So.. exactly how did your $4k pc get destroyed...?

Love how they have brought FPGAs to the retro gaming scene. I noticed you compared latency of the Nano against other software emulation systems, but what about latency as compared to the original hardware (and perhaps for other emulated systems)?

I'm a returning student for EE, a cnc machinist by day, and have a my first 3d printer pre-ordered. Your channel is like life goals lol. Keep up the great content and cool projects!

That looks so neat!!! Love how you integrate woodworking with 3D printing. That 3D printer looks easy to use even for a beginner like me!

Wonderful video, brother. I've been following you for years now and I'm enjoying the traction you deserve. Your attention to detail has remained very diligent throughout your entire 'Zac Builds' saga and it shows. Top-notch production, presentation, aesthetic, articulation, and know-how. Keep it up! - Josh.

Very cool build! The MiSTer is an excellent setup and is getting better by the day.

love the fractal inspiration for the case.

It should be noted that SNAC is not always the best choice for original controllers. It does reproduce the behavior and (lack of) latency, but you also can't control the OSD with a SNAC connection. If you use a low latency USB adapter, or daemonbite adapters (which use a microcontroller and open source code) you only sacrifice 1 ms of lag and regain the ability to control the OSD (the MiSTer's menu system) and remap buttons as well as use the controller for any system. When it comes to input lag, the test done in this video is missing a lot of context. Does he have USB fast polling enabled in the MISTer? Does he have the latency numbers on his TV? Does he have it in game mode? Did he use the same controller on the PC? What emulator did he use on PC? What settings? These are all major factors. Then you get into things like run-ahead settings which are complicated. Overall though I'm glad to see more people talking about the MiSTer project, it's such a cool and fun emulation platform with so much development going on right now.

It’s pretty cool how you get an idea and then just make it, other people just think “that would be cool.” You turn it into “this will be cool” and I think that’s cool

Hey, FPGA content on KZfaq! Nice. Here's some background info on the FPGA design process: When they mean that they x-rayed the chips, that's because the HDL (hardware description language) used by the FPGA almost demands that you understand where every single bit of data is stored and read (in "registers"). You can count the amount of registers used in any given HDL file, when they're operated on, and where they are output. That means meticulous management of keeping everything lockstep, but that is the desired goal: cycle accurate, rendering accurate circuitry that will honestly implement every little hardware bug that game designers explicitly worked around. Note that the reason "cycle accurate" circuitry is important is because older consoles had far less leeway in processing speed. Their cheap nature made the programming difficult, so sometimes programmers had to push the limits of what was possible. Say your GPU can only render 10(!) sprites on screen, but using all 10 will slow down the GPU by a few 100 clock cycles . That could be enough to have the CPU fail to keep the frame rate unless you program around it. Without the hardware slowdown, though, this hacky code will now run faster than intended and that could be your emulation failure. FPGAs literally act how the hardware is designed, bugs and all down to the nanosecond. When I say circuits, I mean circuits. FPGAs take a long string of 1s and 0s and electrically connect and disconnect registers and transistors together. They're connected in billions of grids that can route electricity to any register to any register. But this electricity takes time to flow, and so advanced AI algorithms attempt to organize your design so it can run as fast as possible. That means higher clock speeds that you know and love. The FPGA being used is the DE-10 Nano. I actually coded the DE-10 Lite for a Uni project making a custom mini CPU. Sadly, my left over board is half the size for most MiSTer cores. And you might be surprised that the DE-10 Nano is like 200$ in 2023 because of chip shortages! I've heard stories of companies buying old testing boards and ripping off the FPGAs for use; that's just a rumor but that's how in demand FPGAs can be. Making such reconfigurable hardware means paying a lot for potential functionality you don't use. And why wouldn't you? As long as whatever you're coding doesn't process faster than 400MHz or needs gigabytes of fast memory, you can feasibly emulate any design up to the GBA at consumer price points. TL;DR: FPGAs are niche devices that trade in processing power and design complexity for configurable electronics on a hardware level. But since retro gamers don't nee gigahertz and are dedicated to accurate emulation gaming, MiSTer might be what you need.

An interesting video! I've been using one of these for years. I upgraded from the slice system to using a "multisystem" for the MISTer. I recommend that over the slice way of doing things. Great fun all the same. Happy Gaming!

I'm glad people are starting to use FPGAs more. Analogue has already shown us its capabilities.

Your work is really inspiring. ❤ its not only the doing of the doable but also the passion of doing it perfect

I've never seen a sponsorship so well integrated in to the video. That alone makes the video much better than others where it's basically the same as any other ad.

I have those same barrel plug adapters and use them for FPV goggles. I found if you gently pull on the wire, it is likely to fall out. The simple solution was a small bead of solder on the tip of the wire so that it can't slip back out by the screw.

Another great video as always! Love that you use tons of different tools / materials in every project!

FPGA means you can program it as you see fit after final assembly, basically you can make a lot of cool things with it with no hardware modifications just via software, it does not program it self!

That's an awesome ad for this 3D printer. I want to watch more stuff printed with this.

Nice case, I kinda like the dual tone you got by varying the print speed. I've been thinking about FPGAs too, just wish they had a prettier GUI

The bright cherry-wood would have made it pop a lot more, so I think it would have worked better with it.

I’m sure you’ll be told by many, but to plane really thin veneers, you can place it on a sled or run board on a bandsaw.

The DE-10 Lite FPGA board was what we used in school for some of our digital logic design and embedded systems classes, the labs specifically. Cool to see another practical use for the DE-10. Great video!!

Thank you for the detailed review on M5C. I've been thinking of getting one and I'm definitely going to use M5C for creating unique objects!

i dont mind ad spots when they're explicit. Put in a chunk somewhere in the video, dedicated to the ad spot. Please don't do these highly integrated ad spots, it just messes up the flow of the video and makes figuring out when the video is even happening vs when theres an ad really hard sometimes.

spent 5 minutes trying to figure out where the sponsor segment ended

Thats the best title + thumbnail combo Ive ever seen. Nice

Not gonna lie... Something in me was dying from seeing him plane down that _entire_ Slab of Walnut to make those tiny Slats instead of just either *a)* making the _entire_ front out of it using the $4-6'000.- 3-Axis CNC he has or *b)* again use the $4-6'000.- 3-Axis CNC really just milling a small portion of the huge Slab into those tiny Slats. Seriously man... *_WTF!?_* 💢

Sonic isn’t a great example for testing input lag because by default there’s two frames before input is processed

Nice! I've been going back and forth considering the Mister and ended up deciding against it. RGB-Pi OS with the RGB adapter in a Pi4 runs everything up to PS1 with pretty much the same low lag, provided you use a real CRT screen (PVM, TV, or arcade monitor) - which you should! :)

Zack....I love your kind of videos so much. Keep it up!

I mean sometimes emulation is the superior experience but I get that fpgas are the way to go for an accurate experience

they just now added a n64 core a few weeks back is so exciting for retro gaming

Nice build! A few suggestions for design improvements: replace the barrel jack with a cheap USB-C PD board set to 5V, so you can use any USB-C (or even USB-A, assuming it has sufficient output) power brick. And maybe use one of ADT-link's slim HDMI extensions designed for case-internal use so that you don't have to fit that thick extension cable? Also, one major advantage of FPGA emulation that you fail to mention: emulation accuracy. Software-based emulation is good, but it's very often quite inaccurate, which results in anything from game features missing outright to various glitches. FPGA-based hardware emulation, as long as the core is well written, will avoid this entirely, as it will be an effective 1:1 match with the original hardware.

Congrats on getting a 3d printer! Since you like wood so much I thought you should know that there are some PLA wood filaments that you can use for printing and I am pretty sure are able to be stained too.

Really cool video and a nice display of the 3D printer as well. However, it would be more interesting to see the difference in delay between the original hardware and the DE10 Nano, plus the PC emulator if you're still interested in that, just to get a complete picture. But I guess getting original hardware just for one video might not be easy, so I understand. Keep up the good work!

Since modern COU's have multiple cores and generally 2 threads per core... its quite easily to emulate the chips themselves on a per core basis.

I love the fact it looks like a tiny PC (despite it being an FPGA) in a Fractal North TG pc case

Thats all cool and everything but ONKER? Is that right?

Hey Zac, new to your channel and loving your retro gaming videos. Now that you have done so many different versions, I would love to see a round up video on the all the different styles that you have from PI to FPGA to Handheld. Like which one do you daily drive and what do you like/dislike about each one.

Really cool thing about the Mister is that it can run on any display you want. It can run on a SD CRT, HD CRT, VGA CRT, and Modern HD TV. It is such a cool feature that will satisfy anyone and will work on their TV reguardless of what they own. Also I do disagree about filters. After I went CRT filters I can't go back. CRT filters make any system from the 5th generation and before look significantly better. Plus it makes the art in these games looks far better and make more sense. Even with GBA I use an LCD filter instead of raw pixels. I can't really go back to raw pixels.

The fins need to be away from the fan, every little millimeter helps, since it was a CNC profile its easy to do. Also spreading the fans apart a little as one of them is blowing straight into the RAM module. Maybe glue them in the middle and let the ends of the wood hang unsupported? Would look pretty cool actually.

I love that it looks like a Fractal Design case. I may have a addiction to most Fractal Design stuff from using a Meshify 2 XL.

That's pretty awesome! The fan cover looks really nice its a shame the IO couldn't be on the same side as the fan cover. That would make it nice astatically sitting on your entertainment center. Don't get me wrong love the first design.

I love how he used the walnut to replicate the fractal north pc case

I’ve been working on the inverse coding analog circuits! This is pretty cool!

I really like that it gives a more real/ layered look & feel to it. It's essentially keeping dying games/hardware alive.. This Seem's really important the more we move into this era of losing access to older physical hardware. I just wish there was a way to upgrade so it would be possible to play a broad range of game consoles.

Im a hardcore collector myself, I have tons of original hardware etc and I also have a both an emulator arcade cab and a couple different fpgas.... all that being said, I actually prefer good software emulation against fpga or original hardware, with the exception of my analouge pocket. All the extra features like shaders, hd patches, save states, rewind, fast forward, bezels, etc etc really enhance the experience and sure, you loose some accuracy but most people would be hard pressed to actually cite any difference between the three themselves.

Part of the delay is the Hz of the monitors. There's a reason you use retro monitors/TV's. It removes the delay that comes from LCD screens.

I have an Analogue Mega SG and can confirm it works like the original with improvements.

Digital Signal Processors can do the same thing as Field Programmable Gate Arrays - they can be reconfigured to function as any type of processing architecture. Useful for networking, audio, video, general purpose CPU, etc. The other cool part of DSPs is when one isn't fast enough to tackle the role of a different processor you simply add more of them. In this way the DSP can be used to function as the electronic stem cells of a future proof PC.

You should have mocked up an arangement of the fins alternating wood types just to see if that would have looked good.

You should see if you can plug the wifi adapter in to one of the USB ports that aren’t accessible from the outside.

The truly odd thing is it sometimes feels like emulators actually haven't improved over the years. That would seem insane, but it's sadly true. The more an emulator tries to target accuracy, the more compute power you need to use it.

btw said advertised speeds are only for non print moves, alot of companies cheat their way like this claiming fast print speeds when its just print moves which can end up most of the times not even reaching those speeds cause accelerations are to low to shove the head to 500mm/s on a 10mm distance move

Zac: FPGA emulation is superior because of it's accuracy. Also Zac: I don't care that the video scaling is not accurate. People who don't have the original console to compare against the emulated version of a game aren't going to notice any differences anyway.

Instantly recognized the fractal design north design, awesome

@11:01 It was an interesting point: start with a stick measuring two feet long and half a foot wide and one inch thick, and cut enough of it to make 4-5 ice cream sticks. It is a good idea for a company like Algida. Nice build by the way.

id really like to see these work with up to early 2000s hardware. if there is anything already out there that be great but im still looking

love it. should have printed the front part the same direction as the other 2 so it would match better with the way the layer lines reflect the light. you need to stain the cherry wood not just an oil for it to pop. just oil on cherry looks bad

Bigger FPGAs will only get you so far. The task of writing HDL for the N64 is absolutely monumental. Once you get to the PS2 era, its way too complex. Thats when software emulation starts to really shine over hardware emulation.

I don't mean to be annoying, but you're supposed to crimp ferrules onto the wire ends before using them in a screw terminal. this significantly improves mechanical stability and provides significantly better contact between the terminal and the wires. it also adds a bit of insulation to the end so there are no exposed wires that could be shorted by any means.

if you want to make the case stronger with out adding extra support in the inside you can just add texture to the print walls. similar to what manufacturers do to make thin aluminum sheets more ringgit. CNC Kitchen has this video explaining the process.

Yes. FPGAs are the way. Walnut is also the way. Great job!

That's really cool 👍 However I'd just be recycling lolly sticks instead of using new wood given the size (maybe glue some together if they're not thick enough) and use at least 3 fans for a "PC look". Also think it's missing that all important RGB 😜

This is the physical embodiment of the word, “neat”.

i love the wood fins

So, your monitor has roughly a 10-15ms response time @ 60hz (based on res output of the game/core). Because of how the Mister is, it'll only produce a 60hz output, so your monitor is actually at a huge disadvantage in these scenarios. The mister has practically no input latency when used with an analog output and a wired usb controller.... which is why its as close to OG hardware as you can get.

Now i want to see the feel and look of games and how is it different than emulation. Go in depth.

As someone old to enough to have played on all of these consoles when they were new, software emulation is perfectly fine and you don't need to spend money on things like Mister to have a good experience. I'm glad that I can get rid of my old consoles as they just took up space in my house.

Hold on, the case is similar to Fractal Design North... Also I'd prefer walnuts.

the case looks like a miniature fractal design north

Love the video, as always, and this is not a criticism as I love the idea of all types of emulation, including hardware with FPGA and you did a great vid on it, but I just found one bit interesting - SO the whole point of the video, at least going by the intro, was about authenticity.. so I just found it interesting when it came to controllers that you said you prefer simplicity as opposed to using a real controller, which you can do with the mister because for me, while i love BOTH ways (playing on my PC with launchbox, or on pi4 emulation station..or with real hardware) the real difference when it comes to playing with real hardware, for me, is actually the physical part. I reckon id barely notice the imperfections in emulation that aren't "100% accurate" (other than those that I WANT, like sprite limit removal) but I DO notice the clunk of putting a cartridge into a system, and the feel of a real controller that are just so different in shape and feel to modern controllers. That and playing on a CRT are the two main reasons I will always play on real hardware from time to time, in spite of all the positives of emulation. Anyways.. great video.. just wanted to post that part that was interesting to me.

I'm watching this while making, basically, my own console. We had to make a game on an FPGA for school. And I asked if I could borrow one of a FPGA from school and upgrade my project to the vision I had while designing it and make each 'component' more programmable and less fixed function.

I kinda feel like it goes both ways - emulation isn't accurate to the original console, but on the flipside you can do nice things like play the new Zelda at an acceptable resolution and framerate.

The N64 will fit in there, there's currently a MiSTer core under active development for it.

that's a really cool project you've made - I just wish you'd have printed it in beige plastic.

"DESTROYED" in this context apparently means a difference of about 18ms of input lag in a single test.

It looks like a tiny Fractal North. I like it.

The wifi dongle should have been placed on one of the USB ports hidden inside the case for an ever more cool look... but overall you killed it 🤜

That looks like a magnetic flexible build plate. To remove a print take the surface off and bend it to pop the print loose.

Sonic II on Sega Genesis was my childhood

Improperly set up scanlines are dumb, but when correctly configured for your resolution and with appropriate parameters it gets the experience much closer to the original thing. That is because most art in retro games is made for CRTs, which create a multitude of new colors as the beam blends the pixels during scan.

Awesome video, just a small point, the N64 it’s actually being recreated for the MiSTer project, so it probably would be possible. Greetings from Spain!

When he tool the first peice of the printer it sounded like the lego building sound

Cool a tiny Fractal North FPGA!

I don't need CRT emulation these days, I just take my glasses off 😀😀

You could use one of the internal USB ports for expansion! Or use it for Wi-Fi.

that looks really cool. i love it.

There are scanline filters that get close to what a real crt could produce. Good enough that pixel art looks much better with the simulated scanlines and crt filters than without.

I follow the emulation guy who has the presets to make it look better

If anyone is out there on the fence about getting a Mister, go for it. I love mine. I have 8bitdo USB dongle for bluetooth to a PS4 controller. Works great. The mister project is great overall, I just don’t really care for their case options though, so probably best to print your own.

I wish you had shown at least one original console to compare the latency with

There are cycle accurate emulators and the code is constantly evolving. FPGAs are fine as novelties but long term the DM-10 board will be discontinued and continuity with whatever will be next cannot be guarranteed. For proper preservation of games the target hardware should be a cheap laptop or phone that you can get anywhere, not some overpriced fluff built around niche hardware.

Buying a bedslinger in 2023 is the epitome of stupidity but I'm sure they gave it to you to help shill it.

if it helps there are ribbon extension cable to move the sd card slot and, seeing how your DIY machine is build you can screw/glue the sdcard slot on the left side (from the point of view of all usb ports) really cool video, let's hope that FPGA bright future to make bigger FPGA capabilities to replicate all these old consoles !

This is just ridiculous. Emulation is on par IF NOT BETTER than original hardware now a days. You really think 20 years after a console releases we can't emulate it perfectly with software?

I'd be interested in seeing you make a console that literally contains all the parts from the internals of several original consoles. Could limit the size of the console by choosing systems with backwards compatibility

Using an FPGA to hardware emulate is pretty close, if not indetical, ti original hardware as the little quirks can be replicated also. Software emulation is always a compromise and difficult to get right. There was a project named MISTer that was my first experience with FPGA. Thanks for a great video. Question on the printer: Is the slicer a modified version of Cura? I've user Cura on my Ender 5 and been quite impressd with it.

Fractal Nord inspired fan grills, even the wood types are basically the same

While a scanline filter is not perfect i prefer it over the blocky pixels. I can at least feel im experiencing the game on a classic display. If nothing else, i think it adds more than it detracts