mostly crappy and untranslated games.

Ah, thanks for the info. I don't know, it may not be the most used feature but it could be cool to play with and something worse preserving.

I revisted a glitch I discovered a while ago, with the translation patch for Energy Breaker. When opening certain text boxes, SNES_MiSTer would consistently glitch out as pictured below, which doesn't occur on real hardware or accurate emulators.


But I'm happy to see that the patch now works correctly! The glitch was present in the 20200212 release, so some (of the rather few) changes since then apparently cleared this up. :thumbs_up:

There have been 3 releases since 20200212.
If you are using a 128MB module, it was probably the SDRAM tweaks that did the trick.

James-F wrote: ↑Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:14 am There have been 3 releases since 20200212.
If you are using a 128MB module, it was probably the SDRAM tweaks that did the trick.

Yes, that is probably the case. I never tried it with my old 32MB module, but there doesn’t seem to be any other significant changes.

I still get some occasional screen tearing on SNES core, maybe once every so many hours of play. I haven't seen this in any other cores yet. Requires a reboot to fix. Has been present on multiple screens for almost a year now. I use integer scaling and default vsync_adjust=0.

@ashenshards

ive found the screen tearing and other sync issues are generally a combination of the display/monitor/TV youre using and the vsync mode for the core youre using.

i found when i enabled the "low lag" vsync, i would get occasional shimmering and random screen tearing every once in a while.
but setting the vsync to "sync to core" and my games play butter smooth with no shimmering and screen tearing.

i prefer playing over HDMI, integer scaled to 1080p however. and id imagine people who play on a CRT at native resolution dont have these tearing/shimmering issues with setting their vsync to low lag, as a CRT can handle the odd refresh rates/pixel clocks of the system cores in mister.

also, ive noticed with my TV (samsung q70r)

i have my mister on HDMI port 2 and a computer on HDMI port 1. if i switch input signal on my TV from my loaded SNES core in 60.1hz to my computer running at 60hz, and then switch the input signal back to my SNES core, i have screen tearing/juddering until i reboot my mister and reload the SNES core.

im assuming this has to do with how my TV is switching between the refresh rate of the SNES 60.1hz, then to a 60hz source, and then back to the 60.1hz. but it could also be something that the mister is not properly handshaking and updating. im not sure, tbh. so i just leave it on the SNES core and dont switch inputs while im playing a game

Does anybody know if anything is missing to support TAS playback using playback devices? (ie. TAStm32, etc)

I believe that some of the people on discord (Rysha?) mentioned the NES and SNES cores are missing support for some controller data lines? If so, does anybody know if these will be added?

Also, has any progress been made on 5x integer scaling?

For anyone who missed it, the core now has native BSX support - so we can now play all the Satellaview roms without them being converted.

Moondandy wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:32 am For anyone who missed it, the core now has native BSX support - so we can now play all the Satellaview roms without them being converted.

Is there a trick to them? All I can get working is the town view.

Jayde Six wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 1:00 pm

Moondandy wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:32 am For anyone who missed it, the core now has native BSX support - so we can now play all the Satellaview roms without them being converted.

Is there a trick to them? All I can get working is the town view.

Look for a BS-X bios that is english and DRM-free, think it's called BS-X Project or something...

But even then, if you aren't connecting to a BS-X service, a ton of that stuff in the town won't load, this is by design, as it referenced actual network locations.

aberu wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 6:30 pm Look for a BS-X bios that is english and DRM-free, think it's called BS-X Project or something...

But even then, if you aren't connecting to a BS-X service, a ton of that stuff in the town won't load, this is by design, as it referenced actual network locations.

That worked a treat, thanks!