*************************************** * Snes97: Beyond Limits * * DOS Version * *************************************** NOTE: Any requests for commerical games will be either conveniently lost, e-mailbombed, flamed, forwarded to a piracy protect agency, or posted on a web page -- You have been warned! (I don't distribute either locations, or games, so don't ask!) 1. Introduction 2. What's new 3. System Requirements 4. Playing ROMS 5. Problems with ROMS 6. Speeding up emulation 7. Credits 1. Introduction --------------- This version is based on the original Windows 95 version written by Jerremy Koot. Porting the emulator to DOS was done by me, Chad Kitching. It terms of what SNES hardware is actually emulated, most graphics registers are emulated to some extent. There is no sound emulation at all and the lack of this causes problems for some ROMS. The mosaic effect, background clip windows and background color addition and subtraction are also not implemented. 2. What's new ------------- Some of you already tried Snes96, because of the major differences between Snes96 and Snes97, making a list of new features is impossible! A lot has been changed, some changes are better then others. Also a lot of features that were present in Snes96 aren't present in Snes97 yet! New in this version: * SPEED!!!! * Minor bug fixes. * Fixed bug in keyconf util. 3. System Requirements ---------------------- Due to the complex structure of the SNES you need a fast computer and a fast VGA graphics card. Recommended: * Pentium 133 or better * 16Mb RAM or more * VGA Compatible (Capable of Mode Q -- 256x256x256) * DOS 3.3+ (I think) * Either some commercial or freeware games/demo's 4. Playing ROMS --------------- Snes97/DOS does not include any type of shell for loading the ROM (nor will it ever). The syntax for loading snes97 is simple: SNES97D.EXE filename.smc [-f#] [-v#] [-a#] [-I] [-O] [-q] -f controls frame skip. '#' should be a number between 0 and 9. Note that 9 doesn't mean skip 9 frames, it actually skips a lot more. 0 turns off all frameskipping, however. '2' is default which displays every third frame. -v controls the vertical screen offset. This is an option especially for poor ATI Mach64 owners who have the screen offset way too high. Be careful with it. Setting it too high could crash the emulator, and possibly your computer. As high as 5 is considered safe under all conditions. NTSC games can use up to 9. The default is '5'. -a controls the audio skip method. There are three different method for skipping the APU calls. This takes a parameter from 1-3. Default is '2'. There is a method 4 that is very unstable, but it lets you run some games like metroid 3 that are tricky with their APU handling. -I De-interleaves a game before running it. -O Enables "old-style" joypad emulation. Some games require this. -H disables H-DMA. (NOT RECOMMENDED) -h Forces the game into hirom mode. -q Quiet mode. Especially for all you shell writers out there. It doesn't dump as much info to the screen, and starts emulation automatically. Note: These options can be in any order you like. They can be before or after the filename. It doesn't matter. You can also use Win95 long filenames with this program as well. (Provided you are running Win95 at the time) The keys are pre-defined and are: ----------------------------- This chart is WRONG, but will let | PC Keyboard | SNES Joypad | you find the proper keys to use ----------------------------- under the default configuration. | Left, Right | Left, Right | Use the program "keyconf", that | Up, Down | Up, Down | is included to modify the keys. | C | Start | | D | Select | The file it generates, SNES97D.KEY, | W, Q | L, R Button | must be in the current directory for | S, A | X, Y Button | it to take effect. | X, Z | A, B Button | ----------------------------- Special keys: 1-4 Toggles the BG layers. It helps you see things in certain games. 5 Trys to enable the screen (Never really does much, so...) 0 Switches between joypad 1 and joypad 2 - Reduces the frameskip and slows down the emulator, but decreases jerky movement. + Increases the frameskip, speeds up the emulator, but increases jerky movement. 5. Problems with ROMS --------------------- If the emulator just displays a black screen for over 20 seconds then one of the following is true: 1) The ROM is in a loop waiting for the Sound CPU to respond with a particular value and the sound wait skip code and the emulator is unable to skip the check correct. 2) The ROMS PAL/NTSC, SRAM or FAST ROM protection check has failed and the ROM has deliberately crashed itself. Only thing you could try is one of the utilities on the 'net that remove such protection. 3) If a ROM is using Mode 7, the screen may not be scaled to where you can see it. 4) Snes97 isn't compatible with the ROM yet, try future versions. 6. Speeding up emulation ------------------------ There are several ways for speeding up emulation. There are several 'safe' ways and several 'unsafe' ways. The 'unsafe' ways won't crash your computer but may crash the ROM that you are trying to play. Safe: A safe way to speedup emulation is by setting the -f# switch to a higher value, this will sometimes result in very jerky graphic emulation. A screen update every 5 frames will still allow reasonable gameplay, any higher values should only be used to skip intro's. 7. Credits ---------- This emulator could never be made without the support of several people on #EMU and without the support of ESNES, Gary(Linux/SunOS programmer) and several other people who I forgot to mention. Special thanks go to the beta testers from #EMU who beta tested Snes97 and made a compatibility list. DOS Version: Thanks to Marcel de Kogel for his excelent interrupt handling routines... Very special thanks go to Y0SHi, who was INVALUABLE to us while working on this emulator. SNES is a trademark of Nintendo. Windows95 and MS-DOS is a trademark of Microsoft. All other trademarks mentioned are a tradmark of their respective company. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ DOS port by Chad Kitching (Trepalium) EMail: trepalium@null.net Original program by Jerremy Koot (The Teacher) EMail:jkoot@euronet.nl