| Name | Platform | Homepage | Latest download | Info |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Snes9x | Win32, DOS, Linux, Solaris, MacOS, BeOS, HP-UX, FreeBSD, RiscOS, Amiga, N64, Irix, OpenBSD | page | page | info |
| ZSNES | DOS, Win32 | page | page | info |
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's cpu is written in assembly, and its graphics engine and SPC700 engine are well optimized. Both versions sport very nice GUIs. Snes9x supports graphics modes 0-7, 2 joysticks, transparencies, Super FX support and has real time save/loading. This is now one of the best SNES emulators around, and it stands only second to ZSNES in terms of compatibility.
What's Emulated:
- The 65c816 main CPU. - The Sony SPC700 sound CPU. - SNES variable length machine cycles. - 8 channel DMA and H-DMA (raster effects). - All background modes, 0 to 7. - Sound DSP, with eight 16-bit, stereo channels, compressed samples, hardware attack-decay-sustain-release volume processing, echo, pitch modulation and digital FIR sound filter. - 8x8, 16x8 and 16x16 tile sizes, flipped in either direction. - 32x32, 32x64, 64x32 and 64x64 screen tile sizes. - H-IRQ, V-IRQ and NMI. - Mode 7 screen rotation, scaling and screen flipping. - Vertical offset-per-tile in modes 2, and 4. - Horizontal offset-per-tile in modes 2, 4 and 6. - 256x224, 256x239, 512x224, 512x239, 512x448 and 512x478 SNES screen resolutions. - Sub-screen and fixed colour blending effects. - Mosaic effect. - Single and dual graphic clip windows, with all four logic combination modes. - Colour blending effects only inside or outside a window. - 128 8x8, 16x16, 32x32 or 64x64 sprites, flipped in either direction. - SNES palette changes during frame (15/16-bit internal rendering only). - Direct colour mode - uses tile and palette-group data directly as RGB value. - Super FX, a 21/10MHz RISC CPU found in the cartridge of several games. - SA-1, a faster version of CPU found in the main SNES unit together with some custom game-accelerator hardware. - C4, a custom Capcom chip used only in Megaman X2 and X3. Its a sprite scaler/ rotator/line drawer/simple maths co-processor chip used to enhance some in-game effects. - Partial DSP-1 support, enough to play Mario Kart. - SNES mouse. - SuperScope (light gun) emulated using computer mouse. - Multi-player 5 - allowing up to five people to play games simultaneously on games that support that many players. - Game-Genie and Action Replay cheat codes. - Multiple ROM image formats, with or without a 512 byte copier header. - Single or split images, compressed using gzip, and interleaved in one of two ways. - Auto S-RAM (battery backed RAM) loading and saving. - Freeze-game support, now portable between different Snes9x ports. - Interpolated sound. What's Not: - Only partial DSP1 support, enough to play Mario Kart but no more. The DSP1 is a math co-processor chip that was inside the cartridge of some games, notably Mario Kart and Pilot Wings. - Any other odd chips that manufactures sometimes placed inside the cartridge to enhance games and as a nice side-effect, also act as an anti-piracy measure, e.g. S-DD1. - Pseudo hi-res. mode - SNES hardware uses interpolation to give apparent increase in horizontal resolution, use one of the output image processing options to get the same effect. - Mosaic effect on mode 7. - A couple of SPC700 instructions that I can't work exactly out what they should do. - Fixed colour and mosaic effects in SNES hi-res. (512x448) modes. - Offset-per-tile in mode 6. Luckily I haven't found a game that uses it, yet.
ZSNES is a Super Nintendo Entertainment System emulator written mostly in assembler (this means very fast). It features all SNES screen modes as well as add/sub transparencies in 16 bit graphics mode (VESA2 support is required in DOS), mosaic effects, Super FX emulation (Star Fox, etc), DSP1 emulation (Mario Kart, etc), C4 emulation (MegaMan X2/3), real time saving, and a really great GUI which lets you configure the emulator to your heart's content. It has interpolated sound. It also supports the snes mouse, and has a slew of other options as well including movie recording and modem to modem netplay!
The following are implemented :
- complete 65816 instruction set
- SRAM support
- LoROM and HiROM support
- SlowROM and FastROM support
- Full DMA support
- HIRQ/VIRQ/NMI Interrupts
- Support for most snes file formats
- Multi file format support (.1,.2,.3,A.,B.,C.)
- Interleaved format support
- PAL/NTSC timing support
The following are implemented in the new graphics engine 8 bit :
- Combination of line by line and tile based graphics engine
- Graphic Modes 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7
- 8x8, 16x16, 32x32 and 64x64 sprite support (flipped in all directions)
- 8x8 and 16x16 tiles
- 32x32,64x32,32x64,64x64 tile modes
- Full HDMA effects for wavy backgrounds, interesting mode 7 effects, etc.
- Mode 7 rotating and scaling effects
- BG priorities
- Sprite Priorities
- Add/sub of back area
- Mosaic Effects
- Offset per tile mode (mode 2/vertical only)
- High res 512 resolution and 448/478 vertical resolution
- Windowing effects
- High res Mode 7 (only in 640x480x256 video mode/disable Eagle/Scanlines)
The following are implemented in the old graphics engine :
- Line by line based graphics engine
- Graphic Modes 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7
- 8x8, 16x16, 32x32 and 64x64 sprite support (flipped in all directions)
- Mosaic effects
- 8x8 and 16x16 tiles
- 32x32,64x32,32x64,64x64 tile modes
- Full HDMA effects for wavy backgrounds, interesting mode 7 effects, etc.
- Mode 7 rotating and scaling effects
- Single and Dual Windowing Routines
- BG priorities
- Sprite Priorities
- Add/sub of back area
- 16-bit graphics support
- offset per tile mode (mode 2/vertical only)
- High res 512 horizontal resolution (missing in 16x16)
Following are present in 16-bit graphics mode :
- Palette changing in the middle of a screen
- Screen Addition (full and half)
- Screen Subtraction (full)
- Fixed Color Addition/Subtraction
- Window clipping for Fixed Color
The following are implemented in the new graphics engine 16 bit :
- All of old graphics engine 16bit
- Combination of line by line and tile based graphics engine
- High resolution mode 7
- High resolution 16x16 tiles for mode 5
- full 15bit color transparencies (instead of the previous 13bit speed
hack) for improved picture quality (MMX compatible CPUs only)
The following are present in sound :
- 16bit digital stereo sound
- SPC700 Sound CPU
- DSP Sound Processor
- Echo Effects
- FIR Filter
- ADSR volume effects
- GAIN volume effects
- Noise effects
- Pitch Modulation
The following are extra features emulated :
- Super NES Mouse Support
- Super NES Super Scope Support
- SuperFX support (Still has a bug or 2 left)
- MultiTap (Multiplayer 5) support (4 players on a single computer, 5 players
remote (ipx/modem))
- DSP1 emulation (not complete)
- SA-1 emulation (not complete)
The following are the features present in ZSNES :
- Game State Save (F2=Save, F3=Select, F4=Load).
Warning : A state file takes 260 kbytes of HD space!
- Auto frame rate to give you constant Super Nintendo speed up to 9
frame skips
- configuration file support (ZSNES.CFG)
- 2 player support w/ Joystick and Gamepad support
The following features are missing :
- Pseudo 512 snes horizontal resolution
(Haven't seen any game that uses them yet)
- Some modes in Offset Per Tile Mode
- Some Direct Color Modes (Haven't seen any game that uses them yet)
What will not run (or not play properly) :
- Some Super FX games such as Dirt Trax FX or Winter Gold (causes instability)
- DSP1 games such as Pilotwings
- Games with other special chips such Street Fighter Alpha 2, Star
Ocean (S-DD1), and Far East of Eden 2 (SPC7110)
- Games which doesn't have a valid header
- Games that hit a severe bug in the 65816/PPU/SPC700/DSP routines
- Games that require special timing