v1.3

Sections

Introduction Downloading ZSnes Installing ZSnes Installing Games Setting Up ZSnes Playing A Game

Introduction

After having already done a Snes tutorial for Snes9x I was apprehensive about doing a second but I was very impressed with ZSnes and its amazing amount of features. At the moment it has more features than Snes9X and has better compatability. It is also under constant development and therefore compatability can only improve. ZSnes features all of the Snes accessories from light guns to cheat cards. It also supports many of the custom chips used in Snes cartridges including the SuperFX 3D chip. I'll be honest the only reason I downloaded ZSnes was to play the wonderful game Pilotwings which I love severely. Since then I've got more into Snes games and I'll be honest again, ZSnes added 3 days onto the time writing this tutorial. You can find a little bit more history on the Snes in the Snes9x tutorial. Top

Downloading ZSnes

You can find the latest version of ZSnes from its homepage here. Top

Installing ZSnes

To install ZSnes you will need a copy of Winzip. All you have to do is to open the zipfile, press the extract button and type C:\ZSnes into to the path area of the window that opens. Once you have extracted the file you need to create the directory for the roms. 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 ZSnes 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! This is what the folder should look like... Another good idea is to create a shortcut on your desktop by simply right clicking over the ZSnes icon and selecting Send To and then desktop in the menu that appears. Top

Installing Games

To install the games you will need to place the zipped roms into the C:\ZSnes\Roms directory. If you are unsure on how to do this then try the basics tutorial. Top

Setting Up ZSnes

Open the ZSnes icon and you will see the following screen... Not much to look at to start with but heres what you can access from the menus... Menu 1 .. 0 Most Recent opened games Freeze Data On/Off Freezes the position of a game when you close it so you can return to it later Clear All Data Removes all saved freeze data Game Menu Load Load a game Run Run a paused game Reset Reset currently loaded game Save State Save game state Open State Load saved game state Pick State Pick which saved state to load Exit Exit From ZSnes Config Menu Input #1 to #5 To configure this option select which input you would like to configure. Select keyb/joystick and press set. You will notice that the boxes at the bottom change. The keys you see are the default keys if you want to set all of the main keys at once press the set keys button and you will see that the up box is highlighted. Press the key you want and you will see the box automatically move to the next one. Keep repeating this process until you are happy. To configure an individual key press the box then press the key you want. Add Ons To use an addon all you have to do is to select the one you want and close the window. The dip settings are for the VS super system arcade machine. Options Max Frame Skip Determines the maximum amount of frame ZSnes can skip to maintain a games speed. Auto Frame Rate Automatically determines how many frames are skipped to maintain a games speed. New GFX Engine Switches between the old and new graphics engine used in ZSnes. You might need this if you are getting messed up graphics in games. Auto Incrmnt Save Slot Automatically changes the save game slot when you save your game. MMX Support Enables/Disable support for processors with MMX support. Use PL3/4 As PL1/2 Useful if you want multiple keyboard / joystick setups as you can swap them around with just one click. High Priority Mode Makes sure that ZSnes has the maximum CPU priority on you system. You only need this if you are multitasking. FPS At Start Show the frames per second that a game is running at when it starts. Use 30HZ For Turbo Starts the ZSnes turbo at 30Hz not 60Hz Enable Game Clock Enables the realtime clock that is used by certain games. This uses your system clock. Toggled Fast Forward Changes how the fast forward button works. either held down or toggled mode. SRAM Check+Save Enable the automatic saving of Save Ram files. Old GFX Mode 2 If you are getting problems with transparencies in games then try this option and it may fix them. Start At Latest Save Sets the default saved state to the last one used. Auto State Save Load Automatically saves you games position when you exit ZSnes. Don't Save Our Path Stops ZSnes changing the default rom path if you use several directories. Disable Screensaver Disables the windows screensaver Use alternate timer. Use this option if ZSnes plays too fast on your system Video There are a few factors that can determine what you see in this window. The main factor is which graphics mode you use. To access the fancy screen effects you will need to pick a mode with a D next to it. If the mode says WIN then it is a windowed mode and if it says FULL then it's a full screen mode. The effects you can use are... Scanlines Uses thin blank lines to simulate the lower resolution TV screens. 2XSAI 2 x Stretch and Interpolate doubles the screen size and blurs out the edges of graphics. Super Eagle Engine The eagle engine smoothes out the edges of graphics Super 2XSAI An enhances 2XSAI mode. Interpolation Smoothes out the edges of graphics using blending. Hi-Resolution Mode7 Uses high resolution mode7 on all mode7 games even if they don't use it themselves. Greyscale Mode Makes everything run in black and white. Vsync Syncronizes the game screen to reduce "tearing" on scrolling games. Sound Fairly simple to follow as you see but the bottom options are... Disable Noise Sim. Disable the noise simulator in ZSnes. This can help on some games but muck up som others. Reverse Stereo Reverses the stereo sound. Surround Sound Adds 3D sound effects to games Sound Buffereing Allocates some memory for sound which should clear up clicks and pops in games. Disable SPC Emulations Disables the Snes SPC sound processor. Interpolation Smoothes out the sound produced giving a better reproduction. Lowpass Simulates the Low Pass bass boosting chip on the Snes. Cheat Menu Add / Browse The cheat section allows you to... cheat at games. It accepts codes from the Game Genie, Pro Action Replay and Golf Finger cheat systems. These cheats are entered as codes which you can get from the web. As you enter codes you can enter descriptions for each code and then save the whole lot as a .cht file. The fix button can be used to try and fix cheat codes that don't work. Search The search section allows you to search for values in memory such as life, score, etc. and allows you to change their values to your own preferred choice. Select Size : This part allows you to select the size of the numbers to check. The one byte option should suffice for most checks as lives etc are never normally higher. Select Format : DEC (Decimal, 0 .. 9), HEX (Hexadecimal, 0 .. F) Most of the time, it's recommended that could use decimal, although there are some cases that the values in memory are sometimes stored as hex. Search Type : Exact Value Search - This part helps you find and locate where the system is storing various numbers, such as lifes, coins, and hearts. Lets say you have 3 lives, search for the number 3. You'll get about three million hits, so continue playing untill your lives change. Lets say you grab a mushroom and now have 4 lifes, go back and search for 4. This will reduce the number of hits. Continue to search everytime you life changes. After 4 to 5 searches the hits will be reduced to 1. This is your number of lifes. Use the menu to save this location and to 'adjust' the number of lives you have. Change the number to 99 and play on.. Comparitive Search - In this mode, you select whether the value is less than, greater than, equal to, or not equal to the previous value. Such as if you have a life bar and if the life bar suddenly goes down, go back to the cheat search engine and select less than to search for any value that has been decreased. When you've pressed the start button this window will open... Netplay Menu This part is great as it lets you play multiplayer games over the internet. To use it you will need to know the other person IP address which can be found on the person you are conneting to's screen. Your IP address is shown next to where it says your IP. To run netplay type in your nickname, choose whether you want to be the server or a client (the person with the fastest machine should be the server as it uses some cpu time). If you are the server press "start as server" or if you are the client type in the servers IP address and press connect to server. Misc Menu Game Keys Here you can find the default keys and change them. To change a key all you have to do is to click the box next to the option you want to change and press the key you want to use. GUI Options This window changes how the GUI operates. This is fairly straight forward to follow. Movie Options To access this option you need to load a game. What it does is to save your actions during a game and let you play them back. It doesn't save it as a video file though and you can only play the saves in ZSnes. Key Combinations This option lets you set up special key combinations which ZSnes will do with one special key press. To use this you need to type a description, select the key box and press the special key. You will need to know the exact movement of the combination and re-enact the joypad movements and button actions using the three rows of buttons. The last row af buttons adds a delay after the movement if the game requires it. Press the add button when you're done and ZSnes will add it to the list so you can access it later. Save CFG Save the current ZSnes configuration. Top

Playing A Game

Load a game using the Game/Load menu. Here is a picture of a couple of games running on my system... You will find the default keys above but if you want to get on with it heres a quick start... Enter Start Button Cursor Keys Joypad Up, Down, Left, Right X Button A C Button B Top

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