DE10-Nano vs QMTech's Clone

[@Kiddio]

I found this channel by accident a few months ago when looking at buying an Analog Pocket and have been enamoured by the levels of quality and insight you give Ken.

[@Norweeg]

I’ve considered picking one of these up to compliment my current MiSTer for another TV in the house. I’ve been waiting to see a deep dive comparison video. Thank you for doing so!

[@Voultar]

Thanks for the coverage of this!

[@paxsevenfour]

Wow, really helpful and informative video! Love these side-by-side comparisons 👍🏻

[@stopcreepingyouweirdo]

Fantastic, in-depth reporting. Great work

[@mallocpanda]

Great video as always! I just picked up a DE-10, so appreciate seeing more on this topic.

[@mallocpanda]

Also can't wait for the handheld design! Will definitely be building this.

[@Phoenix_1991]

Love this video Ken! Good job! Also can't wait for the portables build!

[@vitaAutLetum]

Thanks for another video, Ken. Always look forward to your videos. Learn a lot.

[@HisVirusness]

That handheld is so cool. Excellent job all around, especially with the comprehensive deep dive. QMTech definitely seems to have no illusions that if the average customer is buying a certain FPGA dev board, it's for retro hardware emulation.

[@whatskenmaking]

Thanks! I've made a couple of mods since you saw it at VCFMW, but I should have it ready for others to build very soon.

[@ToddsNerdCave]

Great video Ken!

[@TheHandlebarGamer]

I am so glad this video was extra nerdy that it kept me hooked - and then BAM! HUGE news. I am so amped for the project. If I can be of any help, give me a shout! :D

[@googleboughtmee]

It doesn't seem that long ago I got my DE10 for $125. Remember when technology got cheaper as it got older, not doubled in price!

[@whatskenmaking]

I know, right - especially considering how long that Cyclone chip has been around for

[@hyoenmadan]

Nah, this never happens to non-commodity non-scalable in production specific application devices. PICs for example, you would think they would be cheaper now than low cost alternatives like the ATMEL duinos exists... But them are more expensive now, as they have reduced production on these, but upped the cost for anyone who still relies on them for specific applications them can't be replaced.

[@whatskenmaking]

Great point

[@squirlmy]

@@whatskenmaking Also, you see on the board "For Intel FPGA University Program" at 0:44. At 3:07, you note the $1750 price for Altera's, and it's not unusual to see equivalent FPGA boards over $1000. The DE-10 Standard is $499 (academic price $365). I'd say the Nano's price is definitely originally priced for academic, and rumors are the Intel subsidized the boards, although I've also read posts rejecting this assumption. Basically, it was a bit of a fluke that it was priced so low when Sorgelig started the project. Before him there were quite a few "Sinclair ZX" Spartan 6 FPGA projects, and there's new ones now. Not nearly as powerful, but for several different 8-bit retrocomputers it works. Including the old Papillio Kickstarter projects which sadly became defunct.

[@Josh-m5u]

Um.. is not the LTC connector used by the real time clock module.? Im confused.

[@misterretrowolf1464]

Solid, awesome analysis as always Ken. Would we get anything less?? No way! thanks.

[@bamsegod]

EXCELLENT VIDEO KEN!!!. cant wait for build video for MISTER handheld

[@retrobitstv]

Thanks so much for the fantastic detailed comparison! This answered all the questions I had and then some.

[@5mf1nc]

Regarding the PSU: that is not a regulator but a switching transistor -- a 4A linear power supply would have a massive transformer. What may be to any interest is the safety/isolation -- in the board seems fine, but cant see a safety cap (maybe on the far side..), and the transformer may or may not have been properly constructed/isolated the secondary from the primary/aux, but having identifiers on them means they don't want to hide --- and indeed after some search it seems the board (with different casing) has been certified by TÜV and Intertek-- or at least looks very similar. In Terasic's PSU the prongs also not directly soldered to the board, but using spring pads that pinch the other side of the prongs.

[@jstro-hobbytech]

Most low wattage use a fly back topology iirc. Safety caps optional in china. I'm convinced they stamp ul and intertek on alot of the psus I've reverse engineered for fun. I seen a fake ganfet charger with weights in it on dgw once and a few times on my bench. Most quality smps below 70watts are heavy right. Haha tricky

[@whatskenmaking]

Ah, I think you're right - I couldn't see the markings on it, but it does make a lot more sense that it would be a transistor. I'll add a correction in the video. On the Terasic prongs - yeah, I did know they were contacts - not sure why I said they were soldered. Thanks for pointing those two things out!

[@arturslab7102]

You beat me to commenting on this being an SMPS.. Regarding safety - no air gap but at least a bit of space between traces for high and low side

[@whatskenmaking]

I didn't mention it, but there is an optocoupler on the underside

[@jstro-hobbytech]

@@whatskenmaking common in a low wattage fly back topology. Up to like 180 watts then fly back loses efficiency.

[@gluttonousmaximus9048]

17:00 You just dropped a nuke without even warning us. Handheld MiSTER is wild.

[@whatskenmaking]

I'm not the first to do it, but I think the QMTech board is better suited for that type of thing than the Terasic board. I should have the GitHub repo available soon - I'm testing out a different boost converter because the one I've been using has been giving me some problems.

[@3k3k3]

@@whatskenmaking Ken, every attempt i have seen have been hopeless bulky and way to expensive, i found your channel thanks to the comparison you are making here, and until then i honestly thought the QMTech was a hoax. And 21 minutes later it turns out it's exactly what we need for a portable MISTer, the holy grail. I can't wait to see what happens, and how impossible it is for me to make :) I have 2 suggestions for the KenMakeItPortable, turn the board around so that it is possible to "dock it" with a future analog/usb board. That would make it possible to run all the computer cores with it in a "Docking" station.. AMAZING STUFF!!!

[@whatskenmaking]

Thank you! In the short term, I'd like to get the first version of the handheld published as an open source project, and let others iterate on it and improve it. I have 4 other MiSTer form factors that I want to design with the QMTech boards, so I'd love to see some other folks jumping in and adding features to the handheld while I work on those other projects for a couple of months. I'm very close to a v1; I'm just waiting for a couple of other parts to arrive for some final adjustments before releasing the repo.

[@bennicus4901]

One other thing worth mentioning regarding quality - I've seen it mentioned in a few places that QMTech uses recovered (i.e used) CycloneV chips. Apparently QMTech themselves have stated this, although I haven't seen that first hand. I don't know what sort of quality control they can do to ensure these are in good condition, so it may not make any difference at all, but it's something worth bearing in mind.

[@yoppindia]

hmmm

[@monk6848]

Awesome video, just what I wanted . Thanks! :)

[@Aberusugi]

Very good detailed overview of the differences, thank you.

[@raxada27]

Thanks, great work

[@johnwiesen4440]

I got my DE10 before the pandemic and chip shortage. With the QMTech's Clone out, more and better software will come out. I use mine for retro computing, on systems I donot have.

[@drkamilz]

Thank you, man. This is how one should make a comparison video.

[@geofreypejsa54]

Love the handheld mister!!

[@scotchnichols]

Nice comparison vid. Looking forward to your portable mister video. :)

[@davidoliveira7184]

Excellent video! Really like your informative and in-depth style 👍

[@alextirrellRI]

Fantastic overview! I'm still waiting to see what Taki Udon has planned after his stack clone before I get a second MiSTer. Awesome to see a DIY handheld is now possible!

[@RetroRick1990]

Great video, thank you 🤠

[@rubberduck4966]

Thank you very much for this comparison!

[@geofreypejsa54]

Another good video

[@--onewheelskyward--]

Excellent comparison, thank you!

[@NerdENerd]

I managed to snag one of Taki Udon's clone boards yesterday.

[@whatskenmaking]

I tried unsuccessfully, so my deep dive of that board will be delayed

[@reginaldstubtoe4185]

do the four corner holes match up with de10? I made a custom console case for mine and I'm wondering if I could just swap one of these in if I needed to.

[@whatskenmaking]

Yes, the mounting holes do match. If you have cutouts for the ports, those won't line up, but it sounds like maybe that's not a concern for yours

[@reginaldstubtoe4185]

@@whatskenmaking nope. I got wires going to panel mounts.

[@h0laPlaneta]

This is an amazing comparison, can´t wait to see the one with Taki Udon's clone.

[@hyoenmadan]

Looks like most of the extra price on the DE10 nano goes to the USB Blaster CPLD. Is an extra costly chip they included in the board. That CPLD alone is enough powerful to host a floppy emulator itself, for example.

[@whatskenmaking]

Possibly - I haven't priced out that particular chip, but I semi-regularly use other CPLDs and they aren't too pricey. It's quite possible though!

[@5speedfatty]

I just picked up one of these, Im interested to see if the USB hub works with it.

[@whatskenmaking]

Yes, it does work - that's one of the benefits of using the USB OTG chip - it can function as either a host controller or as a target for another host controller (such as the USB hub)

[@5speedfatty]

@@whatskenmaking good! I'm planning on picking one up soon then.

[@RetroRockGamer]

Hi Ken, I'm hoping you do a video on Taki's de-10 clone it looks like it's closer to the original, and he worked with sorglig to get it right

[@whatskenmaking]

I hope I can do one as well! :D

[@raulgonzalez7434]

So the one with built in Sdram is compatible with Mister I/O board? I would like to jump into Fpga gaming from RGB Pi for using it as a 8/16 bit computer replacement ( MSX, Amiga..). I wanna make sure that I can plug it to a CRT through Scart connector. My understanding is that I will need a VGA to Scart adapter capable of 15khz. Great video

[@davidshadoff4267]

Nice video, and thanks for covering the chipset with the level of detail that you did. I'm curious about how RAMtest executes on the soldered-on board, and whether there are any issues with cores that heavily use the DDR3; the additionaly latency may affect something (I think N64 and PSX may be the heaviest users).

[@whatskenmaking]

Good questions - I probably should've run the RAM test for the video. Not sure about the latency impact, though I did see some speculation on discord that it might be detrimental to a couple of cores. That said, I did do a frame-by-frame comparison of my 60fps video recording of both boards running the PSX demo ROM and all the frames I looked at were in sync - so no latency impact at least in PSX running the demo ROM.

[@lordbacon4972]

Will you be reviewing Taki Udon's MiSTer Pi?

[@Idelacio]

Competition is good, between this and the taki mister pi we suddenly have so many options.

[@chryoko]

Thanks a lot, just ordered my QMTech board version with RAM soldered for my 2nd Mister set-up. Looking now for the QMtech IO board with RTC... but still not yet available (as of today). Is there any possibility to just add the RTC function to the QMTech board without that specific IO Board ? : reason is that i do not really need the VGA for that mister build using HDMI, and that i will just use a cheap USB hub to hook my controlers. thx

[@whatskenmaking]

Yes, if you have an RTC module with an oscillator and a battery that uses the M41T81 chip, then you just need to connect it to the arduino header (the block of pins that aren't GPIO0 or GPIO1) - 3.3v (pin 29), ground (pin 30), I2C data (pin 39), and I2C clock (pin 40).

[@chryoko]

@@whatskenmaking Merci Ken for that superfast reply !

[@drdroop2163]

How much power are the various screen pulling? Seems just the board itself you can get 6-6.5hrs with your current battery. Curious what the various screens pull. For the handheld, given the amount of arcade cores and Saturn a 6-button layout would be fantastic (with 2 shoulder buttons). Any luck finding 4:3 displays?

[@whatskenmaking]

The screen pulls around 300mA, but I haven't done much testing on it yet. I was estimating around 4 hours of play time on the current setup, but it could definitely be more optimized

[@davidoliveira7184]

What about testing the BlisSTer with the QMTech?

[@whatskenmaking]

There shouldn’t be anything preventing it from functioning as normal, but without an IO board, you’d need to wire up a SNAC port yourself.

[@lroby74]

I would like to know if is present the UserIO port (necessary for SNAC adapters and that seems a USB 3.0 Blue port) on QMtech board. Thank you

[@whatskenmaking]

There's no USB-style User port directly on the dev board, but QMTech's IO board does have it built in. However, the User/SNAC port is broken out from the Arduino headers on the dev board - and it does have those headers. So even though there's not a USB port to plug your SNAC level shifter into directly, you can wire one up to the Arduino headers and use the User/SNAC port without the IO board.

[@lroby74]

@@whatskenmaking Thank you for your very fast answer!

[@whatskenmaking]

👍 You happened to catch me at the right time; I'm usually not that quick! 😆

[@DeckBlack22]

I hope in the future you will make the same video about Mister Pi. :)

[@whatskenmaking]

That’s the plan!

[@HSTVizle]

Dude you are so cool

[@xfreakerx1]

I just received Taki's version and it has a 5CSXFC6C6U23I7N fpga and D9SHG mem. Looks to have a better fpga? but same mem as the qmtech. At the end of the day all three prolly perform identically. I am very happy with the i/o improvements on Taki's

[@davidoliveira7184]

Could QMTech’s cheapest squarish CycloneV board run MiSTer using some cables and accessories?

[@whatskenmaking]

No, that board is using the non-SoC variant of the Cyclone

[@rubenscd]

what would the performance be with analog video output?

[@whatskenmaking]

I don't think it'll be any different than the DE10-Nano, but I haven't looked that closely at QMTech's IO board schematics yet to know for sure. I have one of their analog IO boards on order, and will probably do a short video on it when it arrives

[@SantiagoChamo]

Would you be doing the same tests to Taki Udon's board???

[@whatskenmaking]

If I can get one before they sell out, yes. I discussed getting on the reviewer list with Taki, but I guess I didn't make the final cut 🤷

[@jinchoung]

handheld REALLY needs a slide out keyboard for mister tho.

[@BERNDSBG]

Is the RTC on the IO boards already confirmed?

[@whatskenmaking]

Yes, the QMTech IO board has the RTC integrated

[@BERNDSBG]

@@whatskenmaking nifty. I guess that's a very clean board then: Instead of USB Hub + Rtc + IO just one add-on board. I just ordered a new version of the board with 2 FR4 plates instead of a full case and I am looking forward to it. I guess that the built-in fan is not as crappy as the one that came with the FPGA baseboard. Would you replace that as well (I put a copper sink on the baseboard)?

[@PauloHenrique-hg7iw]

quais os pinos do reset/liga/desliga/e interface ?

[@whatskenmaking]

They're on GPIO1 - pins 13, 15, and 17 are OSD, User, and Reset in that order. If you're going to tie into the pins directly, you need to also pull pins 10 and 12 to ground

[@PauloHenrique-hg7iw]

@@whatskenmaking obrigado pela resposta os pinos 13,15 e 17 são aterrados para o 10 ou 12 ?

[@Endgame901]

Doesn't seem like they sell this anymore.

[@20windfisch11]

Would it be possible to add HDMI Out to the Handheld? That’s the coolest MiSTer project I have heard of in the last months. Accurate retro gaming on the go and with a monitor and keyboard it would be a fine Amiga, Atari ST and Atari 8Bit machine.

[@whatskenmaking]

Yes, but there's not any room for it in the case I've designed. It's a really tight fit with all the various components: screen, cyclone board, super famicom controller, boost module, lipo charger, stereo amp, usb hub, arduino pro micro, and as big of a battery as I can fit without making it feel massive.

[@20windfisch11]

@@whatskenmakingI understand. But maybe you could later on design a variant that is a bit larger to have room for that. Then, it could possibly also fit all the controls of a PlayStation style controller, if one wants to use the PS1 core or play home computer games that use keybindings alongside the joystick.

[@10MBorLess]

What's Ken making? A freaking handheld mister!

[@KrystianMajewski]

What a weird Famicom ;)

[@whatskenmaking]

Ha! We’ll be back to the Famicom series soon 😊

[@guillaume8437]

😥 @18:20, we can see you have so many wires/connections and PCBs all over the place. Maybe it would be worth making a custom PCB that embeds all what you need apart from the QMTech and the display one, like one that will carry the Arduino MCU and the rest of your mister FPGA and battery options. Nowadays, PCB manufacturers can be so cheap for prototyping and I doubt the quality of MisterFPGA shields is so important. To be honest, I have been doubting Terasic a few times regarding the electronics on their boards. The best examples I have in mind are some FPGA boards with Cyclone V SoC with transceivers, that exist in the FPGA but connected NOWHERE on the board, so it is a real waste of resources. Take the DE10-Standard! The input high speed transceivers and transceiver clocks are grounded and the output high speed transceivers are not connected. OK, the DE10-Standard is bigger in terms of form factor but still. The Cyclone V GX Starter Kit uses 2 blocks of transceivers instead of the 3 available. I reckon having an embedded USB Blaster is quite of a comfort but when one buys a few/many boards, money still can be saved. I may consider QMTech's Xilinx/AMD boards to start and learn coding FPGAs for not much money. Out of curiosity, how is this Aliexpress online shopping website, in terms of reliability and quality of the supply chain (delay of delivery, state of the parcels when delivered)?

[@MarthSR]

I own both a Terasic-based and a QMTech based MiSTer. Absolutely no difference in performance to speak of. Identical from my point of view, and I'm a speedrunner so accuracy is something I am extremely picky on. But yeah, definitely worth the money.

[@jstro-hobbytech]

Maybe some people may learn to use an fpga now that there's an affordable development fpga board. It may be almost a decade old but it's a great chance for people to learn basic logic using verilog or the like. The de10 nano went well beyond it's initial eol I suspect. I live in Canada and a mister setup is beyond absurd to purchase. All my test gear uses xilinx fpgas. I'm surprised amd haven't done something cool combining their great mobile socs and an fpga. Great video but man, I suspect your views are more related to the fact someone finally cloned the board. The awesome comparison means nothing to 99 percent of the fools pining for what was disgustingly overpriced tech. I love your video though man. Isn't there a new mister project with an actual modern fpga going on? I remember a half drunk, retroRGB asking questions to a much smarter person and making an ass of himself. Find the video brother, you'll feel embarrassed for the genius he interviewed but didn't prepare for or understand what an fpga actually is, in my opinion. Once again great video brother. I fear this will drag out the use of obsolete tech. I read it was struggle to get the n64 core performant and you have to be a damn good engineer to go that deep into fpga development. It's an awesome way to get I to fpga development though man. A senior year level learning kit for most bscEE students costs more than all their books have cost up to that point haha. I did the nand to tetris course for fun, it was great but hard work. The syntax drove me bananas, I can k-map and demorgans theorem for planning transistor only builds but it drove me crazy. I could've bought the book too I suppose which helps with pseudocode you write as it was unique to the course. It reminded me of python in a way where the only rule is whitespace discipline which also drives me nuts. Anyway I'm rambling. Great content sir, like always. I'm selling some test gear and downsizing my components if you want to email me. If you don't want to buy any gear I can send you a bunch of microcontrollers and other stuff for free. Some cool stuff for game related projects too if you want. For instance I have a closet full of launch edition ps3 consoles that work but need to have daugherboards remarried to the main pcb because of the Blu-ray drives died and the people.threw the original boards out. They can be fixed with factory firmware though. New enclosures can be printed as they're kinda scratched up, but all booted last I tested. I have so much backlog of projects that i hate seeing alot of stuff i paid alot of money for go to waste. Like 200 dollars worth of wima caps for audio repairs when i needed only like 10 hahaha Postage on me.

[@dewbieZ]

Unavailable like anything else

[@Mong00se22]

Get a rocker switch for the PSU so you dont have to keep unplugging it.

[@nrvhj795]

the price of the io board should be less than 30usd

[@whatskenmaking]

Yeah, I saw the posting on AliExpress after I made this video. They sold out very quickly, though. I do have some blanks on order, so I'll be building some of my own IO boards (possibly in a video... haven't decided yet)

[@nrvhj795]

@@whatskenmaking io board is in stock now, qmetch add stock every day, same for the fpga board and never stock in weekend.

[@renejosu]

i want one, but it's always out of stock

[@whatskenmaking]

I've seen it come in and out of stock every few days as batches are being made - keep an eye on the page and check frequently. You can also try contacting QMTech on X, they're pretty responsive there

[@nrvhj795]

qmtech make a third board but not in stock

[@HarteChristopher]

170 Lenore Road

[@iamdmc]

both are still out of stock 2 months on bah MiSTer Pi is better anyway

[@x0j]

damn I paid like 600$ for my mister...