MiSTer FPGA DE-10 - FPGA Emulation vs BSNES Emulation - Super Nintendo Showdown!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ย. 2024
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I asked, you answered...and I try to listen :) Of all the requests for new content on the channel one of the most frequently asked for videos is a series on the Terasic DE-10 Nano MiSTer FPGA hardware...so here it is! Because MiSTer is retro gaming gold
On this episode of our MiSTer series we will be directly comparing the MiSTer FPGA project vs software emulation; I will be using BSNES Super Nintendo / Super Famicom emulator to see just how well Super Nintendo on MiSTer FPGA holds up against the leading software emulator! Retrogaming showdown!
Questions? Comments? Just leave them below and I will do my best to answer each and every one of them!
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VGE
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ANSWER TO THE SOURCE ; 1 is MiSTer, 2 is BSNES! So now everyone knows :)
It's very close
@@lukasperuzovic1429 It's too close....If you were not listening to them side by side, would you be able to tell there is a problem ? I don't think so...
@@TheCoolDave Why are you implying what other people can and can not perceive?
I think he’s just conjecturing is all
At least BSNES is not a mess.
The MiSTer does an amazing job with this core, and bsnes is amazing as well. Bsnes/higan quickly became my preferred SNES emulator more than a decade ago, and was certainly a huge step up in accuracy from ZSNES or SNES9X in the late 90s/early 00s. I'm glad Near made a push for SNES emulation accuracy, and it's too bad their life got cut short.
Yes it's very unfortunate what happened with naer
news flash boys near faked his death. Hes still alive as there hasn't been a shred of actual evidence from any government body that an american died in japan by suicide in the month he claimed to be dead
Great video, as usual. 👏🏻👏🏻💪🏻💪🏻
I'm not surprised to see this was such an even match. As far as I understand it, MiSTer's SNES core started out as a translation of BSNES's code to VHL.
It's one of the most shining examples of how software and hardware-based emulation can help each other out.
Yes it’s really a neck and neck photo finish. And so glad you like the video!
To be clear, the MiSTer doesn’t really have an ‘OS footprint’. Linux is running on the arm to service USB input and help with SD functionality. Both of these things can be avoided (SNAC and loading ROM into RAM). Effectively meaning that there is no OS involved in the running of the core on the FPGA itself. I appreciate these videos from the sync perspective… the real benefit however, is latency and analog output. Hard to capture the differences there, and retroarch BSNES has run ahead now I believe which may make up some of the difference there. I think you should look into how to capture latency differences… that’s truly where the MiSTer will shine.
I will touch on latency in the future
The Linux side of the MiSTer is still used even with Snac, the Linux side mostly carry file hosting duties (your Roms and Bios files) and general house keeping of everything on the SD card, including loading cores. The Linux side is also what runs all of the scripts.
Yes it’s not like it’s completely missing in the background
@@VideoGameEsoterica no, but it doesn’t affect the actual core operation. The core logic can run without the ARM entirely. Of course, we want to have Linux to help with things like file system operation, but again that’s an optional thing. It’s entirely possible to add sd handling to a core, the second SD slot on the analog board has been used by some cores for just this.
I guess the reality is mixed. You can’t say the OS footprint isn’t there, but you can say it doesn’t affect the operation. Same with Windows. It’s running but so long as you have resources to spare it’s not really an “issue” in the equation
RIP Near. They will be missed.
It is tragic what happen to Near
It is a sad story
Just goes to show how toxic the internet can really be
@@VideoGameEsoterica Indeed, considering how crass and remorseless those trolls are, and it appears as though they sadly do not grasp the effects of their actions.
I had to delete a comment earlier from someone defending the trolls that did all that. Unbelievable
Hey VGE! :) I have a little tip for you when it comes to comparing timing between emulator and MiSTer (and even console). The 240p teat suite features a timer that counts down to the frame. It might be very useful for accurate comparison in future videos. Cheers!
I was looking into that. I am trying to borrow a lag tester. Hopefully I can do that in 2022
RIP Near, and thank you
It really is a sad story and a very unnecessary one
Thanks for your work, you're the only one that it's comparing FPGA against good emulators.
Thanks. I enjoy doing it. Glad you like them
There it is: Mister FPGA SNES core vs software emulation (in this case, Bsnes)!
Yeah it was a fun comparison to make for sure
If you didn't put them side by side and someone was playing one of them on a TV, I doubt anyone would know the difference between the 3. Technology is a beautiful thing.
Yes that was my big takeaway I wanted most people to see in this comparison...we have three awesome options for SNES. More than that but these are the ones I looked at :)
i disagree i can tell very easy the OS on desktop cpu will cause software emulation and sound to hiccup once in a while on mister its running on hardware no OS will always run smooth no interruptions no matter what . this is one of the main reasons i stick to mister and nobody beats mister when it comes to fighting games
Well I mean you’d have to turn notifications off and make sure no background processes were causing hitching for sure. Which is how these tests are done, nothing running except basic OS services
@@VideoGameEsoterica the examples you showed are to short to tell but even with basic OS services running in the background theses interruptions still happen i consider it part of the experience LOL
Haha well nobody is gonna watch a half hour single clip
I'm pretty sad that the BSNES Creator never got a chance to update the emulator after his passing.
The emulator is a solid thing to leave behind though. Work that will stand the test of time
@@VideoGameEsoterica I'm wishing to see a new version of BSNES-HD, but that's up to the nightly builds if they decided to release it.
Keeping up with nightlies is always a task. Especially with MiSTer.
I've been binge watching your videos, your gaming technology history knowledge is amazing !
So glad you enjoyed :)
higan really is the peak of software emulation. It's such a shame that we lost Near, the legendary coder behind the project. I'm still sad and angry over what led to their passing. Rest in peace and thank you for all your hard work.
It is very unfortunate
Problem is Mister Snes core is not finished yet and still have « issues » Bsnes is very great.
Thanks for the video 😉
We can all agree on what's a cleaner (not necessarily better) signal output when it comes to things like Composite vs RGB, but how retro games LOOK is as subjective as it gets - the correct color of the Super Mario Bros. 1 sky is whatever color you grew up with.
...the only thing that's blasphemous and forbidden is a 16:9 aspect ratio
Def no widescreen lol. Well not stretched at least
About colour difference, one or the other can be the right one, and in both cases you've got options to change the color palette, for sure in Bsnes (standalone or Retroarch) and I think that in MisTer too, same way you can have other fancy things, more usual in software emulation, like scanlines on it.
Yes. I just mention color difference and reference the fact that one goes through a capture device and one goes through OBS to delineate my capture methodology
Also good to keep on mind that not only were their revisions of the console, everyone back then was using analog video output originally (like R/F, composite, SCART) and the picture could vary from one television to another. Then there are differences with how it looked on NTSC vs PAL (and perhaps also vs SECAM?), so there definitely is no one single correct look/pallet, just acceptable approximations, which really goes for any classic console or computer that was mainly used with an analog display.
I’ve never seen a SECAM SNES so I have no idea what their colors look like actually?
Good to know
if you change your video card in your computer, brighness colours will probably change too. because they probably don't use the same video chipset to encode the video signal into RGB. the original video encoder in the SNES is very poor, the one-ship SNES model provide a beter rendenring but colours are different than the original one. it's the same difference between the FPGA emulator and the BSNES program. it's not an emulation difference. you can hear the same change with different audio cards or different hifi models.
Now I do wonder how BSNES fares compared to this or to another FPGA, 2 years is a lot of emulation development.
Would you ever be open to comparing a regular SNES, an American 1-Chip SNES and a MiSTer? I got a 1-chip SNES because of what I heard but ever since I got the mister, I set it aside (my Famicom is only still out because Tetris is so good on there with the American controller).
If I had a one chip I would but I can’t justifying buying one just for the comparison as I really don’t need ANOTHER snes lol
@@VideoGameEsoterica I can understand that. What sucks more is even if you did this, we'd all have to have a higher end CRT, OLED or PVM/BVM to truly see differences in the more better versions of SNES gameplay (like bnes, mister or 1chip)
Yes. I always use my PVM via RGB to compare original hardware variants. Regular consumer CRT makes it harder
Igual? Oque mudou?
I’m not sure if #2 is mister or bsnes but I thought #2 sounded better in both games.
I will tell everyone which was which tomorrow on the community page
For Super Castlevania 4 I feel like 1 is the MiSTer, and that is only because there is some pixel crawl in the image, and I can never seem to get rid of that on my MiSter.
the answer is pinned to the top of the comments :)
Integer scaling can solve that pixel crawl :)
That screen shimmering makes me think in the Castlevania segment #1 was BSNES and 2 was Mister. Also for Rockman X It was #1 Mister and 2 BSNES. Reason being is that the color gamut on BSNES actually has a lot more range to it. I am guessing a color grader was working on the palette for it.
Good reasoning. I will tell everyone the answers tomorrow in a pinned comment and in a community page post :)
I’m thinking #1 is MiSTer and 2 is BSNES. They were pretty close either way, but 1 seemed louder and punchier.
Yes that’s why I compared them via number, so incredibly close
Accuracy is not the problem with emulators, the real problem is ""input lag"" / latency / Frame Delay and reproduction of the real hardware and this is where the MisTer shine and where emulators fail. Mister = Simulation. Emulators = recompiler/compiler (adding instructions before the input and translated in code to display on-screen). You can't compare the both. It's impossible to play Mario Bros with an emulator. Also, MisTer let you connect to a CRT so for real deal.
I mean it’s not easy but you can hook up a modern PC to a CRT as well but I get where you are coming from
There is lag and there is “perceivable lag” IMO. One isnt an issue and the other is game breaking
Software emulators solve that with run ahead. It'll have less input lag than the original version. You should try it out. The way it works is ingenious when you look into it.
"impossible" really? Guess all those people who bought those nintendo remakes couldn't beat it.
@@richr161 I know abour run ahead and tried it and it still not onpar with the real hardware or Mister. It doesn't feel natural and when you press buttons and many directions in games like Mario or Mortal Kombat it is not outputing the wanted action/frame and many case. On paper it's a good idea. In real life it has limits.
It depends on the game too if you notice or not IMO
@@beetwing You wouldn't use it on fighting games because moves are tied to frames.
You screw with the timing as input lag is a factor in inputs for fighting game.
Each game needs to be configured depending on how many input frames of lag are on the original system. It's generally between 1-3 frames of input lag on the original system.
Mario works fine for run ahead. You get better latency than the original console when hooked up to a Crt. The inputs for that game aren't that complicated. If i remember correctly there is 1 frame on input lag on the original console.
I am looking at both the MiSTer, BSNES, and Original hardware Older and 1-chip variants; the audio and colors of the MiSTer is with in that small variance you see in the hardware.
When you get with in that 1% (or less) variance the original hardware has, the MiSTer is about as accurate as you can get.
Yes that's the real takeaway...everything is SO close you can have a GREAT experience on any option you chose
Minus Doom, of course. But who really plays THAT on SNES?
@@turbochop3300 Doom I prefer the MS DOS version, but I hold the SNES Doom over then Sega 32X Doom with it's butchered music track.
SNES Doom is better than it should technically be possible to be
Someone does LOL
You really need to compare a raspberry pi 4 to a MiSTer instead.. you mentioned towards the end "i can more easily take my MiSTer to a friends house than my PC"
That's exactly why a Pi with Retro-Pi would have been a much better comparison.
You then mention how the pricing compares between a PC and the MiSTer... again.. a single board mini PC is cheaper than either the MiSTer or a home PC.
You'd be surprised at how well a single board mini PC can handle SNES games.. especially for the price.
The only issue might be all the adjustments you might have to make on a single board mini PC with like.. RetroPi, you can adjust settings for picture and such.
LOL you looking over my shoulder or something? Let me leave a little intrigue for future videos
Number 1 has really heavy distortion while number 2 sounds good. Might it be the capture device that had an issue?
It’s been a bit since I made this so I’d have to go back and liste.
Hi video game esoterica! I've recently found your channel and am enjoying your vids.
Would you be able to compare a random mister arcade core to groovymame on a good ati card/pc to an arcade pcb? I can't find any videos on this subject.
Everyone is raving about mister for a drop in to arcade cabs but surely groovymame with a jpac or jvspac beats it hands down? I'd don't yet have a mister to compare myself.
I would but unfortunately I don’t have the proper GPU
It's too close... I've been a gamer from the Atari 2600, all the way to today.. And classic gaming is major part of my life. Hearing about this I have been trying to figure out if it's for me, meaning that much better emulation. So far, it's better but, by a small margin. If you were playing on one or the other and didn't have them side by side, would you even tell there was problem ? Is it really THAT MUCH BETTER that a really good emulator (BSNES is one of the kings in my eyes, the BSNES HD is awesome) ? I'm starting to really feel it's not... and I am one who runs out to grab the newest game system, or anything tech related.
When I finally get my Steam Deck, that should be able to emulate up to PS3 and Switch, it should do any of these consoles flawlessly and with USB-C easy to drop on a TV, or anything else. I think that might just be my ultimate emulation machine...
Yeah the nice thing is how many options exist for everyone to chose form
7:49 Super Donkey Kong - the MiSTer is not as good for color. Notice the left side of the inclines not viewable 👀
Is there any way to get 2chip colors and blur on MiSTer?
Via filters you can probably get close
@@matthewjohnson1891 I'm already using a crt so I don't know if turning crt simulation on would be a good idea.
What is MiSTer's compatibility with the full SNES library?
I’ve yet to find anything it won’t run so
You should compare games that have major slowdowns. Like Starfox 2.
Possibly in the future :)
Resumindo, BSNES é fantástico !!!
One time I handed my controller to a friend and he turned his nose up and said"This is obviously emulation and not Mister! 🧐🍷" Yeah that never happened.
Can you recommend a good SNES controller for BSNES? I use a Retro Bit Saturn wired USB pad and it's awesome for Mesen, Genesis Plus GX, Mednafen, and MAME, but I really would like a good SNES USB pad.
try to get a original one.
I use my Switch controller. Works great.
8bitdo makes a controller called the sn30 pro. It has the form factor of an snes controller but it has dual analogue as well as four shoulder buttons, rumble and even a tilt sensor and accelerometer if I remember right. There is also turbo functionality, and the ability to pair the controller as an xbox pad, switch pro etc. If you don't have/don't want Bluetooth there is a wired option as well. They used to have a design that looked just like a SNES controller, but that one seems to be no longer available unfortunately. The controller that is available is still functionally the same, however, and when you aren't using it for BSNES you can use it for darn near everything else. It's a seriously good controller!
It appears to me as if mister in the side by side comparison has more fluent motion, where as bsnes has stuttering. Did you use bsnes through Retroarch and did you have hard gpu sync on?
Increasing max swapchain images to 4 and enabling sync to exact content framerate seems to have done the trick on my system and it's now perfectly smooth in relation to motion. Turning on black frame insertion in addition entirely removes motion blur for perfect crt like motion, at the expense of some brightness. However I do get an occasional black frame popping up every now and then with black frame insertion enabled, which I have not yet been able to fix.
Interesting. Good to know
@@VideoGameEsoterica I was not entirely correct with my previous comment, swapchain images does not need to be increased unless black frame insertion is used, which otherwise will result in audio crackling with the default swapchain value, at least with my system. This seems to be performance related. Also black frame insertion apparently can damage some screens through image retention, which appears to be some kind of screen burn in effect.
The improved motion actually seems to be coming from disabling vsync, enabling sync to exact content framerate, as well as disabling fast-forward frameskip and setting fast-forward rate to 0.0x within the frame throtte sub-menu. This means the screen is only replying upon sync to exact content framerate for image synchronization and the motion is much improved. To me it now looks the same as the mister recording. I'm using a 120hz g-sync display if that makes any difference.
I will need to test this further, I'm already hours into testing just today and it's a bit exhausting chasing the perfect settings. I hope this helps.
Good info. Thanks for posting it!
@@VideoGameEsoterica This might be where the mister is superior to emulation, as I'd assume that the system would output a perfectly stable framerate for a consistent and fluid image, so it wouldn't need to rely upon any additional mechanism that tries to constantly balance out lower and higher framerates against the screen refresh rate, which apparently does degrade motion to some extent, unless you find some kind of work around. I might have to get myself a mister, even if it's just for further resting and trying to dial in emulators to be more close to hardware performance.
Can you compare the MiSTer to the Analogue Super Nt?
I don't own one unfortunately. I want to compare to Analogue stuff but I just can't justify the expense
Very interesting video and comparaison 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 Nice vidéo and thank for it.
Thanks, Glad you enjoyed it!
I think the MiSTer was #1 in the comparison at 5:08. Seemed slightly smoother, darker also. To my eyes at least. :)
I will answer it all tomorrow on my community page and on a pinned comment here :)
DKC sound is tough, it's emulating the KORG family of MIDI instead of using the voices already on the sony chip. EDIT: This is wrong. the chip generally is fed the sound samples at boot.
On Megaman X... that's also a very difficult one for me, since I've player it as much in an SNES back in the day as I've done it on the PSP version and the recent collection re-release... and they all sound great. I'll go with 2, and blame TH-cam compression if it's not the one.
There are no samples on the sony chip. All samples are supplied by the game.
@@Nukle0n thanks for the clarification!
Man, after a quick googling the way the chip works is far more complicated that I supposed at first! I was wrongly assuming it had at least a few wave tables available as other chips of the era, and the fact that someone recently grafted a keyboard to a snes to get DAT reverb just helped with my misconceptions.
I guess the fun part is how close they are. Very hard to tell
Yeah sound chips can be confusing for sure
what he said lol
Great videos, love the content but that intro audio is terrible 🙂
Haha people either find it funny or hate it
Hard to determine but I think #1 was MiSTer. It's impressive to see how accurate BSNES is for only being software!
I will tell everyone and pin the answer to the top comment tomorrow :)
The Mister is still born from software right? the underlying implementation of the FPGA is made by humans that have to understand the snes first. There isn't the full snes there inside, there is just a reproduction of it. Software can be super accurate, is just a matter to have a full pc to run it correctly.
@@AndreaBogazzi Yeah, good point! I guess it’s because I played emulators when they first came out and the accuracy wasn’t really good as opposed to the MiSTer being almost perfect from the first time I booted it that I make a difference out of them :-)
@@VideoGameEsoterica I’m very curious :-D
It’s so hard to accurately describe what an FPGA does compared to software when you talk about logic gates, how each executes instructions (simultaneous vs sequential, etc)
Maybe one day I’ll do a real science-y video on it
4:14 megaman's energy bar always bugs me out with this irregular spacing between units. It's my personal quality test.
I’ll have to look at that closer
I think #1 is BSNES and #2 is MiSTer.
I think the guesses have been 50/50 in both directions
I prefer bsnes !
Interesting
I much more prefer mister, the games have a presence that emulation has not...it's very close though, but still I can feel the difference clearly.
In this instance for the majority of time I cannot tell the difference myself
That would be placebo, I think. FPGA is still emulation
@@VideoGameEsoterica yes, it is very close but I can spot it...I think I'm sensitive about analog stuff..
@@eapleitez it is based on a different technology, the circuits are physically different, as those are physical gates that can be programmed to create an electrical path, so it is not emulation based on software..
Yes it’s replication of chip logic. So long as the core is written that way
You should test Rendering Ranger R2. MiSTer can’t play that game at all.
Maybe in the future I will. I try to just compare games I am very familiar with
How would you compare something that run to something that doesn't?
Broken in the current build but working in SNES_20210620.rbf. I'm sure the developers will fix it soon; it seems to be a game-specific timing hack that causes issues that are reproducible on certain revisions of the SNES hardware.
I think flash carts have problems with it too sometimes it I am remembering correctly
😍
:)
What are you talking about? PCs are MORE portable than Mister. You could literally put BSNES on a Steam Deck. Just stop making videos dude. You're done. It's over. Stop spamming the internet with your junk.
LOL you try dragging my editing PC across town
@@VideoGameEsoterica Your desktop PC isn't every PC. There are literally portable PCs about the size of a Switch.
Well I don’t own one lol. I think you are reading too much into the anecdote at the end of the vid