- Thread starter djsheep
- Start date
The problem with "Mister" as a broad discussion is, as you noted already, every core is only as good as the author. Some 100% better than others.
Here's what I know: CPS2 has been extensively tested against real hardware for fighting games. It's been deemed good enough to use in tournament settings (the Vampire Savior tournament at Combo Breaker was exclusively run on Misters for example, see photo I took below). The fighting game community is very picky, and very sensitive to lag and timing differences. I haven't heard of any complaints, and I know someone who played Vsav at CB, no issues reported from him for sure.
This is just my opinion, but if you're noting something as extreme as dropped inputs on CPS2 you might want to verify your setup. Because it's been used in high pressure situations by a lot of really good players, and I think if there was a general problem that big we'd know by now. I've run it myself through Mistercade many times with players, nobody reported issues like that. So it sounds like a setup problem to me. (I could be wrong, just trying to share what I've seen and heard. Maybe it is a power supply thing. I know I had issues with the Cave core and a power supply.)
I trust Jotego. He's been exacting in his testing, fixed issues that people didn't even know existed or were very obscure (the stars in Strider for example) and has been very transparent in his process. He feels like the gold standard for Mister arcade work to me. I can't say his cores are 98% or anything like that, who knows, but for me they're good enough to count.
jepjepjep and some other very talented shmup players have been trying these new cores, on their own and on my Mistercade setup, and have been feeling positive. They know these games well, and I trust their opinions.
If anyone is a real hardware enthusiast I salute you. I hope everyone runs real PCBs for as long as they all last. For me at least mister is a viable option for enough titles to make it very relevant. I'm grateful to have these cores, the recent shmup explosion has been frankly awesome, and being able to run them on a cab in a way that feels very native is fantastic.
I'm not worried about or interested in Mister "replacing" hardware. To me it's about access and preservation, and both of those are good things. However you enjoy your games is great, I'm mostly glad more people have a chance to enjoy them in a solid way.
BroadwayJose
Professional
Well said @Aurich. To add on from the FG competitive perspective, I know that the Brooklyn Video Games shop has long been running MiSTer setups on their cabs for tournaments. This includes CPS2 and MVS games at a minimum but likely other platforms as well. They were the earliest adopters which I've heard of in this respect. Any significant issues I think would've been found out by the players and reported to the core authors. I trust the players and especially the NYC tech support crew implicitly in this to make sure things are on the level for competition - they are way more invested and hardcore than I am at this point given that I'm pretty much washed up and retired as a player these days.
I feel stupid... Can anybody give me some pointers on how to make these work? I tried following the instructions, but all I get is ``Missing rbf file`` even though I placed in the core folder.
Help?
Metal Slug
Enthusiast
I had the same problems when I was first figuring out how to try new beta cores. It is a 3 file process. Download the zip file from the github page, put the 5 .mra files in the /_Arcade folder, put the 3 .rbf files in the /_Arcade/cores folder, and find the mame roms for all 5 games (it is best to just download all the versions and variations) and place the zipped mame roms in the /games/mame folderI feel stupid... Can anybody give me some pointers on how to make these work? I tried following the instructions, but all I get is ``Missing rbf file`` even though I placed in the core folder.
Help?
If you want to play all the versions available, put the .mra files that are in the _alt folders in your /Arcade/_alternatives folder.
ShootTheCore
Legendary
I've wanted to go one step further and wire one set of controls up to a PCB and MiSTer simultaneously and run them on side-by-side CRTs operating off the same set of control inputs. I have the tech on hand to do it, but not the spare time at the moment. But it would likely make for some interesting YouTube content.
Thanks! I’ll give it another shot.I had the same problems when I was first figuring out how to try new beta cores. It is a 3 file process. Download the zip file from the github page, put the 5 .mra files in the /_Arcade folder, put the 3 .rbf files in the /_Arcade/cores folder, and find the mame roms for all 5 games (it is best to just download all the versions and variations) and place the zipped mame roms in the /games/mame folder
If you want to play all the versions available, put the .mra files that are in the _alt folders in your /Arcade/_alternatives folder.
Thanks for the assist @Metal Slug!
Downloading the complete zip-file instead of single files made all the difference.
All games play great!
Downloading the complete zip-file instead of single files made all the difference.
All games play great!
That would be awesome. I had thought about doing something similar way back when. I only got as far as displaying a PCB and Core side-by-side on two cabs. Which seemed to look ok and run in parallel fine, but wasn’t indicative of the colour outputs and audio disparities. Those are another part of comparison for sure.
Keen to see what you come up with in time man.
bagheera369
Champion
Just getting my mistercade up and running today actually, and after a few hiccups, man is this thing impressive!
Still need to setup an .ini for vertical, and then setup resolution settings for my arcade cab, but that means i'm only a day or two from tossing Guwange in my cab, and getting some proper time in on it.
Still need to setup an .ini for vertical, and then setup resolution settings for my arcade cab, but that means i'm only a day or two from tossing Guwange in my cab, and getting some proper time in on it.
So really not trying to be a downer here, and it might be me remembering things wrong, but I have spent quite some time with the batrider pcb ( at least to my standards ) and it seems like half the frames or something are missing when playing the release candidate unfortunately. Like it lags a lot more than it should. Is there anyone else that gets the same behavior? Might it be some config I have or something similar?
BroadwayJose
Professional
While it's good that you are finding potential bugs, this isn't the forum to report issues.
Reference:
https://github.com/psomashekar/pr4m0d-MISTer-bin
ShootTheCore
Legendary
I haven’t had a chance to try the new Raizing core release yet, but I’ve heard several people say that it has more slowdown than it should when things get busy currently.
I am not reporting a bug here, I’m trying to understand if I’m doing something wrong in the setup or if more people have felt the same?
The way rank is handled seems different also. Like the pcb starts at a higher rank? So it feels easier by a lot in the beginning. Might also be the slowdowns I guess
ShootTheCore
Legendary
There might be other things happening besides core inaccuracies that are giving you a lower rank. For instance, Batrider doesn’t reset rank after Game Over - you have to let the Attract run a couple of times for rank to drop. Rank alao climbs faster if you have spare credits so don’t add more than one Credit if you want rank to stay lower.
That I know with the PCB, as well as starting the pcb normally the first time begins with a higher rank. You have to only press start once and let the timer run out for everything to get a session with the default rank in the beginning. But default is not 0 either.
If nothing else, the rank should probably get reported as a bug. Not familiar enough anymore (haven't owned the PCB in 5+ years) with the slowdown to comment on how accurate it is.
Last tweet sounded like end of the week is the end of development for good, so best to get in those bug reports sooner than later.
Last tweet sounded like end of the week is the end of development for good, so best to get in those bug reports sooner than later.
If this is the case, I'm inclined to give deference to this experience over mine since there was probably a lot more experienced hands that used those MiSTer setups compared to the maybe 4-5 people that used my 2 setups (one standalone, one attached to the JAMMA Expander). Moreso with VSAV as the game since it's pretty fast and relies on tight sequences more often due to stuff like chain combos. Plus I really didn't go into using the MiSTer under a testing mindset, and it was more of some observations that me and a few others felt while casually playing for an evening.
I've also heard about issues with the stock PSU being underpowered and since upgraded to a beefier MeanWell unit for my standalone units, and also tried switching to Gamepad mode on the JAMMA Expander unit after @invzim reached out to me (He proactively messaged me after I posted about the input drop situation because he knew I owned a JAMMA Expander, talk about good customer service!). I'll try to have my MiSTer setups running for people next time I host a gathering to see if any of us still feel some issues vs our usual boards, although that might take a while since my current focus is elsewhere. Something else to note is that my brother, who has a small retro gaming focused show on Twitch, did tell me that after switching to the bigger MW PSU that he hasn't experienced any input dropping or control oddities during the periods that he would use a MiSTer on his show.
I've run the beta through Mistercade on a cab for people who own the PCB, they did not notice anything that extreme. There have been debates over subtle things, is there different slowdown etc, but nothing like what you're describing.
This is one problem with Mister, it's kind of a mess as far as hardware configs go. People aren't all testing on standardized setups, so it's hard to know sometimes if issues reported are in the core or the personal hardware config. I know that Pr4mod said his cores are sensitive to good memory, and it's possible you're seeing performance issues from that.
