MiSTer FPGA: Darius arcade available, 3DO accessible to all, CPS3 Street Fighter III on track
New salvo of updates for MiSTer FPGA, the open source platform that replicates in hardware dozens of retro systems. On the menu this week: a mythical arcade core available, the 3DO finally accessible to all, and Street Fighter III which is coming up.
🚀 Darius, available now
Darius (Taito, 1986) is one of the most iconic and spectacular shmups of the arcade era. Its particularity: it was displayed on three screens side by side forming a panorama of 864 pixels wide, a technical prowess unique at its time. The new MiSTer core supports all five official ROM sets (World, US, Japan rev 1, Japan, Extra Version), both audio chips are implemented, and the three horizontal panels are properly composed into a unified virtual screen.
📀 3DO, accessible to the majority of MiSTer
The core 3DO in development has just taken a major step: it now runs on a setup mono-stick SDRAM. Until now, it required two RAM sticks, a configuration that few users have. With a single stick, this is the standard configuration for the vast majority of MiSTer FPGAs in the community. The core is still in active development and receiving constant updates, to follow progress and download test builds, head to the MiSTer FPGA forum or the Discord.
🥊 CPS3, Street Fighter III starts to appear
The core CPS3from Jotego (the Capcom arcade system that runs Street Fighter III: New Generation, 3rd Strike, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Red Earth...) shows its first graphics. The Score Screen layer of Street Fighter III is visible in the latest captures, modest in appearance, but technically significant: to get to this, much of the system's architecture had to be implemented. style="user-select: auto;">The core compiles on MiSTer but is not yet operational in real conditions, the captures come from simulation. Jotego hopes to show more progress in the coming weeks, with sprites as the next target. A fully functional CPS3 would allow Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike to be played on MiSTer with accurate cycle-accurate, one of the last major arcade systems missing on the platform.
🎮 Bonus: PICO-8 on MiSTer
Thanks to MiSTer Organize, the fantasy console PICO-8is now playable on MiSTer with full CRT support, scanlines and shadow masks. A nice addition for fans of game jam and retro-style development.
Source: RetroRGB
Image credit: “Dariuscab” by TarkusAB, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (resized).