MiSTer FPGA gets a console-style UI and a wave of new cores
Taki Udon's Console Mode gives MiSTer FPGA a home-console-style UI with box art and favorites, and it runs on any MiSTer. A batch of new cores includes Apple IIgs, Apple Lisa, and 3DO.
MiSTer FPGA now has a proper console-style front end. Taki Udon’s Console Mode, released this week after months of work, replaces the platform’s stock text menu with a home-console-style interface, and it runs on any MiSTer, not just Taki Udon’s SuperStation One hardware. It boots as an auto-loading core on power-up, so it does not touch how the actual system cores run once you launch a game.
The stock MiSTer menu has always been the sticking point for anyone who isn’t already deep in the hobby. It is fast and it works, but it is a bare list of folders. Console Mode scrapes box art from online databases (libretro’s resource by default, or TheGamesDB with an API key), adds Favorites and Recent lists you can boot straight into, and lets you change colors, animations, and resolution. There is a CRT-enable mode for analog output. The tradeoff is boot time: because the GUI loads after MiSTer itself, startup takes longer, and Time Extension’s hands-on noted the WiFi setup screen crashing back to the stock UI and a very long first boot on the SuperStation One.
In other MiSTer news, the Apple IIgs core is finally out after a long development cycle, along with a core for the Apple Lisa (a port of alexthecat123’s LisaFPGA), the first mass-market computer sold with a graphical interface. The 3DO core is now officially released, and there are new arcade cores including Aleck64 (N64-based arcade hardware), a Batsugun core with save states, and Sega System 32. The PCXT core also picked up a working Mode 13h test build, which opens the door to DOS games in full 256 colors.
MiSTer is in the Lab. The knock against it was always that you had to be a tinkerer to enjoy it. A UI that a casual player can actually navigate is the thing that has been missing.