Welcome to a new Update All release for MiSTer FPGA.
This one introduces a whole bunch of databases full of GAME MANUALS. I’ve been waiting years for this, and it’s finally happening.
I’m also adding something that wasn’t possible until very recently: a CRT Video Mode selector that helps you pick the best resolution to view your scripts and Update All on a CRT, without reboots and instantly.
There are more additions but these two deserve the spotlight!
And remember, Update All always self-updates so after running it once, you'll get all the new features for the next run.
Game Manuals DBs
This one is huge. Literally. 47 databases containing 8,010 game manuals from all popular systems, all thanks to the curation work of Moondandy and their collaborators.
MiSTer has been able to display manuals for a long time, but without people doing the heavy lifting, the feature never really took off. Well, I think that’s about to change.
And honestly, even in its current state, this is already a fantastic addition to any setup.
Now, there are some caveats. Since this feature hasn’t seen much use until now, it still has a few rough edges. It’s probably best to think of this as an early access feature for the time being. The content itself is already very usable, but the viewer is still a bit clunky, can crash (without crashing the core), and definitely needs some love. Hopefully this gives some developers a reason to improve it.
Another important limitation is that manuals only display on the digital output, so this feature is limited to LCD and other digital-screen setups.
There is also a size consideration: this is 22 GB in total. Installation can take hours because the files are hosted on a fairly slow server, so keep that in mind.
And of course, 22 GB is not ideal for smaller SD cards. Fortunately, manuals can also be installed on USB drives if you have "storage_priority" set to "prefer_external" (more info about what this is here), or if you already have docs folders for those systems on a connected USB drive. You can create those folders manually, or move them there after installing them to the SD first.
There is one important caveat with the USB route: manuals can only be loaded from USB on the nightly firmware right now, because my PR was only merged this week. So if you want to use USB for this, I recommend waiting for the next official firmware release (a.k.a. mister main, or the mister binary).
As for loading the manuals, once you are inside a core and playing a game, open the OSD, go to the second screen where it says Help, and use that option to browse to the Manuals folder and find the game you are playing.
Yes, that part is still a bit cumbersome. Hopefully that improves soon too. I’m already working on a PR to address it, so stay tuned.
So yes, this should be treated as an early access feature for now, but it is already usable and already a great addition to MiSTer. Big kudos again to Moondandy and their collaborators for making it happen.
NOTE: Update All will keep all these databases in the file downloader_ajgowans_manualsdb.ini.
CRT Video Mode Selector and Screen Position Adjustment tool
Since images speak louder than words, and videos even louder than images, here’s the feature:
This video showed the CRT Video Mode Selector.
This one showed the CRT Screen Position Adjustment tool.
This was previously impossible on MiSTer. In March, I got a PR merged that enabled the necessary API, and now it’s available in the official firmware release.
Before accessing it, you should already be viewing Update All on a CRT. To make that happen, follow the instructions from this post if you haven't already (NTSC Support and PAL sections).
You can access it from the System Options menu in the Settings Screen. It will look a little different from the video, since that one was recorded using the proof of concept for my PR, but the functionality is the same.
This makes it much easier to get a good view when using tools from the Scripts menu, and that obviously includes Update All. Once you find the adjustment you like, just Save as usual, and the setting will be written to your MiSTer.ini file, or to the alternative one if you had that selected before entering Update All.
Closing up
There’s one more addition in this release: the new MiSTer Scripts database from Anime0t4ku, creator of MiSTer Companion and maintainer of a couple of wallpaper databases.
Please support him, because he’s been doing great work lately, and he’s also building a new MiSTer Companion phone app that already looks very promising.
As usual, if you want more details about this release, check the CHANGELOG.
Bye for now!