First ZSNES Release In ~2.5 Years

Anonymous Coward writes "The best SNES emulator, and the only GPL one -- ZSNES -- has had the first release in almost two and a half years! Looks like those smart coders reverse engineered quite a few new special co-processors for this release as well."

Comments

Excellent!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yesterday I tested zsnes first time on my linux laptop and was blown away - excellent emulator!

And now I read about a new release - even better!

Re:Excellent!

[Elektroschock]

I really wonder why emulators such as dosbox and Zdnes are not better integrated in your desktop environment. I mean KcontrolCenter configuration modules, I mean a "just run" environment, where the whole emulator is nidden as a background process. The main advantage of gaming consoles is that you just insert the disk7cardrige and start to play.

Re:Excellent!

[stratjakt]

Oh yeah, well I'm not a fluxbox user, I want to double click a ROM file and execute it.

Not based on extension, I want a real filesystem with attributes, and it executes based on the "SNES" attribute.

There's no integration needed, just a good filesystem and good desktop environment.

Replace "ROM" with "digital photo" and "emulator" with "GIMP" if you want.

Re:Excellent!

[Creepy Crawler]

And if I recall correctly, Linux kernel does support MISC binaries.. Though Ive not looked far into it.

It does seem to allow execution of a binary through an emulation layer, as you suggested.

Re:Excellent!

[TravisWatkins]

If you mean binfmt then yes, it does support it. I use it to run Mono for .NET apps and WINE for Windows apps. Ubuntu set it up for me, I dunno if it would be hard to do elsewhere.

Re:Excellent!

[dubiousmike]

where is one supposed to find the roms? I can find 4 of them, all of which I have never heard of. Also, can I play without a gamepad, instead with the keyboard?

Re:Excellent!

[BlueCup]

yes, you can play without a gamepad... there are several sites that have SNES roms... torrent sites (that are still alive) for one, or Cherry roms. (I think its www.cherryroms.com... but not sure, just type in cherry roms in google) I think you have to sign up there, but unless things have changed, it's an easy sign up... I've run across others as well, if you go to www.zophar.net and check out their links, they typically link to a few different rom sites.

Re:Excellent!

[enrico_suave]

" I really wonder why emulators such as dosbox and Zdnes are not better integrated in your desktop environment. "

Well, as long as you can disable that integration... =P I like to use a front end to encompass all my emulators on my MAME arcade cabinet, and the emu's with their own gui's can tke away from the cohesive feel of the system i'm going for...

*Shrug*

rampy

Re:Excellent!

[HiGHTeK]

Because you can do that now as well. Just edit in you DE that SNES ROM files should be opened with Zsnes, et voila :)

Re:Excellent!

[superpulpsicle]

Try this link out. This is one of the FEW weblinks that still offer really good roms. And I do mean good... from SegaCD to SNes etc, all working. Someone from slashdot recommended this to me way back.

http://www.emuparadise.org/roms/

zSnes Dev team 3

[Tasy]

Actually, there have been work in progress releases all along. This is the first non-"beta" release in two years.

See you in WoW, pagefault. :D!

Re:zSnes Dev team 3

[DrStrangeLoop]

This is the first non-"beta" release in two years.

See you in WoW, pagefault. :D!

could it be that the duration of the work being in progress is caused by pagefault's interest in on-line role playing? sure enough sounds that way :)
makes you wonder how many great programs are still unwritten due to MMORPGS. or how many quests still need to be completed because of OSS.

anyway, is there a mac port? or any non-i386 port, for that matter?

Re:zSnes Dev team 3

[Anonymous Coward]

An emulator that has an x86 assembly GUI will not have a Mac port in the forseeable future.

2.5 years.. gad

[cente]

Gee, I thought snes emulation was perfect already! What a long time to put something out though... Everyone get out your "archived" snes games again!

Re:2.5 years.. gad

[Norgus]

Thats unfair, it most certainly is close. Just because some perfectionists are unpleased...

Re:2.5 years.. gad

[BradleyUffner]

It hasn't really been 2.5 years. There have been unofficial builds released every few months, they refer to them as "WIPs" or Work In Progres. The WIPs are awesome, each one fixed a bunch of bugs, and was rock stable.

Re:2.5 years.. gad

[Canar]

As someone else noted, SNES emulation is far from perfect. Perfection doesn't seem to be the goal of the ZSNES/SNES9x devs. Want perfection? Check out Meka or Kega Fusion, which emulate the Sega Master System/Game Gear and Sega Genesis, respectively. These two emus are coded expressly with the purpose of providing perfect emulation. The number of carts that don't work perfectly with Meka can be counted on one hand.

Re:2.5 years.. gad

[Eric S Raymond]

Which begs the question, why not make an emulator that emulates the entire machine, like Mame?

Okay I know that arcade machines are rarer and are dying out, but still, every few months an entire new complete machine is emulated perfectly on Mame.

There is MESS, www.mess.org, which is for computers mostly, and the new XE emulator inspired by Mame, linux-only.
http://www.xe-emulator.com/

I guess I answered my own question.

Re:2.5 years.. gad

[Anomie-ous Cow-ard]

Perfection doesn't seem to be the goal of the ZSNES/SNES9x devs.

Wrong. For example, I happen to know that a near-future version of snes9x (1.44 probably) will have an almost-completely rewritten renderer to finally do many things correctly. I don't know about those Sega systems, but correct SNES emulation is very complex...

And yes, the info is being shared with the zsnes devs too. And any other emu devs who want it and ask in the right places.

Re:2.5 years.. gad

[SphericalCrusher]

ZSnes was nowhere near perfect. I remember playing with it awhile ago, and getting angry while it crashed -- it made me use SNES9X (which was also a great emulator). ZSNES was just more compatible with all of the ROMS I had though, so I loved it more. I can't wait to check out this version. Harvest Moon time!

Best?

[SilentChris]

"The best SNES emulator"

Ho boy, flamewar. Personally I think SNES9x has been the best/most reliable, and has been updated far more frequently. And before people say "it's Windows only", it's not. I have a port sitting on my Mac OS X dock right now. Don't know if there's a Linux port.

Re:Best?

[theefer]

snes9x has a GNU/Linux port indeed. Not Free Software though, but (beer-)free and works fine.

Haven't managed to get the previous version of zsnes to work on my PPC GNU/Linux box, I should try this one when the ebuild is available.

Re:Best?

[Horse Rotorvator JAD]

I'll throw in a second vote for snes9x. As can be seen on their download page http://www.snes9x.com/downloads.asp they have ported snes9x to; Solaris, OpenBSD, Irix, N64, FreeBSD, AmigaOS, BeOS, RiscOS, SunOS, MS-DOS, HP-UX, MacOS, Linux and Windows.

It has a very easy to use and intuitive interface with all the options that one would expect from an emulator. It is stable and has played every single ROM I've thrown at it without a single problem. Whenever I set up a new USB thumbdrive with all my essential software, snes9x always goes on there.

Re:Best?

[tormedhammaren]

A Linux port exists. Heck, there is even an Amiga port.

Re:Best?

[stratjakt]

No need for a flamewar, the two teams put aside the moronic infighting years ago and have largely collaborated.

Back when, ZSNES was fast, because it was written in ASM. SNES9x was more compatable, because it was easier to tweak. And there was much boasting and bickering and it was basically an e-Penis contest between the two emus.

Eventually they came together.

Now, SNES9x got all its ASM code straight from ZSNES, ZSNES got its compatability and other features from SNES9x.

Both projects would suck without getting together. SNES9x would still be slow and chunky, ZSNES would be missing a lot of compatability and features.

Both are pretty good examples of what OSS projects can achieve when the authors put egos aside and focus on the end result.

Re:Best?

[phoxix]

I'll throw in a second vote for snes9x. As can be seen on their download page http://www.snes9x.com/downloads.asp they have ported snes9x to; Solaris, OpenBSD, Irix, N64, FreeBSD, AmigaOS, BeOS, RiscOS, SunOS, MS-DOS, HP-UX, MacOS, Linux and Windows.

Who cares ?

What you slashdot folks don't realize is that the maintainers of the various emulators are all sleeping in bed with each other. Maria Kendora* (snes9x), Nach, kode54, pagefault, _Demo_(zsnes) all work together to understand more about the snes because often the documentation and knowledge they have is so little about whatever odd chips were used in that one obscure game. They'll even resort to reading half-assed patent applications in hopes of sheding some light.

You can even join #zsnes on Freenode, and watch the developement of zsnes right in front of your own eyes. The developement of one OSS emulator is the developement of another. Especially with the tight knit community of coders/hackers.

~sd

* Yes, that isn't his name. Maria Kendora is just a joke about his real name.

Re:Best?

[NotAPirate]

I've got a snes9x port working on my 'kube via GC-linux, runs fullspeed :)

Re:Best?

[PhotoBoy]

Very true, if my memory serves the snes9x team donated a lot of their SuperFX code to the ZSNES team to get help it working. Between them they've created two excellent emulators.

I still remember the good old days when SNES sound emulation was just a dream! :)

Re:Best?

[incom]

i admit that I've never given snes9x much of a shot, mostly because I started with zsnes years ago, and it was fastest on my meager hardware, and so even though I don't need the most speed I can eek out to play snes games anymore(athlon64 these days) I'm still used to zsnes, and comfortable with it.

Re:Best?

[Bulln-Bulln]

I think ZSNES and SNES9x are on the same level in terms of functionality and compatibility - no suprise, because both teams worked together on important tasks. I use SNES9x, because it runs on my Mac. On Windows I prefered ZSNES, because I liked the GUI better, but that's just personal preference.

Don't know if there's a Linux port.
IIRC SNES9x had a Linux port when ZSNES was still DOS-only. :)

Re:Best?

[TerraFrost]

i don't know if Snes9x is truely better than ZSNES, but it's certainly better than most people give it credit for. Things that Snes9x has that ZSNES doesn't have include the ability to make tool assisted speedruns, output to AVI, and better memory mapping for BS-X roms. Also, Snes9x featured SDD-1 emulation (used in, among other games, Star Ocean) about a year before ZSNES did.

Re:Best?

[Doomstalk]

they have ported snes9x to; Solaris, OpenBSD, Irix, N64, FreeBSD, AmigaOS, BeOS, RiscOS, SunOS, MS-DOS, HP-UX, MacOS, Linux and Windows.

You'll never see zsnes ports for most of those systems because large chunks of zsnes are written in x86 assembly. To me that's a plus, because its hard for a higher-level language to beat assembly in terms of speed. zsnes is much faster than Snes9x, and therefore I can run it on older systems. Its true that it does suck if you don't run an x86-based box, but that doesn't make it inferior, just different.

Re:Best?

[stigmato]

The first release of Snes9x Linux was for Kernel 4.00.950

Re:Best?

[Doomstalk]

Snes9x was originally developed for Linux. Then some people came along and added MS-DOS support and the project snowballed.

My memory's a bit rusty, but I'm absolutely sure that's not true. Snes9x started as two projects, Snes96 and Snes97. Eventually they merged their code bases, hence the "9x" in the name. Both emulators were for DOS, so the concept of Snes9x starting as a Linux project is pretty much preposterous.

Re:Best?

[paladin217]

The issues about porting ZSNES are slowly being resolved. A lot of the work done for this release involved replacing a lot of assembly with C.
Since computers are so fast now, there is no need to try to squeeze every last bit of performance out of the processor by using assembly for SNES emulation. It may take a while, but I think the ZSNES may reach a point where it is written entirely in C.

Re:Best?

[Doomstalk]

Back when, ZSNES was fast, because it was written in ASM. SNES9x was more compatable, because it was easier to tweak. And there was much boasting and bickering and it was basically an e-Penis contest between the two emus.

Eh, that was mostly Jeremy Koot of Snes9x (example: Jeremy made the totally unfounded accusation that zsnes used source stolen from Snes9x). I know zsKnight (creator/former lead coder of zsnes) personally, and he's nice to a fault. He doesn't have it in him to get into a contest of egos.

Re:Best?

[Bulln-Bulln]

As you may know SNES9x is based on SNES96 (with Code from a different emulator called SNES97).
Here's a quote from the change log:

Initial release 0.1
- Ported Windows 95 version of Snes96 to Linux on a PC and Solaris on a
SparcStation.

Re:Best?

[Idealius]

SNES9x was originally developed using Allegro (a cross-platform Game Programming library).

That's why SNES9X has all of the ports it does.

ZSNES handles all of its sound, video, and input without a third-party cross-platform library.

ZSNES used to be much more popular in the old days (~1997) because it was faster than SNES9X.

Also ty for the update! The 100% CPU utilization feature/bug being gone is a huge plus, alone!

Re:Best?

[Mr Z]

This doesn't surprise me at all. As an emulator author myself (jzIntv), I've worked closely with other emulator authors to reverse engineer and understand all the corners of my chosen system of interest.

I've worked with the authors of Bliss, IntvWin/IntvDos, Nostalgia, IntvPC, Kinty and the MESS Intellivision driver to work out emulation bugs and understand the various odd machine details. The authors of those emulators also have worked with each other--it's not like I'm some central focus here. It's a friendly community.

It'd surprise me more if the emu authors couldn't get past their egos to such an extent that they simply didn't talk to each other except to flame.

Re:Best?

[Joe Tie.]

It depends on what computer one's talking about. On your computer, or mine, or that of most geeks, the speed isn't going to make much difference. There's still a massive amount of older systems out there though, which haven't been upgraded simply because the owners don't feel there's enough incentive to do so. I'm heading out on a post-christmas vacation in a couple days, and am defenitly going to be taking advantage of zsnes's extra speed on the older comuter in the mornings while I wait for every one else to wake up.

Re:Best?

[Joe Tie.]

Heck, there's even multiple dreamcast ports, and I've got it installed on my pda as well.

Re:Best?

[aichpvee]

My left nut has an intuitive interface. Can we all please find real reasons to support the software that we like and stop hiding behind buzzwords that distort the true meaning of the words?

And how much more intuitive do you need than "load rom"? Seems to me that damn near every emulator over 1.0 has an "intuitive" interfae.

BTW, ZSNES is better because it has snow effects.

Re:Best?

[Zorilla]

Isn't there a non-asm version? I don't remember hacving nasm required to compile it. At least there used to be pre-compiled versions without it when I used the MS-DOS version back in my Pentium 133 days (DOS versions of emulators were always faster for some reason).

Re:Best?

[Doomstalk]

ZSNES handles all of its sound, video, and input without a third-party cross-platform library.

Actually, that's not totally correct. The Linux port uses SDL, and the Windows port uses DirectX (not cross-platform, but its a 3rd party library nonetheless). I do believe that you're correct in that the DOS version handles/handled things on its own, though.

Re:Best?

[byolinux]

I remember the days when a SNES-CD drive was the dream. Oh wait, still is.

Curse you Sony! http://www.gamersgraveyard.com/repository/snes/his tory/snescdrom.html

Re:Best?

[Palshife]

Their download page also seems to feature dead links and pop up ads. Nice job, SNES9X team!

Re:Best?

[kbranch]

Uh... I don't think you quite understand what he's saying. There is NO GUI at all for anything other than Windows and Mac. Hardly what I'd call intuitive if you have to look up all the different switches to do anything other than play with the default config. I'd like to see you try to get it to run fullscreen with different key mappings without wasting 10 or more minutes on google.

Re:Best?

[X86Daddy]

Yes; there is a Linux port. It even runs nicely on the Sharp Zaurus!

http://www.killefiz.de/zaurus/showdetail.php?app=1 214

Re:Best?

[DataPath]

slowly, portions of the ZSNES code are making their way into C.

In the end, the difference between ZSNES and Snes9x will be whether you want an x86 asm core, or a C core.

Re:Best?

[Eric S Raymond]

The Emulator created by an ex-nintendo employee while working at Nintendo for development on PPC is called Silhouette:
http://www.google.com/search?num=20&h l=en&lr=&safe =off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aof ficial&q=Silhouette+nintendo&btnG=Search

Re:Best?

[dyefade]

I think the parent, like me, had a knee jerk reaction to ZSNES being called "the best". To be honest, they all do the same job, I just prefer Snes9X.

ZSNES has a better name though...

Re:Best?

[fredrikj]

Wouldn't that mean zsnes is fast enough to be run on an x86 emulator?

Re:Best?

[ultranova]

Isn't there a non-asm version? I don't remember hacving nasm required to compile it.

So go get NASM from http://nasm.sourceforge.net/ - go on, it's free :).

Of course, if you have Linux and gcc, it is likely to be installed already...

At least there used to be pre-compiled versions without it when I used the MS-DOS version back in my Pentium 133 days (DOS versions of emulators were always faster for some reason).

Under DOS, the emulator can draw to screen just by writing to a specific memory area. Under Linux (or Windows), the emulator has to ask the operating system to draw to the screen, which causes overhead. And, of course, under DOS there's no other programs competing for the CPU.

If the programmer is good and knows the hardware well, a DOS version will always beat Windows and Linux versions in performance. The only exception is disk I/O with 32-bit programs, since a 32-bit program running under DOS needs to switch to real mode to call DOS disk handling functions, and back to 32-bit mode afterwards. 32-bit operating systems don't require this. However, an emulator is usually CPU, not IO, bound.

Anyway, this new version seems to finally perform well under Linux. There goes my productivity ;)...

Re:Best?

[EvilJoker]

In the Pentium 133 days, ZSNES wasn't open source. It was strictly for DOS, no Windows, and certainly no Linux or Mac. When it was open sourced, the authors (zsKnight, _Demo_, and contributions by Pharos; pagefault came post-GPL) said they really didn't expect much to change, since it was all ASM and not a high-level language like most OSS.

And on a P133 w/ 32MB RAM & Win95 original, it ran around 20-30fps even without sound. (ZSNES 0.400)

Re:Best?

[CarrionBird]

Just because something is not portable does not mean it is bad code and should be abandoned.

Not everyone considers portability a "must have" in thier projects. (though comments should be regardless)

Re:Best?

[aichpvee]

The point I was making actually has nothing to do with snes9x which as far as I'm concerned isn't even worth the beating that a redheaded step child like it deserves. The point was about intuitive. And how all of you morons seem to think that "intuitive" in the context of software a) means anything at all and b) that GUI == intuitive.

Having a GUI hardly makes anything "intuitive", easy to use, or anything at all for that matter. Given the logic that is almost exclusively used alongside the word "intuitive" on /. my left nut would have an "intuitive" interface since it's graphical (20$ for wallpaper-sized photographic evidence) and you can interface with it.

Though yeah, I just tried snes9x for the first time in years and it really does blow the monkey's balls on Linux. It's almost as lame to use as gnome...

Re:Best?

[DataPath]

You lose.

Check the changelog - lots of C porting. Ask Nach. Check out the zsnes board, you might learn something.

From the website:
"Snes9x is coded in C++, with three assembler CPU emulation cores on the i386 Linux and Windows ports."

The three assembler CPU emulation cores are alternatives to the C++ cores. You can have an ~100% C++ snes9x, no assembly, or you can have one with some hand-tuned assembly for better performance.

Oh yeah, and the assembly cores were borrowed from ZSNES. Look at the source code.

Nice and all...

[Leffe]

... but we already got CVS builds once in a while from here:

http://www.ipherswipsite.com/

SNES9X

[acidblood]

I was always partial to SNES9X for some reason (perhaps it's the fact that they don't waste their time coding everything in assembly, as nobody should), and it's also open source. Whether it is GPL'd or not is just flamewar fodder -- most certainly the submitter's intention.

Re:SNES9X

[the_2nd_coming]

where do you get your ROMs from?

Re:SNES9X

[Andy Dodd]

I haven't had too much as far as good experiences with snes9x - zsnes is a lot easier to configure and has a lot of neat features.

But I agree that they really should have maintained C versions of all code for their emulator, especially in modern times when CPUs are more than fast enough to emulate an SNES without any assembly. As a result of the horrible dependence on assembly, ZSNES under Linux is missing a lot of features the Windows version has (such as HQ4X scaling, Linux only had HQ2X as of the last WIP I tried, which was only 1-2 months ago.)

Re:SNES9X

[Yosho]

You have to keep in mind that back when ZSNES was first being developed, computers weren't fast enough to emulate a SNES properly. I recall first using ZSNES on a Pentium 2, 300 MHz; not top-of-the-line, but a pretty good computer for the time. As far as I can recall, there weren't any SNES emulators that would run games at full speed, but ZSNES came pretty close; SNES 9x was more accurate, but also considerably slower unless most of the features were disabled.

Re:SNES9X

[Schnapple]

IIRC, ZSNES did release the source years ago - but all being x86 ASM (some portions in C) didn't do tons of people a ton of good.

Re:SNES9X

[DarkHelmet]

One of the features in 1.40 is listed as:

• - Cleaned up, overhauled, removed, and ported a lot of code (asm to C). [pagefault, MKendora, Nach]

I think they're addressing that shortcoming.

Re:SNES9X

[Karma Sucks]

I get all my ROMs here.

Re:SNES9X

[Bulln-Bulln]

It's been years ago when ZNES was 100% asm. IIRC in ZSNES was the emulator for Super Mario Kart's DSP chip (co-developed with the SNES9x team). that must have been in 1998 or something...

Re:SNES9X

[moosesocks]

ZSNES ran at about 90% frame rate on my Pentium-100. I never even noticed the missing 10% until I actually checked the frame-counter -- it was still better than playing a 'real' SNES.

It's a real testament to their coding skills.

Re:SNES9X

[mushroom blue]

untrue. Snes95/96 (which later became Snes9x) was able to run most games at full speed on a pentium 133. if you disabled transparency (or just didn't have a good DOS VESA driver), you could get it running full speed on a pentium 75Mhz.

not only that, but other SNES emulators like NLKSNES or ESNES were both able to run most games at full-speed on this hardware as well.

Re:SNES9X

[acidblood]

Regardless, I can assure you that it'd be just as fast if about 20% not 100% of the code were written in C. I'm not familiar with emulators, so maybe those 20% are actually 30 or 40%, but never 100%. I assert this as a speed freak and optimized assembly coder (did a couple of cores for distributed.net). It's just a complete waste of time to write, say, GUI code and file handling in assembly.

Actually, I'd go so far as to hypothesize that ZSNES would be faster if it were written in C/C++ with careful assembly optimization only where needed: the higher productivity associated with a high-level language would mean more time to optimize the parts of the code where speed really matters.

Re:SNES9X

[Andy Dodd]

Except that the C is so closely tied into the assembly code that it's impossible to tweak the C code without totally reworking the ASM.

I've tried... The C code depends too much on large chunks of ASM.

Re:SNES9X

[Anonymous Coward]

what a crock shit. dozens of banners and you have to use login/pass which you get by becoming a member at their (probably suckass) forum and post 10 posts.

use edonkey and let those fucking morons dry out.

Re:SNES9X

[DataPath]

ZSNES isn't all in assembly, and there are (slow, painful) efforts to port all the GUI code to C.

Re:SNES9X

[Mock]

This is usually how emulation projects work. The biggest bottlenecks are: CPU emulation, gfx engine, and sound engine (which can get pretty complex when it comes to DSP support).

The rest of it (loaders, input, user-interface, and glue logic) can be done in C/C++ with no discernable slowdown.

The problem with using a higher level language for CPU emulation especially is the creation/destruction of stack frames when making function/method calls. GCC is pretty nice in that you can tell it to forego some of the standard parts, but it still can run pretty high, and all that setup/teardown for a simple call to increment a virtual register really adds up.

With assembly, you can just "reserve" some registers for work, others for the virtual registers, and then make use of your native call functionality. The G65816 core of the SNES is not that complex (I've written one myself), so it's definitely possible to keep most of the state information in registers for most modern CPUs.
You can also cheat in assembly by using your host CPU's status register to calculate some parts of the "virtual" status register of your emulated CPU.

I think the hardest part is trying to write code that is friendly to the host CPU's branch predictor. You can write code that is technically clean and tight, but if it keeps triggering an instruction pipeline flush, it's worthless.

Re:SNES9X

[rreyelts]

I think the hardest part is trying to write code that is friendly to the host CPU's branch predictor.

This is where dynamic recompilation comes in. When you dynamically recompile the target binary, instead of interpreting it, you can remove all of the unpredictable branches you get when you interpret. Dynamic recompilation allows your code to be clean and fast.

I wrote a basic dynamic recompilation core for a Z80 emulator on the JVM.

Re:Slashdot pranked

[PornMaster]

Well, if data size is in Libraries of Congress, I think we should measure time in RTFAs.

Geez

[AvantLegion]

I just finished installing the old version!

Re:Geez

[bert.cl]

Me too, I guess using Gentoo wasn't such a good idea afterall (Yeah, it's meant to be a joke, if you don't like it, don't laugh en just ignore it. And no, I'm not a gentoo user)

Reccomendation

[labratuk]

For anyone wanting to play SNES games I highly reccomend looking in your kernel documentation about how to hook up your SNES controller to work with the gamecon driver. Only takes about 10 minutes.

Re:Reccomendation

[Anonymous Coward]

Or if you have the cash to burn, buy:

1. A SNES to USB adapter.

2. A premodded USB SNES controller (basically a SNES controller that's been gutted and replaced with new hardware to make it a USB controller).

Re:Reccomendation

[kesuki]

why do either of those if you're spending cash, you may as well get the Gravis GamePro USB (around $15 USD) It's shaped like a PSX controller, which makes it somewhat similar to the SNES controller, but allows you to map a few extra buttons... I've noticed the D-pad is a bit more sensative than a standard console d-pad, but it's never been something I couldn't play around. (especially since most emulators will let you use both the keyboard and the joystick inputs) Looks like SNES emulation doesn't have much of anything left to be emulated. I strongly reccomend the super famicom wars game if you can find it. It has a number of gameplay abilities (super tanks, Railroad Guns, fighter-bombers, short range SAMs, and Battleships can both hit AIR and ground units.) none of those features are in any of the GBA releases, Although Neo tanks are kinda like Super tanks (except you can have more than 1, you don't need a special property to convert an infantry into a neo, unlike the 'super tank'...
SFC wars only has 3 or 4 railroad missions, but they're still pretty sweet, a lander that can only move via rail and rail connected cities, has 1+/+1 range over a rockets, has a longer move range than a jet fighter. It's pretty damn sweet ^^

Re:Reccomendation

[Roofus]

It's right below the ShutThe FuckUp option in the config. What are you, blind?

Re:Reccomendation

[Anonymous Coward]

He is a bitter BSD user. Their little rants are so precious.

Re:Reccomendation

[Rhone]

Ugh, I despise the Gravis Gamepads. I bought a pair of old Gravis Gamepad Pros off of eBay a while ago, thinking they would be perfect for playing emulated SNES games.

For some games they were bearable, but for most of the games I was playing the pad was horrible because it is unreasonably difficult to press STRAIGHT in one direction without accidentally going diagonal. This made games like Street Fighter 2 unplayable.

I'm much happier with a standard PS2 controller + PS2->USB adapter.

Re:Reccomendation

[Anomie-ous Cow-ard]

Looks like SNES emulation doesn't have much of anything left to be emulated.

There's plenty, it's just that most of the 'big' stuff is mostly done. But there are still a few big things and many many small details.

A little OT, but...

[NickisGod.com]

When can we expect a new version of Aerobiz?

(and I mean after Supersonic, which is IMO, one of the best SuperNES games)

Re:A little OT, but...

[Kyouryuu]

The game's manufacturer, Koei, still makes regular releases of their Romance of Three Kingdoms and Dynasty Warriors series. They are still known for their tactical strategy games. Aerobiz was a very unique game since it dealt with corporate strategy in a way very different from more comtemporary games of that ilk (SimCity, etc) but I haven't heard about any plans to bring it back.

For the uninitiated, Aerobiz and its sequel Aerobiz Supersonic were two games released on the SNES and Genesis. The aim of each was to become the most profitable airline in the industry. You could play the game at different points in time - the dawn of airplanes for business commutes all the way to Concorde-like supersonics. To win, you would have to oversee buying various real-life planes (Boeing, Lockheed, Airbus, etc), slots at worldly airports, and compete directly with three other companies who were also vying for the same assets. You would try to have a hub in each continent and grow the airline from there with large transoceanic flights. If a particular route was not profitable, you could alter its ticket prices, switch to a smaller plane, or other various options. The game actually had a board of directors you could meet with for advice (similar to SimCity's "Advisors"). Additionally, you could diversify your business by purchasing hotels or golf courses in respective cities. Various events, like the Summer Olympics and disasters, like fuel crises, war or worker strikes, would also influence your growing business. One of the features that made Aerobiz unique was that it was multiplayer. Although you had the option of making any number of them AI, the three other corporations could be other players. Granted, it's rather slow-paced and geeky, but it's arguably the closest thing there ever was to a competitive simulation game.

Re:A little OT, but...

[Professor Oompa]

I agree.. my friend's and I would sit around and play Aerobiz and supersonic through the night years before we ever heard of a LAN party. We've tried to buy a few games that sounded similar, but nothing has ever been even close to as fun.

Re:A little OT, but...

[rinkjustice]

Aerobiz was the best. I remember playing that game with my buddies long into the night. The thing was it was hard to beat someone who had their headquarters in New York, LA, Tokyo or London. I always picked an underdog like Mexico City or Vancouver :)

Thanks for reminding me of that awesome game!

i download mine from the internet

[Trepidity]

you could also try building a cartridge reader, i suppose

Re:eh, Super Mario Kart still doesn't work

[Anonymous Coward]

Super Mario Kart has worked fine for years, your copy of SMK is probably no good.

The utility here http://nsrt.edgeemu.com/ is closed sourced but exists for a lot of platforms and can tell you if your copy of the game is good or not.

Sheeshhh

[MemoryDragon]

Now after 1 1/2 years the compliation of the old version on my Amiga is done, now they have released a new one, time to start compiling again...

old Interface :(

[Anonymous Coward]

bah, they still have that old "demo coder" interface. keyboard is qwerty even though i have configured otherwise in windows. no window borders, mouse speed is hardcoded. what a bullshit.

while it's nice and all that they further developed an app from the days where speed was crucial, they should at least adapt to some basic guidelines regarding gui design.

they may be talented in hacking year-old chips and code handoptimized assembly but they sure as hell have no clue about clean software design.

Re:old Interface :(

[spectre_240sx]

I must admit that I was hoping for a new GUI when I first saw this article. Honestly though, I'd never complain because they've done a lot for everyone already.

Re:Slashdot pranked

[Rod Beauvex]

I actually found that funny. I can't laugh too much though, as I am an American.

Anything to warrant another glance?

[WWWWolf]

I see a lot of fixes in the list, but since it's getting late, I can't read well... =/

Is there anything at all to warrant another glance at it? I used to think ZSNES was pretty damn cool, until I noted that SNES9X has actually working hardware screen scaling (through OpenGL - hardware scaling was pretty damn relevant on a P3-600 which I used until this month...) ...and another thing I had going for SNES9X was that there was an OS X port of it, too, so I could use the very same NVRAM files on all computers I could theoretically use. For me, it seemed like the best of the open-source SNES emulators, everyone said ZSNES was good on MS-DOS and not really anything else.

So I suppose they're getting really great emulation quality now, though... is there hardware scaling now? Since it now seems to use SDL, will there be a Mac port?

Just curious...

Re:Anything to warrant another glance?

[Andy Dodd]

ZSNES has had hardware scaling via OpenGL for quite a while. Although my favorite so far has been 4x software scaling with HQ4X (which is a scaling algorithm that is designed specifically for video games, which typically have lots of line art. HQnX attempt to perform pattern detection on the input graphics in order to guess what it's supposed to look like, and for most video games, the HQnX algorithms and their predecessor 2xSAI work quite well.) Of course, nowadays I follow HQ4X with further hardware scaling on my laptop's 1600x1200 screen. :)

Not sure how hard it would be to get the SDL Linux code to work under OSX... Might not be hard at all.

Re:Anything to warrant another glance?

[mdamaged]

The most notable imo, is the S-DD1 emulation which is brand new, because previously I had been using zsnes 1.36 and it did not have it, so one can play games like Star Ocean without the graphics packs.

Re:Anything to warrant another glance?

[entrigant]

I've been using opengl in zsnes for over a year, maybe two... where'd you get the idea that it didn't do it?

Where are the ROMs?

[kaedemichi255]

It's good to see a solid GPL'ed emulator, but where does one get ROMs without running into legal issues? What are the legal details about attaining ROMs?

Re:Where are the ROMs?

[Anonymous Coward]

The legal details are not different from those of downloading movies or MP3s. Yes, it is illegal, but currently safer to download (from websites, or from a gnutella server - just do a search for: snes roms) as companies are currently not as adamant about protecting their old games.

Re:Where are the ROMs?

[Joe Tie.]

I have a wildcard unit which can transfer roms from a cartrige. Even then there's a question of legality. Common sense says that there's nothing wrong with making copy of something I've purchased as long as there's no intent to distribute it, nintendo says there is.

Re:Where are the ROMs?

[Morlark]

From http://www.safetyed.org/help/alert/copying.html :

"You make backup copies of all your computer software programs, in case any of the original disks get damaged.
- That's fine! And very wise too!"

I'd not heard about these Nintendo claims, but they are total rubbish. I have never been told by any source that I trust that copying stuff like this is illegal. (Except in special cases, like where there is encryption being used, e.g. in DVDs.) I'm sure there are more authoritative sources out there than the link I posted, but that was merely the product of 2 minutes searching. And I can guarantee that they will all agree that copying is ok, as long as you're not distributing.

Disclaimer: The above statement is not a guarantee. :P

Re:Where are the ROMs?

[dyefade]

I think you can use a romfile IF it came from a romdump of the cart you own. Even if you download a rom you own the cart of, that would still be illegal.

I hated the Gravis GamePad Pro USB's D-pad

[tepples]

I've noticed the D-pad is a bit more sensative than a standard console d-pad, but it's never been something I couldn't play around.

I have never been able to consistently press straight down on the Gravis GamePad Pro USB. It almost always goes down and to the right. Currently, I use an official Sony PlayStation controller through an EMS USB2 adapter, which also lets me play StepMania on my dance pad.

License is not as clear as the GPL.

[jbn-o]

Whether it is GPL'd or not is just flamewar fodder -- most certainly the submitter's intention.

Do you have any evidence to support the assertion that making mention of the license was "flamewar fodder" and that it was indeed the intention of the poster?

The Snes9x license I found has a curious passage:

"Snes9x is freeware for PERSONAL USE only. Commercial users should seek permission of the copyright holders first. Commercial use includes charging money for Snes9x or software derived from Snes9x."

I don't know what "freeware" means and the license doesn't define the term (as is common for licenses to do). The term is not a legalistic one. In the end, I don't know what rights that confers upon me for "PERSONAL USE" (capitalization is theirs) which are denied to "commercial" users. The use of such language suggests to me that this license is somewhat homegrown which is very unwise. I'm also curious how the copyright holders would enforce usage (that is, merely running the program) as opposed to copying, preparing a derivative work, or distributing copies (the copyright powers that come up most commonly for computer programs). By contrast, the GPL is well-understood and written by lawyers. It appears to grant the rights this license attempts to and implements the copyleft provision.

"The copyright holders request that bug fixes and improvements to the code should be forwarded to them so everyone can benefit from the modifications in future versions."

I would have recommended this passage not appear in the license lest it be misinterpreted as a request (which would definately disqualify it for being free software, but not necessarily disqualify it for being open source). They could have moved it to a README file and worded it more clearly as something they would like people to do, but not something required of anyone preparing an improved version.

I don't know whether this license would qualify as open source, as you say. But I know for sure that the GPL, the preeminent free software license, does qualify as an open source license.

Re:Ahh I remember the days.

[Zorilla]

Man, remember how the wind in the intro in FF3 sounded before noise wave emulation was introduced? BWWUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUWWWEEEEEEEIIIIIIIWWWWWUUUUUUU!!

How long...

[Zorilla]

...until Debian users get to see this in the unstable branch? Still waiting for Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 to get introduced - might be a while.

Re:How long...

[dtfinch]

I'm still waiting to see FireFox 1.0 in Ubuntu.

Re:How long...

[Zorilla]

Yeah, Ubuntu was the first thing I was looking at when I was getting rid of SuSE, but of course I had to have the huge user base of Debian, so I went with that instead. Quite nice for finding third party package trees for things the official ones wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole (think libdvdcss).

Re:How long...

[robotoverflow]

1.40 might hit ubuntu before debian, so you could probably pull it from their repositories without too much fuss. The xserver-xorg package reportedly works just fine with debian, so I'd assume that something like zsnes shouldn't cause any troubles either.

Re:Cubic Spline Interpolation?

[Andy Dodd]

As one other poster said, samplerate conversion for sound is one reason. The other reason would be for graphics scaling.

Wow linux requires kernel rebuild for a joystick?

[glrotate]

That kinda sucks.

Re:Wow linux requires kernel rebuild for a joystic

[labratuk]

No. These are just the instructions on which pins to solder to which pins of the parallel port. Most distros will probably have the gamecon module built and ready to use.

Troll.

Re:eh, Super Mario Kart still doesn't work

[Chemical]

Plus now you can play over the internet! Check out zbattle.

Release notes

[Spy der Mann]

Taken from the official site:

ZSNES News
Dec 25th, 2004 - _Demo_
We are releasing the new ZSNES version 1.40 today. We hope you will enjoy it!

Merry Christmas

The ZSNES Team

------------

What's new:

DOS Only:

* - Fixed cublic spline interpolation. It should actually save the option now! [pagefault]
* - Fixed other various DOS sound bugs. [Nach, pagefault]
* - Fixed a frameskipping bug. [pagefault]

Linux/SDL/POSIX Only:

* - Updated icon. [cdbsi]
* - Updated Linux video code to Windows Version. [pagefault]
* - Fixed problems with nVidia cards. [Diablo-D3]
* - Fixed audio problems with broken drivers. [Diablo-D3]
* - Added 48khz sound support. [pagefault]
* - Updated joystick input support. [theoddone33, Sander]
* - Fixed Savestate incrementor, this caused some crashes. [pagefault]
* - Cleaned up the Linux Autoconfigure [Diablo-D3]
* - Added a couple of things for the start of BeOS compatibility. [theoddone33]
* - Fixed 16->32bpp LUT Related bug. [kode54]
* - Added hardcoded alt-enter fullscreen toggle. [theoddone33]
* - Added dialog for why the video mode couldn't be set. [theoddone33]
* - Added Circle buffer patch (savestate fix). [zinx]
* - Fixed problem with man page when installing (when man1 directory doesn't exist). [hpsolo]
* - Fixed cmd line sound quality. [pagefault]
* - Fixed zlib and libpng issues. [theoddone33, pagefault]
* - Updated libpng Version checking [theoddone33]
* - Added -lm to acinclude.m4 so AC_TRY_RUN doesn't return negative on some systems looking for libpng. [theoddone33]
* - Overhauled Makefile. [theoddone33]
* - Fixed install target, -D should not be used. [theoddone33]
* - Added the name of the start address to the error message, when mprotect fails. [theoddone33]
* - Update config.sub. This allows configuration on 64bit targets, and requires autogen.sh to be rerun. [theoddone33]
* - Added HQ2X filter! [MaxSt, pagefault, zinx]
* - Snapshots now use the full ROM file name. [Nach]
* - Prefixed Snapshots with leading zeroes. [Nach]
* - Renamed Linux Version to SDL. [pagefault]

Windows Only:

* - Updated icon with Windows XP compliancy. [cdbsi]
* - Added new disable screensaver code. [pagefault]
* - Added a CPU utilization fix. [kode54, pagefault]
* - Added 48khz sound support, updated sound code, and fixed sound bugs. [pagefault, Nach, ipher, StatMat]
* - Fixed a couple of input bugs, such as one concerning the 5th joystick and another that made the mouse get stuck in an endless loop. [pagefault]
* - Removed alternate timer. [pagefault]
* - Fixed Netplay freezing bug. [pagefault]
* - Many new video features, including (but not limited to): HQ2X, HQ3X and HQ4X graphic filters, support for hi-res and D modes in 32bpp windowed mode (now default), new aspect ratio code for scaling, and the KitchenSync (usable only via the commandline). [MaxSt, pagefault, Darkfalz]
* - Fixes for video code errors, such as those that occured when alt-tabbing in fullscreen, MMX interpolation fixes, and blitter fixes. [pagefault, zsKnight]
* - Snapshots are now numbered and use the full ROM file name. [Nach]
* - Renamed Windows version to Win32. [pagefault]
* - Win32 port can now also be compiled with MinGW (but we won't support it till the next release). [Nach]

All Ports:

* - Added multiple timing tweaks, fixed various emulation bugs, and many other technical updates, including (but not limited to): SPC core updates (with improved sound decoding), safer memory allocation in certain areas, HIRQ and VIRQ fixes, color add/sub and color bleeding fixes, HDMA improvements, sprite priority and flickering fixes. Many more games work :D. [pagefault, _Demo_, Nach, TRAC, Overload, theoddone33]
* - Overhauled a lot of code, such as checksum calculation and mirroring code. Overhauled and added much better EHi/Hi/Lo ROM code, improved reset vector, changed much hard coding to variables. Fi

I'm waiting on...

[Guppy06]

... an update to SNES-Station. Lord knows I can't get the current version to even boot at this point...

A PS2 port of It Might Be NES, one that would let me run it off the hard drive, would also be nice.

romnation.net

[Eric S Raymond]

or planetemu.net

or
www.rom-world.com

a little off topic

[hairyfeet]

I know i'm a little off here,But does anyone know what's with the voting crap on the rom(and spreading to other)sites?I always figured it was a way to do some sort of activex spyware driveby crap.But with regards to the internet i've always been a little bit paranoid ;) As for emu's,i vote(pun alert)for snes9x and kega.Both alway run fast and bug free for me and in the end thats all that matters.

for roms,can't beat the mule with a stick

[hairyfeet]

you can get every sega master,genesis ,supernes,nes,gameboy,gamegear,atari,coleco all packed in these handy zip files.Just and the emu(although i've never heard of anyone having trouble with the ones that come with them)and you're good to go.Yes,they are illegal but so is everything in the u.s of corporate america.As long as the burning eye of the corporate tower doesn't see you it is all good.

Re:Ahh I remember the days.

[Too many errors, bai]

Damn, I remember the wind blowing on top of the castle in Chrono Trigger. It sounded like a fog horn.

It's all great but

[alexo]

when will we see viable (read: fully functional) emulators for more modern systems like the Sega DreamCast? (I am not even talking about the current crop of consoles: XBox, PlayStation-2 and GameCube).