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Introduction Downloading Snes9x Installing Snex9x Installing Games Setting Up Snes9x Playing A Game

Introduction

Ah! the Super Nintendo / Famicom. I spent many an evening destroying my manager at Fifa International Soccer on the Snes. The Snes was the console of the early ninties. Unfortunately it wasn't the biggest seller as it was in direct competition with the Sega Megadrive / Genesis. The Snes was far superior to the Megadrive technically but lacked speed and due to the interference of Nintendo some of the game conversions lacked the content of the Megadrive alternative (Mortal Kombat springs to mind). Certain games immediatley stood out on the Snes, most notable Super Mario Kart which is still hailed as one of the best racing games of all times. With the addition of the SuperFX chip by Argonaut Software the Snes was one of the first consoles to use 3D vector graphics. Being a computer buff I never had a Snes of my own, however I spent many a drunken evening being beaten very convincingly at Street Fighter 2 Turbo by my mate. In conclusion Snes9x delivers all aspects of the Snes including the addons such as the SuperScope, Snes Mouse and Action Replay Cartridge. Perhaps you can compare the arcade version of Street Fighter 2 Turbo on Callus and the conversion on Snes9x. Have Fun! Top

Downloading Snes9x

You can get Snes9x from its homepage here. Top

Installing Snes9x

I have uploaded a version of Snes9x which includes an installer. All you have to do is to double click the icon and follow the instructions. Throughout the tutorial I will assume that you left the path as "C:\Program Files\Snes9x". Once you have extracted the file you need to create some folders. The simplest way to do this if you are not sure is to open your My Computer icon, open your C: drive, then open the Program Files\Snex9x folder. Right click your mouse button in a clear area of the new window and select the New, then the Folder option. A new folder will appear and will be highlighted. Just type in roms and press enter and its done! Repeat the process for a folder for the saved states, call it States. The folder should be something like this... Because Snes9x uses an installer, It creates a menu on your Start menu for easy access. If you do want to make a shortcut, open the start menu, go to programs, open the Snes9x menu, right-click over the "Snes9x Version..." option and from the new menu select "send to..." then desktop. Top

Installing Games

Because Snes9x is a console emulator there aren't many sites around holding roms for it. You could try a search engine like Google with the keywords Super Nintendo Roms or Super Famicom Roms. All you need to do to install roms is to put the zipped files into the C:\Program Files\Snes9x\Roms directory. If you are not sure how to do this try the basics tutorial. Top

Setting Up Snes9x

Heres a complete description of all the menu options...   File Menu Open Rom Loads a game. The window that opens up has certain options at the bottom. Here is a brief descrition... Memory Type - HiRom, LoRom - Not sure yet. Hopefully Gary the author can fill in this gap. Interleave Mode - Lets you force how Snes9x decodes the rom that is being loaded. This is sometimes required on some SuperFx roms as Snes9x cannot determine what type they are. Video System - Lets you force a game to be PAL or NTSC. Header - Used for compatability for games If you find that you have a rom that wont load try changing a few settings and this should solve your problem. Recent Games Lets you quickly load any recently played games. Save Game Position Lets you save your game in one of 10 slots. Load Game Position Lets you load in your saved games. Hide Menu Hides the menu bar Full Screen Runs your game using the whole screen Stretch Image Stretches the game image to fill the window or screen. Language Lets you select the language for the GUI Save SPC Data Saves sound CPU data. Save SRAM Data Saves cartridge battery backup data. Save SPC7110 Log Saves information generated by the SPC7110 custom chip. Rom Information Shows inforamtion about the rom loaded Reset Game Resets the current game. Pause Game Pauses the current game. Exit Exits Snes9X   Option Menu Video Configuration Show Frame Rate - Displays the frame rate of the current game. Stretch Image - Stretches the game display to fill a window or full screen display. Full Screen - All games that are opened are displayed in full screen mode. Bi-Linear Filter Mode 7 - Smoothes the image when a game uses the pseudo 3D mode 7. Render in 16Bit - Uses a 65535 colour display. (Required for some special effects) Transparency Effects - Enables effects such as the rain in Zelda or the water in DK Country. Hi-res Support - Lets Snes 9x use the 512 line modes used in some games. Output Image Processing - Lets you choose the display driver for Snes9x. Excellent if you have a Voodoo or OpenGL compatible card as you can benefit from faster, higher resolution graphics and also utilise the smoothing effects to lessen the jagged edges. Auto frame rate adjust - Automatically changes the frame skipping to keep a game running at full speed on slower computers. The slider below it is the manual frame rate selector. This Window lets you choose the resolution to display your games. I always recommend that you use the test mode option before commiting to a resolution just to make sure that your monitor / video card supports it! Audio Configuration Sync Sound - Makes sure that the sound runs at the same speed as the game. Sound Settings open this window... Sound Driver - Lets you pick which sound system Snes9X will use for sound Playback Rate - Determines the quality of the sound in games Mix Interval - This is the amount of time Snes9x waits before continuing making sound. Buffer Length - This is the memory used to store sound (It should be the same as the Mix Interval as you will get crackle. 16Bit Playback - Lets you choose whether to use 8Bit or 16Bit sound in games. Stereo - Enables the stereo sound used in games Reverse Stereo - There for those with your speakers around the wrong way. Linear Interpolation - Improves the sound quality by smoothing the sound waves produced by Snes9x. Generate sample data in sync... - Matches the sound made by Snes9x and the Snes sound CPU exactly. Volume Envelope Height Reading - Normalizes the sound channels Echo Effects - Enables the echo effects in Snes9x Cache decoded samples - Stores samples decoded by Snes9X's custom chip emulation in memory for fast access. Master Volume - Enables the control of the volume affecting all sound channels Mute sound - Turns sound off. Anti-Resonance's Sample Decoding... - Uses an alterate way to decode samples Enable Sound CPU Emulation - Tells Snes9X whether to use or ignore the sound CPU. This can speed up some games.   Joypad Configuration Lets you change the default keyboard settings. Just click a box and press a key! Emulation Configuration Freeze File Directory - The path for your save game files. Blank means the default directory. If you have followed the installation instruction enter C:\Program Files\Snes9x\states into the box. Auto Save S-RAM - If you save you position actually in a game, not using freeze files, this options lets Snes9x automatically save it to a file. Skip to a maximum of - Sets the maximum number of frames to skip in auto framerate mode. Skip Rendering - Lets you set the amount of frames skipped when using turbo mode for the Super Scope. Netplay Configuration Connect to server opens this window... This is where you will need to know the IP address of the server machine that you will be using. The port number must be the same on all machines connecting to the server. Disconnect from server - Disconnect from the server (for when its 3AM and you have to get up for work in 3 hours) Act as server - For the guy with the biggest mutha of a machine as this option uses extra CPU time. Resync all clients using freeze file now - If you are getting pauses in games then your out of synchronization. This option should resync everyone by saving the state of the server and transmitting it to the clients. Send rom image to clients now - Sends a rom image to a client if he/she is already connected. Send rom image to clients - Sends the ROM Image to a client as soon as they connect to the server. Options opens this window... Socket port number - for all players to communicate they all need to have the same socket port number. This is where you set the port number if you are the server. Client Only - If a system starts trailing behind the rest, this option pauses the server to let the slow system catch up. Sync using reset - Syncronizes all the systems using netplay. Sent ROM image to client on connect - Does what it says. Obviously copyright laws apply when dealing with distribution of roms. Act as server - The person with the biggest beast of a machine should always act as the server as more CPU time is needed. Cheat Configuration Game Genie / Pro Action Replay Codes - Lets you enter codes for either cheat system. According to the readme, codes can be found here. Search For New Cheats - Allows you to search for cheats manually. Read the readme file for information on how to do this. Apply Cheats - Enable / Disables the cheats you have entered or found. Set SPC7110 RTC - Sets the clock in games that use the SPC7110 chip. SPC7110 Cache Settings Part of the SPC7110 custom chip is used to decode encrypted data though it isn't complete yet. Load all Data into RAM - Will decode all of the data in a rom and store it in RAM for fast access. Load Some Data into RAM - Will decode a specified amount of data in a rom and store it in RAM for fast access. Read all data from file - Is used for games that have been fully decrypted and the data stored in files.   Top

Playing A Game

Open Snes9x by clicking its icon and you will see the opening screen like this To load a game just click on the file menu and select Open rom. This opens a file windows like this... Most of the settings at the bottom can be left on Auto-Detect. The only time you have to change them is when a game wont load (such as certain SuperFX games). Just select the game you want and click Open ROM. Hopefully you should be seeing a screen like this: . Now the game has loaded you need to know some keys. Control Keys Cursor Keys Up / Down / Left / Right Return Start Button Space Select Button a TL Button z TR Button s X Button x Y Button d A Button c B Button Keyboard Shortcuts Escape Show / hide the menu-bar Pause Pause the emulator Alt+Return Toggle between full screen and windowed mode ' Superscope turbo button # (~ in US) Superscope pause button Tab Turbo mode (fast forward) - for skipping long intros 0 Toggle H-DMA emulation on/off (Graphic Effects) 1 Toggle background 1 on/off 2 Toggle background 2 on/off 3 Toggle background 3 on/off 4 Toggle background 4 on/off 5 Toggle sprites on/off 6 Toggle swap joy-pad one and two around 7 Rotate between Multi-player 5, mouse on port 1, mouse on port 2 and SuperScope emulation. 8 Toggle background layer priorities for backgrounds involved in sub-screen addition/subtraction. 9 Toggle transparency effects on and off - only if 16-bit screen mode selected Backspace Toggle emulation of graphics window effects on/off Shift + F1 to F9 Save a freeze game file F1 to F9 Load a freeze game file, restoring a game to an exact position Ctrl + F4 to F11 Toggle sound channels on/off Ctrl F12 Turn on all sound channels Shift + "+" Increase emulated frame time by 1ms - slowing down the game. (auto-frame skip only) Shift + "-" Decrease emulated frame time by 1ms - speeding up the game. (auto-frame skip only) + Increase frame rendering skip rate, making the screen updates more jerky but speeding up the game - Decrease frame rendering skip rate, making the game update more smoothly, but potentially slowing down the game. Repeatedly pressing the key will eventually switch to auto-frame skip rate where the rate is dynamically adjusted to keep a constant game play speed. Ctrl + O Open Rom Alt + Del Stretch Image There are several more keyboard shortcuts for various menus but these were the most useful. Top

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