Snes9x

Emulator Screenshot

• OS: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
• Cost: Freeware
• Re-mappable keys: Yes
• Monitor orientation(s): Vertical or Horizontal See: Display Orientation
• Emulated System(s): Super Nintendo Entertainment System/Super Famicom
• Known Game Compatability List: High degree of compatibility >90% no list at this time
• Homepage: http://www.Snes9x.com/
• Additional Requirements: Minimum for Snes9x to function is a Pentium 133 or comparable

What is Emulator?

"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; which includes some real gems that were only ever released in Japan.

Snes9x is the result of well over three years worth of part-time hacking, coding, recoding, debugging, divorce, etc. (just kidding about the divorce bit). Snes9x is coded in C++, with three assembler CPU emulation cores on the i386 Linux and Windows ports.

Currently there are many ports of Snes9x available" (SOURCE:http://www.Snes9x.com/)

How do I set it up?

This is a standalone emulator with a GUI just download and execute. The key to screen rotation is matching display resolution with the output of the emulator. The default for this emulator a menu is visible at startup. In a normal situation the escape key would hide this menu but most Mame™ machines employ the escape key to end the current emulation. This can be overcome with the use of a wrapper. With the use of a Wrapper Snes9x is a very stable seamless emulator for arcade machines.

NOTE: In version 1.51 a cfg setting was added to auto-hide the menu on start up a wrapper is still necessary in order to route the esc key to end the emulator.

How do I remove the top menu?

You do NOT need a wrapper to remove the topmenu on startup.

Since there is no option to remove in its GUI, you can open snes9x.cfg in Notepad, find the line hidemenu and set it to TRUE, and the topmenu is gone on startup.

Many fronted can route ESC to quit the emulator.

Command Line Parameters

Snes9x can be executed via the command line as follows:

Brief:

"C:\Snes9x Folder\Snes9x.exe" "D:\Some Folder\Your Roms\Romfile.smc" <<With quotations

If you have the Snes9x pointed to a specific ROM directory <<Default "./roms":

"C:\Snes9x Folder\Snes9x.exe" "Romfile.smc"

Snes9x supports compressed ROMs in zip, gzip and JMA format as follows:

"C:\Snes9x Folder\Snes9x.exe" "D:\Some Folder\Your Roms\Romfile.zip"
                   OR
"C:\Snes9x Folder\Snes9x.exe" "Romfile.zip"

Extensive:

snes9x <options> <rom image filename>

Where <options> can be:

-sound or -so                   Enable digital sound output
-nosound or -ns                 Disable digital sound output
-soundskip or -sk <0-3>         Sound CPU skip-waiting method
-soundquality, -sq, or -r <num> Set sound playback quality
                                 0 - off, 1 - 8192, 2 - 11025, 3 - 16000,
                                 4 - 22050, 5 - 32000 (default), 6 - 44100,
                                 7 - 48000
-altsampledecode or -alt        Use alternate sample decoder
-stereo or -st                  Enable stereo sound output (implies -sound)
-mono                           Enable monaural sound output (implies -sound)
-soundsync or -sy               Enable sound sync to CPU at startup
-soundsync2 or -sy2             Alternate method to sync sound
-nois                           Turn off interpolated sound
-echo or -e                     Enable DSP echo effects at startup
-noecho or -ne                  Disable DSP echo effects at startup
-envx or -ex                    Enable volume envelope height reading
-nosamplecaching, -nsc, or -nc  Disable sample caching
-nomastervolume or -nmv         Disable master volume setting
-fix                            'Fix' sound frequencies 
-conf <filename>                Use specified conf file (after standard files)
-nostdconf                      Do not load the standard config files
-hdma or -ha                    Enable HDMA emulation at startup
-nohdma or -nh                  Disable HDMA emulation at startup
-transparency or -tr            Enable transparency effects
-notransparency or -nt          Disable transparency effects at start
-windows                        Enable graphic window effects
-nowindows or -nw               Disable graphic window effects
-im7                            Enable Mode 7 interpolation effects
-displayframerate or -dfr       Display the frame rate counter
-aidoshm <shmid>                Run in AIDO mode, with specified SHM ID 
-hires or -hi                   Enable support for hi-res and interlace modes
-frameskip or -f <num>          Screen update frame skip rate
-frametime or -ft <float>       Milliseconds per frame for frameskip auto-adjust
-hirom, -hr, or -fh             Force Hi-ROM memory map
-lorom, -lr, or -fl             Force Lo-ROM memory map
-bs                             Use BS Satellite System ROM mapping
-bsxbootup                      Boot up BS games from BS-X
-nointerleave or -ni            ROM image is not in interleaved format
-interleaved or -i              ROM image is in interleaved format
-interleaved2 or -i2            ROM image is in interleaved 2 format
-interleavedgd24 or -gd24       ROM image is in interleaved gd24 format
-header, -he, or -hd            Force the detection of a ROM image header
-noheader or -nhd               Force the detection of no ROM image header
-ntsc or -n                     Force NTSC timing (60 frames/sec)
-pal or -p                      Force PAL timing (50 frames/sec)
-superfx or -sfx                Force detection of the SuperFX chip
-nosuperfx or -nosfx            Force detection of no SuperFX chip
-dsp1                           Force detection of the DSP-1 chip
-nodsp1                         Force detection of no DSP-1 chip
-nopatch                        Do not apply any available IPS patches
-cheat                          Apply saved cheats
-nocheat                        Do not apply saved cheats
-gamegenie or -gg         Supply a Game Genie code
-actionreplay or -ar      Supply a Pro-Action Reply code
-goldfinger or -gf        Supply a Gold Finger code
-nomp5                          Disable emulation of the Multiplayer 5 adapter
-nomouse                        Disable emulation of the SNES mouse
-nosuperscope                   Disable emulation of the Superscope
-nojustifier                    Disable emulation of the Konami Justifier
-port# <control>                Specify which controller to emulate in port 1/2
     Controllers: none            No controller
                  pad#            Joypad number 1-8
                  mouse#          Mouse number 1-2
                  superscope      Superscope (not useful with -port1)
                  justifier       Blue Justifier (not useful with -port1)
                  one-justifier   ditto
                  two-justifiers  Blue & Pink Justifiers
                  mp5:####        MP5 with the 4 named pads (1-8 or n)
ROM image needs to be in Super MagiCom (*.smc), Super FamiCom (*.sfc),
*.fig, or split (*.1, *.2, or sf32527a, sf32527b, etc) format and can be
compressed with zip, gzip, JMA, or compress.

Display Orientation

NOTE: Microsoft Windows specific

• Untested under other operating systems

The key to the rotation of Snes9x emulation is screen resolution.

Normal horizontal desktop resolution:

“800 x 600” or “Larger Value x Smaller Value” or "Width x Height" in pixles

Vertical Desktop resolution:

“600 x 800” or “Smaller Value x Larger Value” or "Width x Height"

Snes9x Does not have a setting to rotate the display so you must specify a vertical resolution in the video settings of the emulator. This resolution must match the resolution of your desktop and your desktop must be rotated(videocard must support native desktop rotation). You can specify Snes9x to stretch to fit the given resolution, the distortion is unnoticeable. The vertical display modes can be set manually via the .cfg if you are using snes9x v1.51,. Else the display modes do not appear in the video setting of Snes9x until your desktop display is at a vertical resolution.

NOTE: Many emulators do not support rotated display to overcome this specify a vertical resolution in the video settings of said emulator.

See Also:

• Zsnes