***************************************
                   *        Snes97: Beyond Limits        *
                   *          Windows95 / NT4.0          *
                   ***************************************

* Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. What's new
3. System Requirements
4. Playing ROMS
5. Problems with ROMS
6. Speeding up emulation
7. Credits

* 1. Introduction
-----------------
 Snes97 is a Super Nintendo Entertainment System Emulator for Windows95/NT4.0.
 It will allow you to play a lot of commercial games and freeware games/demo's.

 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 background color addition and 
 subtraction are not implemented. This causes priority problems in several games
 like Zelda III and Final Fantasy II.

* 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.
 
 Here is a small list of changes compared to v0.0.1.0:
  * Speed increased with 25 - 75 % !
  * Several bug-fixes.

* 3. System Requirements
------------------------
 Due to the complex structure of the SNES you need a fast computer and a
 fast windows graphics card.

 Recommended:
  * Pentium 133 or better
  * 16Mb RAM or more
  * 2Mb VRAM Windows Accelerated Video Card with DirectX v2.0+ support
  * DirectX v2.0+ that allows switching to 640x480x256 and 320x240x256
  * Either some commercial or freeware games/demo's

* 4. Playing ROMS
-----------------
 The usage of Snes97 is kept very simple:
 Load a SNES ROM using File->Open
 Reset the SNES ROM using Emulation->Reset

 The keys are pre-defined and are:
 -----------------------------
 | PC Keyboard | SNES Joypad |
 -----------------------------
 | Left, Right | Left, Right |
 | Up, Down    | Up, Down    |
 | CTRL        | Start       |
 | Shift       | Select      |
 | A, Z        | L, R Button |
 | S, X        | X, Y Button |
 | D, C        | A, B Button |
 -----------------------------

* 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, try a different APU skip method.
 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) 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 Emulator->Update Screen 
  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.

 * Unsafe:
  Because this changes the timing of the emulator, it could crash some ROMS.
  There are several ROMS that need precise timing, but using this to speedup
  emulation will still allow you to play the majority of games that are
  currently compatible. To speedup emulation the 'unsafe' way is to set the
  Emulator->Speed Settings to a faster value(Ranging from Very Slow[Very safe]
  to Very Fast[Not so safe]). Because you are setting the timing faster you
  will also have to speedup the emulator using the safe way. Several games
  will experience slowdown when a lot of sprites become visible.

 * Extra:
  When a lot of stuff happens on the screen(e.g. a lot of sprites) then the 
  emulator seems to slow down a lot, try setting the speed-settings lower.

* 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.
 
 Many special thanks go to Wizard (Cyber Force) who provided me with the SNES 
 Manual and with a lot of ROM files to test with.

 SNES is a trademark of Nintendo.
 Windows95 / NT4.0 / DirectX are trademarks of Microsoft.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Jerremy Koot a.k.a The Teacher is a member of Damaged Cybernetics
         You can EMail me at jkoot@euronet.nl or chat with me on #EMU