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I asked some questions directly to MARS’s Chief Operations Officer, and the majority were answered by them.
Like many of you guys I’m a fan of the MiSTer FPGA as well as the Analogue Pocket. I guess time will tell if MARSFPGA will become something staple within FPGA gaming.
I want to thank MARS COO for answering the questions and being availabe for any queries I have.
The Multi Arcade & Retro System is powered by the Ti180 FPGA.
MARSFPGA Socials
https://linktr.ee/marsfpga
Ti180 FPGA Specs (copied from Tweet):
Logic elements: 176256
XLR cells: 172800
10K RAM (Mb): 13.11
10K RAM (blocks): 1280
DSP Blocks: 640
400mhz FPGA Fabric
16nm Process Node
1GB DDR4 Ram
128MB SDRAM
8MB PSRAM
Next-Gen HPS
I2S DAC
USER-IO / SNAC four player support
MIDI USER-IO support
Up to 3840×2160@60Hz over HDMI; analog output on the PCB.
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#emulation #MiSTerFPGA #RetroGaming #FPGA #AnaloguePocket #PCN #PixelCherryNinja #RetroArch #Gaming #GamingNews #News #MARSFPGA
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The picture of MARS running on that monitor is a quick custom 31khz analog color pattern.
Marz board is not something I am going to buy . Can't do gc or ps2. Why should I care? Way too weak board to be a successor to the kung fu of the MiSTer. I guess we have to wait until more capable fpgas in the future have a lower price. ☮️
So are there exclusives just for the sake of being exclusives, or is it only exclusives that won't run on MiSTer?
The three devs we know of so far are all men… which leads to, "Mars Needs Women". (I guess that was a dad joke, sorry)
Hey Pixel. So we talked about the MARS project a couple of months back, and my take then (without knowing full specs) was that it would be an FPGA 'that's not what we want, but it's what we need right now' (meaning that this project was a QoL upgrade over MisterFPGA, not too much more). After your video, I have to change that assessment. This project to me (there are still a ton of variables that I'm not aware of, at the moment) is capable of doing things the MisterFPGA would not have dreamt of doing.
To be clear: 6th gen consoles on MARS seem to be (again, very naive perspective from myself, at the moment) only hindered by time/resources dedicated to the cores being translated to a MARS infrastructure. Other than that, it is VERY possible (EDIT: seems very possible…I'd like to keep expectations marginal).
If MARS brings the goods! Im there dude! .. Just hope it’s not too expensive
Why didn’t you ask if netplay was a possibility on MARS ?
I dont know, I feel unease about this. The price is way to high compared to a mister setup. The way it looks that developers are leaving the core development for the mister. It al lookt to cash grabby to me. Something is tingeling in my brain that say something is off with this project, ak Analogue 2.0. Like openFPGA on the pocket it is open for cores but not open on the hardware/os side. To much redflags unanswered, for me atleast. Will wait this out, maybe i am totally wrong about this.
I'm not interested until I see you running it.
I think it's not a thing and won't amount to anything.
Quite excited for this, I have been hoping for a while now that there would be a FPGA option more powerful than the De-10 Nano the MiSTer uses to surface someday, but I am also very skeptical on several things. Personally it doesn't sit that well with me that (other than ones that physically can't run on the MiSTer) there will be exclusive cores. MiST and MiSTer and the whole FPGA emulation scene started out as an open-sourced collaboration, so the idea of someone coming in with money and making cores exclusive their also commercial product leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I know they have spent money to purchase many arcade boards, but it's not as if people who have written arcade cores for MiSter have not done similar. Also felt like they were trying to top-toe around giving much information with many of the earlier questions, I know they are worried about copycats, but if it's 4-6 months from release there is no real time by this point for someone to beat them to release even if they knew all the details. Their statement about it being open and having community support I am very happy to hear, but it also confused me. The MARS itself is a pre-made commercial board, so there isn't really much options to build one like you can with all the addons one can do to the MiSTer, and the mention of the "linux side" of the device made me wonder if that means there is a another locked-off side. Mainly I just don't want a scene that stated with open-source collaboration and being able to piece together the features/addons you want end up as a series of propriety closed commercial devices that cost more.
Here's how I anticipate it to go over the next 12-24 months.
1) One would hope that one or more of the MARS devs will be focused on porting the bulk if not all existing MiSTer cores to MARS. That way switching from MiSTer to MARS won't lose you anything. Until that happens, MiSTer will continue to be seen as the platform with the mostest.
2) New cores for MARS that are too complex to be ported to MiSTer are a must or there won't be a compelling reason to buy MARS. How many new cores will it take? Earlier adaptors are always going to early adopt but my guess would that at least 5-10 significantly complex cores would need to complete before the non-early adopters will start to migrate. Once the trickle starts and additional cores start to show up, the rate will increase. How long might it take them to develop 5-10 significantly complex cores? Why the range on the number… 5 multi-game cores, or 10 single-game cores. Those are somewhat arbitrary figures but you get the idea.
So, until those two criteria are met, I don't see MiSTer's community waning nor user switching over MARS.
What about pricing? $700 sounds like a lot but if you consider how much a complete MiSTer setup costs, not really. That assumes the MARS production system is close to 100% complete at the $700 entry price… and you aren't expected to need to buy additional add-ons for the commonly wanted functions or future cores. So, let's hope that the design of the board and everything that comes with it is future proof for at least the first 3 years of its widespread use.
MiSTer is such a great platform because there are already so many great cores out there. While it's an interesting idea, until they can deliver more advanced system and arcade cores the MiSTer can't achieve, I think it's completely reasonable to push back a little so people aren't hyped into dropping $700 and becoming early adopters when they could've gotten better value and user experience by just buying a MiSTer. Regardless, Thanks for keeping us updated on this.
Are they really just showing games that are not actually running on MARS?, OMG
Mars doesn't even have twice the logic elements of Mister, idk but it seems like a lot of money for something that isn't the upgrade it could be. If the limit is Dreamcast, I'll stick with Mister. And it'll be really lame if Mister gets left behind in regard to new arcade cores just so Mars can have exclusives. Getting a bad feeling about all this…
Looks great but expensive for your average user. A MiSTer system is expensive but this takes it to another level. MiSTer seems to have hit a level especially with the N64 core. Too much for me so i'll be sticking to emulation or real hardware for anything that is beyond the MiSTer along with mame for the arcade stuff. The price isn't going to reduce in the future looking at things these days. Hope you richies enjoy when it comes out.
Having been following Mister for over 3 years, I find it questionable to sell this product based on cores that are not in production. If Mars is capable of Dreamcast isn't really the question people should be asking. It's wether or not there will be developers putting in the time to create those cores.
Let's take a look at three cores currently in development. We are about 9 months into Robert's work on N64 and it runs a large swath of games, not all developers develop at the speed of Robert. Jotego has been working on Neo Geo Pocket for at least a year and a half. Sergiy has been working on Saturn for 2 and a half years based off of his Patreon posts.
This is a lot of time to sit around and wait for something exclusive to Mars. Sure, there will be plenty of new arcade cores, (after all that's what the Coin Op Collection is known for) but what else will there be. Who is doing the work to port Mister cores? For 700 dollars, I think we should be looking for something less opaque and see an actual list of available cores at launch. I'm sure there are plenty of enthusiasts who will be excited and buy this, but feels much more wait and see for me.
Also one thing I love about Mister is its open source nature. Will these cores still be open source?
I don’t think I’ll upgrade from mister until there is something capable of handling ps2 and xbox.
one of the great things about MiSTer is that it’s open source and has a broad ecosystem of add-ons and possible configurations. is MARS a product by some kind of for-profit corporation? because someone being a COO of MARS certainly makes it sound like that. i’ll stay with my open source FPGA platform rather than drop a pretty penny to get into a walled garden that’s being pushed by some cagey marketing team who’s intent on blowing smoke up our assets
Sounds a little scammy/vaporware-ish for me at this point in time.
Part of what makes MiSTer so popular is the open source model. If the PCBs are copyrighted I suppose you have to rely on them having supply. Hope they’ve got this covered cuz that can make or break a project.
If it’s going to be a commercial project, do they plan on crowd funding or similar?
I just want the Commodore 64 MiSTer core ported to the Analogue Pocket with an OSK…
Damn! $700? That's a PS5 + a Switch Lite. $499 is my max
For me the elephant in the room is the huge amount of skilled manhours required to develop a new ecosystem and platform – let alone something like a Dreamcast / NAOMI core. Wishing the team the best of luck.
I want to know what form factor this board is in. And if it's not ITX, can it be added to a ITX board like the MiSTer can be adapted with the Ironclad or MiSTix boards?
Looks interesting but not super hyped if it maxes out at Dreamcast, after all when I need to play those games I can just use my actual Dreamcast! Would imagine most hardcore gamers already have one with a GDEMU etc….
I am so interested in this product. I hope it’s really great. thank you pixel cherry ninja.
Is that really MVC 2 for FPGA. Possibly for mister? IDK they seem to do games for a core by a bunch of games basis anyways.
If they can pull off MVC 2 and SvC 2 and some other NAOMI fighters that would be awesome. I understand virtual tennis, virtual fighter may not be possible. Those other fighting games where lower tear. Whatever. Got those games on the Xbox and ps2. not a big deal.
I think the main objective of the MARS project is to create a platform designed for FPGA gaming. The MiSTer FPGA project is basically about getting your cores to run within the hardware restrictions of the de10 nano. Always keep in mind that the de10 nano is meant to be a development/testing/poc platform and wasn’t meant to be a purpose built production device. This is also shown in the pricing of the de10 nano. Thanks for another great video. We will wait to see what the future brings once it arrives. Cheers! 😊
i would love to see things actually running games before i judge. as far as i know it's just clips of games running on original hardware.
MiSTer is an open source project I love. A separate closed source board designed to lure developers away from MiSTer is never going to sit well for me. It is ultimately riding on the open source success of MiSTer. It's one thing for the developers to release a more powerful MiSTer-approved (or not, but be more transparent) board to create cores that wouldn't work on a de10. But this does not guarantee people won't be developing cores on MARS that could otherwise work on a de10. I fear a splintering. At least the Analogue Pocket just seems to port across cores that are already on the MiSTer. This however? Also the hype teasers, 2 stick ram confusions, and coincidental release of a board is way too opaque for me. Way too much fearmongering, upselling and mishandling of communication. In terms of developers making money on open source, I think the Jotego model is great. Early beta access for patreons, and postpone to release. Or the bespoke hardware designs of Villena are excellent. I am incredibly grateful to developers and want their success, but not at the expense of MiSTer if they have benefited from the open source success of it.
Here are some of my questions for the MARS FPGA Team:
1. What are the [max] clock speed and refresh timing numbers of the RAM on the board?
2. What sort of HDL tool chain are you using?
3. Could the ARM chip (or specific cores thereof) on the PCB be clocked down and used as ARM chips in the systems being recreated? [I.E. could they be used in place of ARM softcore CPU cores in 3DO, Game Boy Advance, or Nintendo DS recreations, or the sound CPU in a Dreamcast/Naomi core, freeing up more of the FPGA fabric for the rest of the system?]
Sounds great but I think the price is a little high and that might sway me not to buy it. People will be comparing it to a non FPGA unit like the new Raspberry Pi and say does it really matter thats its not cycle accurate and paying 10x more for a MARS.
no cores …. nothing…. sounds like a scam right now
+1 for JAMMA support. Would love more FPGA arcade development content. Many of us out there with arcade pcb’s and can read schematics but need Verilog/FPGA examples to increase developers for the platform. A LOT of arcade pcb’s out there.
Q&A starts at 7:35
wish you asked them what the highest counsel system can this handle if they can make it
I wish I could like this video twice.
Thanks for getting some great insight into the MARS project. $700 is a big ask, but when I think of the 1000's of hours I have had from my MiSTer, I'm sure I would use this more.
All of my old consoles never get switched on any more, even though they are all connected. This probably means retirement for my DC now. (And hopefully/maybe my GC in the future).
9:10 what game is this?
I bought my MiSTer when Jotego released CPS2 for it, and for the longest time I've been waiting for him to complete the Capcom CPS line with CPS3. It is like a holy grail system for me). I really hope that it will not end being some kind of a deal to release it only on MARS. 🙁