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Version: v2.7.0

MiSTer FPGA

MiSTer is fully supported by Zaparoo and is where the project originally started. Zaparoo has several MiSTer-exclusive features because of this.

File Paths

ItemPath
Config file/media/fat/zaparoo/config.toml
Data directory/media/fat/zaparoo
Log file/tmp/zaparoo/core.log
Mappings directory/media/fat/zaparoo/mappings

The /media/fat directory is the top level of the SD card. The /tmp directory is not accessible from the SD card and is deleted when MiSTer is powered off.

Install

Zaparoo Core is available in Update All by enabling the MiSTer Extensions repository in the Tools & Scripts menu.

Alternatively, add this to your downloader.ini:

[mrext/tapto]
db_url = https://github.com/ZaparooProject/zaparoo-core/raw/main/scripts/mister/repo/tapto.json

Once installed, run zaparoo from the MiSTer Scripts menu. A prompt will offer to enable Zaparoo as a startup service.

For manual installation, download from the Downloads page and copy zaparoo.sh to the Scripts folder on your SD card.

Readers

All readers are supported. Platform notes:

  • ACR122U: LED and beeper won't work. This is normal and indicates the correct driver is being used. Some clone variants are incompatible with MiSTer.

Launchers

MiSTer supports 100+ systems including consoles, computers, and arcade games. Games launch automatically using the official core folder structure from Downloader.

See Launchers for the full list of supported systems, file extensions, special features, and alternate cores.

Main Forks

Some MiSTer Main forks are available with Zaparoo integration or features that work well with Zaparoo.

spark2k06

An alternative version of MiSTer Main by spark2k06 adds many Zaparoo-related features:

  • Show status of connected reader as icon in top bar
  • Zaparoo standby screen
  • Box art on game load
  • Many additional MGL features

See spark2k06's repository for more details.

Insert-Coin

An alternative version of MiSTer Main by funkycochise as part of the Insert-Coin project. This version hides the loading screen before cores start games, which works great with Zaparoo.

Known Issues

  • Zaparoo can have conflicts with other devices that use serial USB connections such as the tty2oled project and anything else using an Arduino board. The workaround is to disable auto_detect in the config.toml file and manually set the reader path.