MiSTer Donkey Kong hardware implementation

[Luddite]

Hello everybody, I'm new here.

I've been playing DK recently with MiSTer FPGA board. Has anyone else here tried that and validated if the gameplay is accurate to the original?

I'm no DK expert myself (I think I broke my record with 78k points yesterday) and one thing has made me a little bit suspicious: I have got a descending barrel and a fireball on my head few times while standing under a ladder swinging the hammer. They have sneaked through the swings. I don't recall that happening years back with MAME, but I may don't remember correctly. So is that accurate behaviour?

For those new to FPGAs (and MiSTer) I would say the subject is well worth getting familiar with. If the hardware implementation is accurate (and you even bypass USB as input method for it's a small additional lag) you will get 100% original arcade gameplay experience with this setup. 

[Kevin]

Yup gotta time those hammer swings or the barrels can make it through and kill you. Lots of good strats/info on the boards to help your game.

I'm not the one to do it but it would great to know if this is accurate enough for competitive play.

And welcome to the community

[ChrisP]

Rest assured, objects slipping through your hammer from above is normal behavior.

Play more DK, on any platform of your choosing, stand under ladders with the hammer, and you will get to experience plenty more of it. 

As far as I have seen, DK plays accurately on MiSTer, and theoretically speaking, there's no reason why it wouldn't. Only major issue with it is that the sounds that the original PCB produced with the use of analog circuits (walk, boom, jump) have to be simulated using samples, and it's not very well done.

[Lyriell]

Hey there,

I've been playing a lot of Galaga lately on the MiSTER and it has some issues with how it calculates the 2nd players score... so keep in mind these cores are not 100%   if you come across bugs, be sure to report them

That being said, the DK seems pretty spot on now.  It used to have sound issues... and the sounds are a little tinny still, but from a gameplay point, everything is fine.

Like it's said above, barrels can pass through hammers from overhead.  It's got to do with how often the game checks collision detection per second.  It'll happen on a real board too.

Best bet is to be moving left or right when you try and do that, so if the collision doesn't occur, you move out of the way.

Cheers

Matt

[Luddite]

Thanks guys for clarification about hammering upwards. I also suspected it was ok, but also that sprite collision detection inaccuracy could have possibly been explained by hardware issue.

And good point about the sounds, I noticed they sounded little harsh, but didn't think it enough to realise that of course they must have been analog circuits back then. That might be an achilles heel with these FPGA implementations, but still I'm quite convinced that these things are the future of retro arcade.

I miss MAME's state saves though, would help quite a bit practising some spring action and what not. I may need to install MAME just for that, because now that I managed to pass my original goal of 100k points today I grave more, but it's not going to be easy.

[ChrisP]

I wouldn't call the sound problem an Achilles heel necessarily, because MAME at this point is rendering the sounds pretty close to perfectly, so there's nothing stopping the FPGA from getting to that point too.

Getting the sounds right may not be a priority for their project, but since MAME is open-source, maybe they'll get around to digging in there and figuring out how to replicate the MAME-style sound on their setup?

[Lyriell]

A lot of the work comes from the MAME project, because the MAME stuff has a lot of info on how the chips worked etc.

FPGAs are amazing devices, and I think in the future if someone sold a packaged DK FPGA, we could probably allow its scores to be accepted if the hardware/software was locked in.

Maybe not just yet, but when it's 100.1% done