Snes9x: The Portable Super Nintendo Entertainment System Emulator ================================================================= Files included in the Snes9x archive: Snes9x.exe, readme.txt, license.txt fmod.dll faqs.txt changes.txt v1.43 XX-Jun-2004 ================= Home page: http://www.snes9x.com Contents ======== Changes Since Last Release Introduction What You Will Need Getting Started Keyboard Controls Joystick support Game Saving Netplay Support Movie Support Cheat Support What's Emulated? What's Not? Super FX S-DD1 and SPC7110 S-RTC SA-1 C4 3dfx Support Problems With ROMs Sound Problems Converting ROM Images Speeding up the Emulation Getting Help Credits Changes Since Last Release ========================== Check the CHANGES file for a complete history of Snes9x changes between versions. Introduction ============ Snes9x is a portable, freeware Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) emulator. It basically allows you to play most games designed for the SNES and Super Famicom Nintendo game systems on your PC or Workstation. The games include some real gems that were only ever released in Japan. The original Snes9x project was founded by Gary Henderson and Jerremy Koot as a collaboration of their earlier attempts at SNES emulation (snes96 and snes97) Over the years the project has grown and has collected some of the greatest talent in the emulation community (at least of the SNES variety) some of which have been listed in the credits section, others have helped but have been loss in the course of time. "Why emulate the SNES?" Well, there are many reasons for this. The main reason is for nostalgia purposes. It's a hard find in this day and age to get a SNES and games for it. Plus many of us over the course of time have lost our beloved consoles (may they R.I.P) but still have our original carts. With no other means to play them, we turn to emulators. Besides this there are many conveniences of doing this on the computer instead of dragging out your old system. Advantages consist of: - ability to save in any location of the game, despite how the game was designed it's amazingly useful when you don't want to redo the same level over and over. - built-in peripherals. This is anything from multi-taps, to super scopes, to cheat devices. - ability to rip sprites and music for your own personal use - easier to organize and no stacks of cartridges that scare off non-nerdish women. - filters can be used to enhance graphics on old games. As with all things there are disadvantages though: - If you have an ancient PC (pre-Pentium 2) you aren't likely to get a playable experience. - some games are still unemulated (though this a very tiny minority) - the emulator can be difficult for new users to configure (please read "getting started" section below for info) What You Will Need ================== A windows 9x/2k based machine for this port DirectX 6.1b or later 133mhz processor BARE MINIMUM (1ghz+ rec for best settings) 16MB ram BARE MINIMUM (128megs+ rec for graphic pack games) Any directsound capable sound card Certain games use added hardware which will REQUIRE a faster pc. Again, the specs listed above the BARE MINIMUM to use snes9x in any playable form. Most people will not even find that playable. It is recommended that you get a semi-modern PC with a 600mhz Pentium 3/celeron/duron/athlon processor if you want good results. A 1 GHz is recommended for those that want a near perfect experience. Also 64MB of ram is highly suggested with the possibility of more being needed if you play a game that requires graphic packs. Software -------- Access to SNES ROM images in *.smc, *.sfc, *.fig or *.1, *.2, or sf32xxxa, sf32xxxb, etc., format otherwise you will have nothing to run! Some home-brewed ROM images can be downloaded from http://www.zophar.com. To find commercial games, you could try a web search engine and some imaginative use of search strings. Please note, it is illegal in most countries to have commercial ROM images without also owning the actual SNES ROM cartridge. Getting Started =============== Launch Snes9x using the Windows explorer to locate the directory where you un-zipped the snes9x.exe and the fmod.dll files and double-click on the snes9x.exe executable. You could create a shortcut to Snes9x and drag that icon out onto your desktop. Loading Games ------------- Use the Open option from the File menu to open the ROM load dialog. The dialog allows you to browse your computer to locate the directory where you have stored your SNES games. Single-click and then press Load to load and start the game. SNES Rom images come in lots of different formats. Predominately you will be playing ROMs that are still zipped. Snes9x supports zipped ROMs as long as there is only 1 per zip file. Other formats are listed above in the "software" section. Game colour System ------------------ Snes9x displays the ROM information when a ROM is first loaded. Depending on the colours used you can tell whether or not a ROM is a good working ROM, or if it's been altered or is corrupted. -White means the ROM should be a perfect working copy -Green means the ROM is mode 1 interleaved -Cyan means the ROM is mode 2 interleaved -Yellow means the ROM has probably been altered. Either it's a translation, PD ROM, hacked, or possibly a bad ROM. It may also be an overdumped ROM. -Red means the ROM the ROM is definitely hacked and that a new version should be found. some ROM Tools such as NSRT can also fix these ROMs. When asking for help on the Snes9x forums, please list the colour and CRC32 that is displayed. This will help to find out what the problem is. These colours do NOT signify whether a game will work or not. It is just a means for reference so we can understand what may or may not be a problem. If the name is red search the internet for a program called NSRT (At present time this can be found at http://nsrt.edgeemu.com) which may be able to fix it. Most often the problem with games that don't work it's because they are corrupt or are a bad dump and should be redownloaded. SNES Joypad Emulation --------------------- The default key mapping for joy-pad 1 is: 'up arrow' Up direction 'down arrow' Down direction 'left arrow' Left direction 'right arrow' Right direction 'a' TL button 'z' TR button 's' X button 'x' Y button 'd' A button 'c' B button 'return' Start button 'space' Select button The real SNES allowed up to five joy-pads to be plugged in at once via a special adapter. Having five people crowd around the keyboard would not be much fun, and anyway, all keyboards have a limit on the number of keys that can be pressed simultaneously and still be detected correctly; much better to use multiple joysticks or Netplay. Joystick Support ================ Configure and calibrate your joystick/joy-pad using Windows joystick applet in the control panel BEFORE starting Snes9X, then use Snes9X's joy-pad config dialog available from the Options menu to map your joystick/joy-pad's buttons to the emulated SNES joy-pad(s) buttons. See 'Keyboard/Joystick Config' above for details. Keyboard/Joystick Config ------------------------ Add support for your joystick and calibrate it using Windows' joystick applet from the Windows control panel before starting Snes9x, then use Joy-pad Configuration dialog in Snes9x to customize the keyboard/joystick to SNES joy-pad mappings. The dialog is easy to use: select which SNES joy-pad you are configuring using the combo box (#1 to #5). Make sure that you click the "enabled" box on that controller or snes9x won't recognize a controller being plugged in. Click on the text box next to 'UP' and then press the key on the keyboard or button on your joystick that you would like to perform the UP action. The focus will automatically move on to the 'RIGHT' text box, press the key or joystick button that you want to perform the RIGHT action, and so on until you've customized all the SNES joy-pad buttons. Use of diagonals should only be used by keyboard users who are having problems pressing more then one or 2 buttons at a time. First you must hit "toggle diagonals" so that you are able to change them. If you want to play a game that uses the multitap, you must first enable it in the input menu. Alternate Controllers ===================== Many users have had trouble getting the alternate controllers such as the Superscope working correctly. Due to the way these games use the controller port, some games have issues with them. As Snes9x was designed, it was at one time necessary to add a hack to disable problem devices. As of Snes9x 1.40, the devices are unavailable for selection by default. This created a somewhat odd method of activating the special controllers. Here is how you manage: First, select the optional controller you want enabled from the Input menu. The controller is now selectable by pressing '7'. Load your game and select the controller using 7. If the game does not pick up the controller, reset the game. At some point, this will probably be rewritten. We do not know when this will occur. Additional Keyboard Controls ============================ While the emulator is running: 'Escape' Show/hide the menu-bar. 'Pause' Pause the emulator Alt+'Return' Toggle between full-screen and windowed mode. '`' Superscope turbo button. '~' Superscope ...
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