#oneaday Day 443: MiSTer whatchacallem whatcha doin' tonight

So! My MiSTer Multisystem from the lovely folks at Heber and the Retro Collective arrived yesterday, and… I've been spending a lot of time setting it up. This was entirely expected, so I'm not annoyed or anything — though I was a tad surprised that the update_all script took nearly 24 full hours to complete. It's my fault for running it on Wi-Fi in the room that has the weakest Wi-Fi signal in the whole house. I thought before I started, "I wonder if I should do this over Ethernet," and I knew on some level even then that the answer to that was an emphatic "yes", but still.

Anyway, it is done now, and now I have a working, functional MiSTer Multisystem up and running. There's one thing I haven't been able to test thus far, which is analogue connectivity to a CRT TV — it seems the cable I bought to use with the MiSTer isn't quite right, so I have some replacement options arriving tomorrow — but from a very brief play earlier, I'm very impressed so far. While there is plenty of scope for nerdy nerds to get deep into the weeds tinkering with things and trying to "optimise" their experience, after running update_all and installing some games, the whole thing is remarkably straightforward and easy to use, particularly if you're just connecting up to an HDMI display.

On the offchance you don't know what a MiSTer Multisystem is, it's… well, it's sort of complicated. MiSTer itself is an open-source project that uses FPGA hardware emulation to recreate the experience of using classic computer and gaming hardware. It is different from software emulation for reasons I don't entirely understand, but the gist of it is that an FPGA chip can be reconfigured by issuing it commands, and in doing so you can make an extremely accurate simulation of a physical piece of electronic hardware. The upshot of it is that FPGA emulation has the potential to be much smoother and more authentic to the original experience than software emulation is.

The MiSTer Multisystem — or, to be more accurate, the MiSTer Multisystem 2, which is what I've got — is an attempt to make MiSTer more accessible. For many MiSTer users, putting together a MiSTer system involved getting a DE-10 Nano little computer-on-a-board thing, plus some I/O boards, putting them altogether in a stack and then installing the software on an SD card. As hardware projects go, it's not especially complicated or super-expensive, but there was definitely a market for a more "consolised" experience. MiSTer Multisystem 2 takes all the pain out of the actual hardware side of things in that it's a ready-to-go console available in both digital (HDMI) only or digital-and-analogue (HDMI plus VGA and/or SCART) forms. The whole thing is pre-assembled, no need to build anything, and it's also not reliant on the DE-10 Nano, either, which can sometimes be tricky or expensive to track down.

You still have to set the software side of things up yourself, though this is made pretty straightforward through the aforementioned update_all script, which connects to the Internet and downloads pretty much everything you need apart from the actual games themselves — and even then, it will even download the arcade games that the MiSTer's various "cores" support, so once you've run it, you'll have things to play, ready to go, even if you don't add any of your own ROMs and disc images to the system.

MiSTer itself is modular and expandable, and so too is the Multisystem 2. A cartridge slot allows for the connection of "SNAC" (Serial Native Accessory Converter) cartridges, which allow you to plug in original control pads and accessories for a variety of systems, plus the system has 7 USB ports for connecting controllers, keyboards, mice, external storage devices, Wi-Fi dongles and any other gubbins that might be useful. There are also some slots inside the system itself, accessible by removing the special flaps at the side, though exactly what those are used for is not yet known.

But anyway! Once you're up and running, you pick something from the main menu to play, the "core" for the device the system is emulating will boot up, and then you're away. Some excellent video options allow for some quite convincing CRT emulation on HDMI displays, and if you have a model that supports analogue video output, you should be able to just plug in an RGB SCART cable and connect to a suitable display. I'm hoping to take advantage of that side of things when my new cables arrive tomorrow.

I have a lot of games still to transfer to the system, but I think I've earned a bit of a play for the rest of this evening. Hopefully by the end of tomorrow I'll have this thing up and running and ready for a whole heap of fun!

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 349: PlayStation Library

As I'm eagerly anticipating the MiSTer Multisystem 2 in a few months, I find myself pondering how to handle the "loading games onto it" situation. The temptation with devices like this is always to just load it up with absolutely everything and then you have a magic retro gaming box that can play anything you want at any time. And, to be fair, doing so is pretty easy these days, with how many systems have complete ROMsets archived online. The legality is, of course, questionable, but the reality is that these sets exist.

With disc-based systems, though, it pays to be a bit more selective. I mean, I've got a 1.5TB SD card to load stuff onto, so I could just load the full PS1, Saturn, Mega CD and PC Engine CD libraries on there. But is it a good idea to? I'm increasingly thinking not. After all, the disc-based consoles are where we really started to see a lot of shovelware starting to appear, since discs were a lot cheaper to produce than cartridges, and thus there are big old chunks of the PS1 library in particular that I think no-one would miss.

I also have the consideration that the CRT screen I intend on using with the MiSTer Multisystem prefers 50Hz PAL games. It'll run NTSC stuff, but sometimes not entirely right, meaning I will probably want to load the European versions of games onto the system by default. And, unsurprisingly, with the US-centric nature of much of the Internet, it's a lot harder to find a full PAL set of PlayStation games than it is to download the entire NTSC-U/NTSC-J library.

So I feel like I might be selective. I may well change my mind on this depending on if I manage to find a suitable archive of PAL games, but at the moment I'm thinking I might just load things on there that I know I want to play or that I had in the day, and then if anything else happens to come up, I can always find it later.

There are games I've played before and I'd like to revisit, like The Adventures of Alundra and the original release of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. But there are also games that I never played back in the day but want to, like Azure Dreams, Tecmo's Deception and Legend of Kartia. I still have a modest PS1 collection here in the house, so I will recreate that digitally as a starting point, then fill out with the games I remember owning and playing back in the day. It's a shame I didn't have a blog back then, because before I got bitten by the "collector" bug I did a lot of trading and exchanging games to afford new ones, as I'm sure a lot of us did. (I also did a fair bit of buying games at least twice if I decided that I really liked them, which I'm sure at least a few of us did, too.)

When it comes to Saturn, Mega CD and PC Engine CD, though, I'm in the dark. But those libraries are also quite a bit smaller than the PS1 lineup, so I can probably just bung the whole lot on the card and explore a bit at a time.

Regardless of what the contents of that SD card end up looking like, I'm still really looking forward to the MiSTer Multisystem 2. Count on there being much more anticipation in the coming weeks and months, and hopefully gushing praise for the thing when it's finally in my filthy hands. Oh, I should probably add; if you have no idea what I'm talking about, check here.

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#oneaday Day 343: MiSTerious

I have been, as you do, contemplating my impending ownership of a MiSTer Multisystem 2. And, as so often happens with such things, I have been pondering how I might make good use of it as something that spurs me on to be creative.

The obvious, simple answer is to use it to write about things and make videos in the places I already have: this site, my YouTube channel, MoeGamer. But part of me also wants to start something new, something a bit different.

Let me tell you the idea I've been kicking around in my head. I'm not particularly looking for "feedback" on this, but I think it will help me out to get this out of my head and onto the page.

You know how everyone likes to say they have a "newsletter" now, rather than a "blog"? Well, I was thinking about that, and thinking about how it might be fun to take that "newsletter" idea a little more literally. Specifically, I was thinking about how practical it might be to do some sort of newsletter/blog thing where, rather than individual articles being about one thing, each post was actually an "issue", like a magazine.

I was thinking it might be interesting to do such a thing with the MiSTer Multisystem 2. Each "issue" could have a brief summary of any news about the system itself — and perhaps about the broader MiSTer ecosystem, though as I type this I know absolutely bugger all about that — and then move on to some magazine-style features, perhaps with a theme for each issue. There could be a "preview" of an upcoming "modern retro" game by one of today's indie developers. There could be a "big review" of a noteworthy game that particularly fit the theme. There could be tips and tricks for classic games. There could be short, capsule reviews for smaller games. And, of course, there could be straightforward features on a particular subject, using the MiSTer Multisystem 2 as a means of exploring and researching that subject.

Realistically speaking, I'm not sure such a thing would really work, because you know what people's attention spans are like these days. Were I to put all that in a single blog post or email newsletter, how many people would read beyond the first paragraph? Perhaps it might be better to do individual posts on an existing site, and then provide some sort of separate newsletter that people could subscribe to via email. I used to do this with Rice Digital and it was fun. The newsletter had a good number of subscribers, too, but honestly I inherited most of those from the previous owners.

The reality of the situation is that it would almost certainly be piss in the wind, because you almost certainly know how hard it is to get noticed online these days. The recent rise of independent publications is great, but in a lot of cases these are already well-established names, and I think (no, I know) there's a lot of great individual independent creators out there who just don't get the credit they really deserve when putting their work out into the world.

So I dunno. I have a lot to think about, but I also have a lot of time to think about it, given that the MiSTer Multisystem 2 isn't arriving until August.

I could also just enjoy the damn thing without worrying about any of this nonsense, but where's the fun in not agonising over things that don't matter, hmm?

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#oneaday Day 336: The new old

I am presently awaiting two new games consoles with "2s" in their names: the Nintendo Switch 2, and the MiSTer Multisystem 2. And I think I might be more excited about the latter.

I've never used anything FPGA, but I'm led to understand that it's a marvellous thing. And the sheer number of different things that the MiSTer supports is exciting me. With the setup I intend to slot it into, I'm looking forward to being able to use it as a retro computer as well as every games console ever up until the PlayStation, Saturn and N64.

Now, the one difference between the Nintendo Switch 2 and the MiSTer Multisystem 2 is that the latter is going to require a lot more setting up and fiddling around with than the Switch 2 will. But I am hoping that any tinkering will be a one-time process, and that once it is done, the MiSTer will be able to just sit there and do whatever I want it to. Within reason, obviously.

I'm going to hook up a keyboard and mouse to the system as well as a controller, so it can be used for actual computing as well as just playing games. I'll probably get another one of the 8bitdo retro-styled keyboards for this purpose — the C64 one would certainly be thematically appropriate, in the absence of an Atari ST or Atari 800XL one, though the one that looks a bit like an IBM Model M is also quite nice.

I'm also probably going to invest in some nice speakers rather than relying on the single mono speaker of my trusty Trinitron CRT. That built-in speaker is surprisingly decent considering its size and placement, but it would be nice to be able to give console games in particular a bit of oomph.

So all told, I think the setup will probably look something like this, but with less wobbly freehand mouse-drawn lines.

With that, I should be sorted for some retro gaming and computing fun for quite some time. At some point I might consider looking into the various solutions available for using real classic controllers on the Multisystem 2, but I don't think I'll make that a priority to begin with. Let's get it up and running and working — and doing what I want it to do — and then we can talk customisation. Because there's a lot of customising you can do with a MiSTer, I'm led to understand!

It's an exciting new world that I can't wait to get involved in. I have a bit of a wait before that happens — the Multisystem 2 is coming out in August — but I guess I can occupy myself with the Switch 2 and Mario Kart World in the meantime…

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#oneaday Day 326: It's officially my birthday

It is, as promised, Actually My Birthday now, since I have been to bed since last night's post and woken up since then. I have had today (and the days surrounding it) off work for reasons I've already outlined, so today has been mostly about playing more Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and then going out for a nice pub dinner with Andie this evening. I have simple tastes.

One thing many of you will have doubtless discovered as you get older is that people inevitably find it harder and harder to buy presents for you. Gone are the days when you could circle things in the Argos catalogue and hope that one of them would be your "main" or "big" present on the big day. Nope, much more common as a grown-up to get a few little bits and pieces from your Amazon wishlist — which I'm very grateful for, by the way, those who sent such things! — and "I'll just give you some money" from the parents.

I would like to reiterate: this is fine, and not in the "room is burning around me" sense. This is good, even! Much better that one is able to get something they actually want to celebrate their birthday rather than running the risk of getting gifts they already have, gifts they don't really want but are obliged to look like they like or any of the other situations in which people in 2025 are, in my experience, brazenly ungrateful.

I got some very generous monetary gifts from both my parents and my mother-in-law, both of whom are very clearly trying to spend some of their accumulated cash to minimise the impact of inheritance tax in the future. My parents' gift paid for my Nintendo Switch 2, which is nice, and my mother-in-law has bought (well, pre-ordered) me a MiSTer Multisystem 2 from Heber Electronics.

If you are unfamiliar with the latter, it's an all-in-one FPGA console designed for playing retro games from a wide variety of home computer, arcade and console systems. FPGA means something inordinately technical that I don't understand at all, but it basically means that it's the hardware pretending to be a classic system rather than a piece of software doing its best to imitate it. That means that the recreation of the experience is pretty much 1:1 of What It Was Actually Like without any sort of emulation quirks, but with modern benefits such as HDMI out, USB storage and suchlike. There are even addon thingies you can get to use original controllers and other peripherals.

To put it simply, the Multisystem 2 is a console that plays almost any retro game you can throw at it, making it a nice all-in-one, self-contained system for authentic-feeling retro game fun, on either a classic CRT or a modern HDMI display. (Or both at the same time, even!) With old gaming hardware and media becoming increasingly expensive and impractical to collect for a variety of reasons, this is a great option for just… enjoying retro games. Which, ultimately, is what I really want to do with all this stuff. And having the opportunity to easily hook it up to capture hardware via HDMI is even better, 'cause then I can share what I'm doing and what I'm interested in and the things I've discovered.

So yeah. My "big presents" this year are a Nintendo Switch 2 and a MiSTer Multisystem. Pretty great, I'd say. I know my child self would be thrilled, even if I have to wait until June for one and August for the other.

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