MiSTer on SocKit

[jca]

It looks like MISTer has been ported to the SocKit FPGA
https://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page ... .pl?No=816
This board does not seems to be in stock and the price is not available, likely more expensive than the DE10 Nano.
I almost got one many months ago when it was on closing sale by Arrow (less than $70), due to some mess they were all gone when the problem was solved.

[Newsdee]

There sre also ports to MiSTer to other boards (eg DE0). The problem with all of these is they lack HDMI, sometimes have less LEs, and the forks always lag behind.

[dmckean]

It's still cool the ports are out there. Students are sometimes required to purchase these boards for classes and it's nice that they have some use as a gaming platform after they're done with them.

[KremlingKuthroat19]

Pretty intersting. If a MiSTer 2 came out that was say 2X as powerful as the MiSTer, how easy/hard would it be to just port everything over? I know that's a loaded question, but this just makes me curious

[jca]

The port to the DE0 Nano Soc has been abandoned. For the SocKit the FPGA is similar to the one on MISTer:
Cyclone V SX SoC—5CSXFC6D6F31C6N 110K LEs, 41509 ALMs for SocKit
Cyclone® V SE 5CSEBA6U23I7 device (110K LEs) for MISTer

Jotego already ported all his Arcade cores and on MISTer Sockit github the list of cores is impressive:
https://github.com/MiSTer-Arrow-SoCKit? ... positories

May be the release lag won't be that much.
I don't think the lack of HDMI is a big problem, there are VGA to HDMI converters (limited to 1080P it seems).
For sound it sports a 24-bit CODEC, Line-in, line-out, and microphone-in jacks, likely better than the MISTer DAC.

The main problem is availability and may be price so it does not solve the problem of the DE10 nano being difficult to source and expensive.

I just posted for people interested in MISTer and having a SocKit laying around.

[Newsdee]

there are VGA to HDMI converters (limited to 1080P it seems).

Part of the reason Sorgelig chose the DE10 (with built in HDMI) is because most VGA to HDMI converters are cheaply made and worked badly with MiST's VGA output. i remember trying several adapters and a lot had shimmering from bad upscaling.

One can upscale with an XRGB or OSSC (and nowadays a RetroTink), but those are quite expensive solutions.

So in the end rhe DE10 (even at current price) is still a very attractive option for the price. Sure it may go away one day and a better option may show up at the same price point, but we're not there yet.

[Newsdee]

That said, not everybody needs or wants HDMI.

For smaller cores, MIST still works great (even wirh omly 25K LEs), and there is a new run announced adding more RAM:
https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=45
(you jeed to send him an email to express interest)

MiST is a good example of a homebrew FPGA board sold with its own builtin RAM and case; it was invented when develoment boards were too expensive.

[annette]

MiST is a good example of a homebrew FPGA board sold with its own builtin RAM and case; it was invented when develoment boards were too expensive.

Or even now build you own MiST in the homebrew spirit.

https://github.com/UzixLS/mist1010-board