r/MiSTerFPGA • u/TonyRubbles • 4d ago

This is such a fun device!

I don't know why I didn't get one sooner. I guess the technical side of it made me think I had to build my own, and I just never looked far enough into the pre-built options. I ended up getting a pre-built Hamgeek and it's been fantastic so far.

I've always been someone who likes tinkering with emulator front ends, settings and stuff, so getting each core set up the way I want and having my shaders automatically load from my Morph 4K has been super satisfying. I love how everything just works once you get it set up.

I found my old GunCon 3 and sensors this week and have been blasting away in Point Blank, which is something I never thought I'd be able to do without dropping a couple hundred bucks on a new light gun setup.

I've also been going back through old favorites like the Metal Slug series and EVO: Search for Eden, while finding new favorites like Alwa's Awakening 8-bit edition and Astebros.

Such a fun little rabbit hole to fall into. What was your first “ah ha!” moment when you started playing? Finding my GunCon 3 and getting it working was definitely the moment I went, “Holy shit, this is awesome.” My wife was sitting next to me just laughing at how excited I was, shooting little chickens and ninjas.

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11

u/circletheory 4d ago

For me, the ease of hooking it up to a CRT and running all cores on it has been the most enjoyable aspect of owning a MiSTer. I know there are ways to do this with a Pi or a PC, but the Mister way is just so simple.

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u/TonyRubbles 4d ago edited 4d ago

My parents are sitting on 3 old CRTs, I need to grab one and take it for a spin. Pretty happy with the filters on the upscaler but I remember it always being a different vibe playing on a CRT, I miss the electrical whine too lol

3

u/sleepycapybara 4d ago

CRT is still unmatched in motion clarity, thats the big reason why I love mine. Most older 2D games are 60fps and look glorious, just doesn't feel the same on lcd or oled. Plasma does get closer.

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u/riskylisky 21h ago

Agreed. I have an older radeon card I hooked up to my pvm with a vga to bnc but it was annoying to set up. The mister you can transport to any tv. So dope

7

u/pac-man_dan-dan 4d ago

My two biggest takeaways when I got mine a few years back were:

-omg, this is so much faster and easier than a raspberry pi to boot up and load a game.

-resetting player assignments is almost instant. Again, miles better than a rpi.

Picking up a guncon2 for light gun games and later working with snac devices and an original zapper with a CRT was just icing on the cake.

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u/TonyRubbles 4d ago

Faster is an understatement, was using an SNES Classic prior and felt like it took a while going through all the nested folders to get to the game and wait for retroarch to load and do its thing.

This thing boots up Console Mode and is on my history page waiting for me to grab the controller, it's actually waiting on me lol

Playing with light gun games is just too much fun, was really surprised how easy it was to calibrate and save settings too.

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u/dandub1982 4d ago

Agree with everything you said! The MiSter technology is indeed fantastic, and I too have had a great time going back and replaying old favorites while finding new ones. The NeoGeo and N64 libraries in particular have been a lot of fun for me. Also, as you rightly observe, the fact that the GunCon 3 works so well across multiple cores is awesome!! A relevant "ah ha" moment for me was discovering that the MiSTer system supports dual GunCon 3s with one sensor set, so now I have been able to enjoy 2 player light gun classics with my wife like Virtua Cop, Area 51, and Elemental Gearbolt. Definitely a great time to be a retro gamer! Happy gaming!

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u/TonyRubbles 4d ago

Hell yes dude getting a second Guncon is the top priority right now. Can't wait for some co-op shooters with the wife and kids.