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================================================================= NESticle Version 0.32 (5/16/97) by Bloodlust Software "The only NES emu with elephantitus" (TM) ================================================================= Death to the defiler. Do not ask about SNESticle (or anything else you want emulated). --------------------- What it is --------------------- NESticle is a DOS/Win95 based emulator for the Nintendo Entertainment System written in C++/Assembly. The core is essentially the product of 2 weeks of boredom and a smattering of effort. It is freeware and it is not to be distributed with game ROMs and it is not to be modified or sold. The CPU emulation is based on a modified version of Neil Bradley's (neil@synthcom.com) assembly m6502 core. A majority of the NES technical information used to create this came from Marat Fayzullin's (fms@freeflight.com) great NES.DOC and a lot of 'hacking' on my own. Sound information was provided by Y0SHi (yoshi@parodius.com) from his NES technical document. His doc did not exist until recently, but it is updated quite often. --------------------- What's New --------------------- Version 0.32: - v.32 will not netplay correctly with older versions - Experimental mapper #5,#6,#8,#11 support - Partial 100-crappy-games-in-1 mapper support (iNES mapper #15) - Some MMC1 changes (RcProam 1) - NES ROM header editor - DOS GrIP support (see Input Devices) - Windows->DOS clipboard pasting put in DOS (Shift-ins or Ctrl-V pastes) - Record/play NES movies (*.nsm) - Some DOS SB driver changes (fixes?) for single cycle DMA (DSP<2.00) - Some DirectSound tweaking, better sound (maybe) at the expense of higher latency - Interactive joystick calibration/button remapping (see Input devices) - Game Genie codes and general ROM patching (see Rom Patching) - Should gracefully exit (hopefully) if NESticle runs out of memory. 8MB under DOS is highly recommended - Scrapped the binary config file 'NESticle.cfg' and opted for a completely text based config file (see Command line options) - Detects mouse driver now instead of using it blindly (DOS) - Additional ModeX modes, 256x240 and 256x256 (DOS) - Menu options accessed using ALT now (ie, ALT-l loads a rom) Did this to resolve ambiguities with edit controls, keyb input, and menu - Log wave output now writes .WAV files (95 only) - Added '-sndblksize' command line option. - Some directory and longfilename stuff fixed - Some key changes (unified pause/resume with alt-p and reset with alt-r) - Labelled window buttons Version 0.31: - Some changes in Netplay, default ports changed to reflect this. v.31 will not netplay correctly with older versions - Big resynching problem fixed when a reset occurs in netplay - Spacebar key does nothing now, ESC hides gui and maximizes game window - Some iNES Mapper #7 support added (Wizards & Warriors 1/2) The mirroring isn't quite right, but at least they run for now. Ensure that their headers contain the # of 16k banks, NOT 32k - Finally, long fucking file names under DOS (MSDOS 7.x under 95) If they cause problems, disable with '-disablelfn' - Log wave output feature added (Win95 only) - Uses asynchronous functions to resolve local host (no more hanging under win95 w/o being connected to internet) - Calibrate button actually calibrates the joystick (who would have thought) Center it then push the button...calibrate under win95 with the control panel - BRK instruction fixed (DW1 works again) - Louder triangle wave (normalized sound constant as well) - Seperate dirs for different file types (see command line options) - "Read only" roms now load - Longer default VBlank interval (fixes many games) - Reverted to using DOS4GW, apparently some people were having problems with the PMODE/W extender so DOS4GW was put back in. If you liked PMODE/W better you can always download it and bind it to the EXE PMODE/W is avaliable at http://www.di.net/pmw Version 0.3: - PPU mem address wrapped around now - Sound settings dialog added (soundconstants fixed) - GUS support - Pattern editor - Resorted to multi-threading under 95 to compensate for DirectSound being such a living pile of shit (still not fixed totally) - Fixed sprite clippings - Triangle wave channel fixed - Noise channel implemented - Enter/Tab work when GUI disabled or game window has input focus - Cycle timings fixed - Hitflag/Split screen improved - PCX snapshots saved to 'snap??.pcx' - Netplay TCP/IP or IPX (Win95 only) - 'sndconstant' command line option added - 'swapbut' command line option replaced by 'remapbut' - Ctrl/Alt now mappable to keyboard input devices - Default keys for keyboard #1 are B/A=Ctrl/Alt - Command line now read from 'default.w95' and 'default.dos' - Dumb bug in MMC1 fixed (Zelda 2 works) - IRQ's for MMC3 fixed - DOS4GW replaced by PMODE/W (its a little faster and its a lot smaller) If it causes problems, DOS4GW can still be used (run "dos4gw nesticle") If you get a "Unable to allocate framebuffer selector" error, use DOS4GW. Version 0.21: - You can change directories now when you load roms. - Sound cards under DOS that do not support auto-initialized DMA transfer have been fixed, i hope. - Now uses a secondary sound buffer for mixing as opposed to using the primary one (under Win95 DirectSound). This should make it more compatible. Also is using a timer callback to update the buffer, should eliminate some static. DirectSound is atrocious. - 'swapbut' command line option added. Swaps the A&B joystick buttons - 'palfile' command line option added. Now you can use multiple-palettes. - The new palette was thankfully provided by Loopy (loopy@itsnet.com). Version 0.2: - Initial release --------------------- What it does --------------------- NESticle emulates the basic NES hardware, along with several of the memory mapping chips used by various games. As of now, it runs a majority of games although there are still a few bugs and glitches here and there. What's emulated: -6502 CPU -PPU -VRAM/VROM -Horizontal/Vertical mirroring -Scrolling -Multiple split screens (although some glitches still) -8x8 and 8x16 Sprites -Dual joypads -iNES Memory mappers 0,1,2,3,4 (5,6,7,8,11,16 partial) -Battery backed RAM -Sound emulation Other neat features: -Multiple save states -Joystick/GrIP support -Network play (Win95 exe only) -"Friendly" GUI -VESA/DirectDraw support -Fullscreen 256x224 VGA mode (DOS only) -Save .pcx snapshots -Editable pattern tables (CHR/tile/vrom) -iNES single file cart format -Virtual frame speed not system dependant -Wave output loggable -Editable palette (I dont have the correct colors) --------------------- What it doesn't do --------------------- All of the sound channels are not emulated entirely correctly. Lots of tweaking needs to be done. Particularly the frequency sweeps which are responsible for most sound effects. The sound mixer still needs to be rewritten in assembly as well. You can turn the sound off if it gets on your nerves. If you notice the sound "breaking up" or becoming staticy, try lowering the sampling rate. Apparently some systems can't handle low-latency streaming with DirectSound so increasing the size of the mixing block with -sndblksize may help some DirectSound problems. I'm not sure how the PCM channel works exactly. GUS support is preliminary. I'll put in turbo/autofire settings later. Lightgun support. Better pattern editor. Native Ensoniq support --------------------- What you get --------------------- There are 6 files: DOS4gw.exe : 32-bit DOS extender NESticle.exe : The 32-bit DOS version NEStcl95.exe : The Win95/NT Directdraw version NESticle.pal : The NES palette (256 colors in RGB format) gui.vol : Extra graphics stuff for the gui readme.txt : This file Note that it does not come with ROMs. It will never come with ROMs. And it must never be distributed with ROMs. Distribute it with ROMs and you die. Ask me for ROMs and you die. --------------------- What you need --------------------- A 486 or Pentium running DOS or Windows 95/NT. For the Windows version you MUST HAVE DirectX Version 3.0. It's available somewhere on Microsoft's labyrinth of a website. I'd recommend at least 16MB of memory for the Win95 version. NESticle can take advantage of VESA 2.0 support if it exists. If it does not exist, NESticle will resort to only the video modes 320x200, 256x224, 256x240, 256x256. You need about 8MB of memory for the DOS version. To play larger games, 4MB of memory will just not cut it. The DOS version currently supports 8-bit or 16-bit Soundblasters or compatible, or the Gravis Ultrasound. 16-bit preferred, of course. The Win95 version utilizes DirectSound for digital output (which sucks horribly). --------------------- How to work it good --------------------- If you can figure out the japanese version of Pasofami then you can figure out this. Most of the menu options are self explanitory. Load up a .NES rom from the File/Load ROM. Execute the rom from CPU/Reset. If you're running in a high-res mode (>320x240), the NES game screen will appear in a window. You can maximize the window with the "SQUARE" button in the title bar. You close the window with the X button. You can toggle the GUI on and off by pressing ESC. You change the input devices from the Settings/RedefineInput menu(s). No matter what the settings are, Enter/Tab are always Start/Select in order to accomodate 2 button joysticks. Enter/Tab only work if the game window has input focus (click on it) or the gui is disabled. F5/F7 saves and loads your games. Essentially it stores the entire NES state in a state file. Pressing the keyboard keys 0-9 (not the numeric keypad ones) will change the current state slot for subsequent saves/loads: 0 = "xxxx.STA" (xxxx is the rom file name) 1 = "xxxx.ST1" 2 = "xxxx.ST2" ... etc, you get the idea. The default slot whenever a rom is loaded is 0 (ie "xxxx.STA") You can record movies with CPU/NES Movie/Record. This will create a NES Movie file (*.nsm) which contains the NES state along with recorded input so you can send them to your friends and bore them to death. CPU/NES Movie/Stop will stop the recording. Recording takes 2 bytes/frame, 120 bytes/second, 7K/minute, and 432K per hour (10MB per day). When playing a movie, be sure the correct ROM is loaded or else things'll get weird. Once the movie is done playing NES control is relinquished. One thing to beware, movies recorded with NESticle will not be compatible with future versions if the emulation core changes. The NSM files are backward compatible with STA files, in other words, renaming zelda.nsm to zelda.sta will allow you to load the movie as a normal state file and play from the movie's beginning point. Additionally, STA files are backward compatible with SAV files, renaming zelda.sta to zelda.sav will load it as battery backed mem. To edit patterns, View/Pattern tables, then click on a pattern and edit it. Right clicking on a pattern will change its attribute (palette), to aid in drawing. If you wish, you can save the changes with File/Write VROM, and the VROM will be written directly to the .NES file, so beware. --------------------- ROMS and stuff --------------------- NESticle currently uses the iNES single file cart format (*.NES). It will support the pasowing format in the future. The ROMs must be stored in the same dir as the .exe. Here's a description of a sample cart 'ZELDA' and some possible extensions: - ZELDA.NES The actual ROM/VROM data preceded by a 16-byte header - ZELDA.HDR An alternate 16-byte header file. If NESticle encounters this in the dir of the ROM, it will use this header instead of the one present in the NES file. - ZELDA.SAV 8K file representing the contents of the battery backed memory used in some games. This file is automagically saved and loaded as needed. - ZELDA.ST? It's the 'state' file used by saved games. - ZELDA.NSM Recorded NES Movie. - ZELDA.PAT Text file containing ROM patches - ZELDA.Dxx It's a dump of the 64k cpu address space. For debug purposes. - ZELDA.Rxx It's a dump of all 16k rom banks. For debug purposes. Numerous roms floating around out there have incorrect headers. Having an incorrect memory mapper type in the header will most likely cause the game to crash. Having an incorrect mirroring bit will cause the background to appear jumbled, or split, while scrolling. You can flip the mirroring bit from the settings menu. If changing the mirroring fixes the game, you can then write the ROM header as described above. --------------------- ROM patching --------------------- I finally deciphered GameGenie codes with some basic info provided by Benzene of Digital Emutations (demu@wspice.com). No thanks to Galoob. NESticle supports GameGenie codes and general patching of the CPU ROM address space ($8000-$FFFF). Bring up the ROM patching dialog with F6 or from the CPU menu. There are two edit fields in the dialog, the Name and the Code. The Code field is where the actual code goes (eg APZLGG). The Name field lets you type in a description of the code (eg Megajump), if no name is entered then the code string is used as the name. Once you've filled these in, clicking "Add" (or pressing enter) will add it to the list of patches. To activate or deactivate the patch, doubleclick on the code name in the listbox or click on "Toggle". "Remove" deletes the patch completely. "Save" writes all the patches to the text file <romname>.pat, this file is decribed below. NESticle accepts either GameGenie codes or raw patches. GameGenie codes can be either 6 or 8 digits and use the letters: A P Z L G I T Y E O X U K S V N Deciphering the GameGenie code is a mess and I won't go into it here. NESticle internally converts them to a raw format. The raw patches have two formats that coorespond to both types of Game Genie codes: <$addr>:<$val> (6 letter GG code) <$addr>?<$key>:<$val> (8 letter GG code) <$addr> is a 15-bit hex address within $8000-$FFFF of the CPU address space (the rom area). <$val> is the 8-bit hex value to be patched at that address. <$key> is an 8-bit hex number that MUST be present at that ROM location before the patch will be active. Examples: 10A4:10 patches CPU address $90A4 with the hex value $10. 05A1?5B:FF patches CPU address $85A1 with the hex value $FF if and only if $85A1 currently contains $5B NESticle can save a .pat file that contains all the patches created during a game. This file can be modified using a text editor. Each line of the .pat file looks like this: [+]<code> [<name>] [+] if a '+' is prefixed to the code, then it will be automatically activated when the game is run <code> is the patch itself (GG 6/8 or raw format). <name> is the text description of the code, if no name is supplied then the code is used as the name Note: If more than one patch modifies the same address (and have compatible keys) then only one can be active at once. Activating one will deactivate the others (ie they are mutually exclusive). --------------------- Input Devices --------------------- NESticle supports analog joysticks, 4-button gamepads, the Gravis GrIP gameport and keyboard input. Some general things: - There are two input devices, one each for NES controller 1 and 2. - Change the input devices with Settings/RedefineInput - Enter/Tab will simulate Start/Select on NES controller 1, ONLY when the GUI is disabled or the NES game window has input focus (click on it) - You can remap the buttons for a joystick input device with the command line option '-remapbut' or from the "Remap buttons" dialog... Simply click on the NES button type and then press the joystick button you wish to use. Pressing any key will set the NES button to "None". - You can redefine the keys for a Keyboard input device with the Redefine Keys dialog, or with the '-setkey' command line option Under DOS: - Joystick 1 or 2 refer to 2-button analog joysticks only! - "Gamepad" refers to a 4-button analog joypad (or joystick) The default button mapping for "Gamepad" conforms to that for a Gravis Gamepad (ie, 0 2 1 3), but can be changed - Due to hardware limits, only one 4-button device can be connected - You can interactively calibrate the joystick with the "Calibrate" button. Just center and swirl. The joystick thresholds can be also set with the '-joythresh' command line option. - In order to enable GrIP support, you MUST copy the "grip.gll" file to NESticle's startup directory. NESticle will load the driver if it finds it and the GrIP devices in slot 1 or 2 can be used. Under Win95: - Joystick 1 and 2 refer to joystick device 1 and 2 as defined under Win95's Control Panel/Joystick and can be calibrated from there - Gamepad refers to joystick device 1 (with the default Gravis Gamepad mapping) - Under Win95 there is no practical limit to the number of buttons per joystick device, and any can be remapped --------------------- Command line options --------------------- DOS & WIN95: ------------ @<filename> : Parses the file <filename> for command line options -res <xw> <yw> : Sets the resolution to xw,yw on startup. : Use this if 256x224 doesn't work or you get a : "Unable to init DDraw: invalid mode" error -setinput <num> <type> : Sets input device <num> to <type> ex. '-setinput 1 GRAVIS' -remapbut <device> <b> <a> <sel> <start> : Remaps buttons for <device> : <device> can be JOY1, JOY2 or GRAVIS : <b>,<a>,<sel>,<start> are the joystick button #'s for each NES button : A setting of '255' will disable the NES button : The old 'swapbut' is now obselete, instead use "-remapbut JOY1 1 0" -setkey <device> <ul> <u> <ur> <l> <r> <dl> <d> <dr> <b> <a> <sel> <start> : Sets the keyboard scancodes for <device> : <device> can be KEY1 or KEY2 -setjoythresh <num> <left> <right> <up> <down> : Sets the joystick threshold for analog joystick <num> : left,right,up,down define the joystick's "dead-zone" -waitvsync : Wait for the vertical sync to draw frames (see Performance) -showfps : Show FPS on startup -hidegui : Hide GUI on startup -load <rom> : Load <rom> -run <rom> : Load & Run <rom> -restore <rom> : Load & Run & Restore state for <rom> -sndrate <rate> : Sets the sound sampling rate (8000-44100) default=22050 -sndblksize <s> : Sets the size of the mixing block (in samples) default=256 -nosound : Bypasses the initialization of any sound hardware -force8bit : Forces 8-bit sound output (even if 16-bit exists) -sndconstant <channel> <x> : Sets the NES sound constant for <channel> to <x> in hexadecimal : <channel> can be from 1 to 5 : Changing this will change the relative pitch of the notes played : For the technically inclined, the formula is: : freq=SOUNDCONSTANT/D where D is the NES data written : You can edit these during the game in the sound dialog. -romdir <dir> : Sets the startup dir for .NES roms -savedir <dir> : Sets the directory for .SAV and .STA files -pcxdir <dir> : Sets the directory for saving snapshots -logdir <dir> : Sets the directory for logging and debug files -patchdir <dir> : Sets the directory for .PAT files DOS only: --------- -? or -h : Display command line help -disablelfn : Disables long file name support -novesa : Don't use VESA extensions -linear : Force linear video mode -banked : Force banked video mode -sb <port> <irq> <dma8> : Forces 8-bit soundblaster settings (ex -sb 220 7 1) -sb16 <port> <irq> <dma16> : Forces 16-bit soundblaster settings (ex -sb16 220 5 5) (if soundblaster settings are not supplied, they will be extracted from the BLASTER environment variable, GUS settings are extracted from the ULTRASND variable) "NESticle.ini" and "NEStcl95.ini" are two automatically generated configuration files which are parsed before the command line itself. You can manually edit the constants in this file if you wish, but any additional commands or options added to it will be overwritten the next time you run NESticle. The two files "NESticle.cmd" and "NEStcl95.cmd" are user-editable files for command line options and will be appended to the ini files when they are parsed. --------------------- Netplay --------------------- Netplay at this point is very preliminary. It is still quite buggy. Netplay is only available with the Win95 version (using Winsock), over either the TCP/IP or the IPX protocols. In the future, the DOS version may support the IPX protocol. One person must start a server (Net/Start server) and select a protocol to use as well as the port. The person's name must be entered as well. The opponent must connect to this server (Net/Connect), and for the TCP/IP protocol he must supply the server's IP address. Only one person can be connected to a server at once. Do not try to run more than one NESticle server on the same port on the same network, the results will be unpredictable. After the connection has been made, the connection status window may be closed and the connection will remain active. Select Net/Disconnect to close the connection. You can chat with the other player by opening the chat window with Net/Chatwindow. After you are connected, one person can load up a ROM, and if the remote player also has the ROM his/her side will load it as well. If the remote player does not have the ROM or has an incompatible ROM (ie wrong size) then the game will abort and an error will appear in the message window. The person who last loaded the ROM or last reset the ROM will be player 1. The game is played using each computer's input device 1. Now for the complex stuff: In order for netplay to work at all, both sides need to be syncronized at all times. This is no problem for a low latency LAN running over ethernet for example. However this spells trouble for internet connections. In the connection window, the ping times of all the nodes are shown. The ping time number is measured in virtual frames. The NES normally runs at 60 frames per second, so a ping time of '30' would be about 500ms. The lower the ping time the better. The bandwidth that NESticle uses is negligable, less than 100bytes/sec. Anyway, adjusting the 'vframe latency' number will affect how lagged each player's input is. It essentially controls how often game update packets are sent..... A low vframe latency number will result in a very responsive game if your network can handle it. A high vframe latency setting will result in a 'lagged game', but it may be necessary for high latency connections (such as the internet). If you have your vframe latency set too low, you will notice that the game will 'freeze' periodically as it waits for the other computer to respond. If you have it set too high, your game input will be severely lagged, but the game will not 'freeze'. The default setting is 5, I highly recommend changing it. On a LAN, where the connections are fast and reliable, a vframe latency of about 2 will result in great gameplay and performance. On the internet, the best setting is about half of your pingtime. I left the setting adjustable so you can mess with it to see whats best. As far as internet play goes, personally i don't think it runs very well, but that's not my fault as much as it is the internet's and there's nothing I can do about it. Some last things: the vframe latency setting is not adjustable while in the middle of a game. You must free the ROM, change it, then reload. Also, save games will not work while connected and you cannot restore saved states, nor can you apply rom patches. After this harangue still I repeat: netplay is still very preliminary, there are no guarantees, if it doesn't work right then fuck it. Just play with yourself instead. --------------------- Performance Issues --------------------- This section has lots of technical crap. Read at your discretion. The DOS and Win95 versions vary greatly in the performance they achieve. It all depends on the video hardware you have and the video acceleration available. The Win95 DirectDraw version of NESticle takes advantage of hardware blitting to improve performance tremendously. If your card does not support hardware blitting then performance will most likely be worse than the DOS version. You can tell if your card supports this by selecting Misc/DirectDrawInfo from the menu. There's one big catch: Most drivers written for Win95 do not inherently support low res modes like 320x200 and 320x240. The ones that don't support them have to substitute by using notoriously slow ModeX modes for these resolutions. Not only do the ModeX modes not have hardware blitting, they also have much slower page flips because of additional conversions necessary. The DOS version will be significantly faster in cases like these. The DOS version starts up in 256x224 mode by default. It's a resolution perfect for the NES. The DOS version requires VESA 2.0 extensions to run at 320x240 or above...if your video card does not have this built in you can get Univbe from http://www.scitechsoft.com. Why would you want to run at anything above 256x224 if the NES res is 256x224? Well, there's two reasons: A 320x240 linear frame buffer VESA 2.0 mode on a PCI bus will most likely be faster than the 256x224 mode. And secondly, Scitech's Univbe allows you to pump up the refresh rate of low resolution modes which makes things look a lot nicer. You can show the fps counter by selecting ShowFPS from the Misc menu. To squeeze the most fps out of your system, make sure the GUI is disabled and the NES game window is maximized (ie hit ESC). This eliminates a lot of overhead. Having WaitVsync turned on waits for vertical syncs before drawing frames, this slows the frame rate to the refresh rate of the video card (thats why it's a good reason to increase the refresh rate with Univbe). WaitVsync is off by default. You can see the % of CPU utilization in an option in the misc menu. I dunno what it's good for, just looks neat. Anything besides the NES rendering and the 6502 Emulation bars is purely overhead. Interesting to note that under Win95, that all of the CPU utilization bars never add up to 100% showing how much CPU time is sucked out by the OS. If a game ever 'slows down', it's most likely because it would have slowed down at that part on a real NES too, and it isn't an emulator problem. Increasing the vblank/hblank intervals may alleviate that though. --------------------- Contact --------------------- Bloodlust Software bldlust@southwind.net http://www2.southwind.net/~bldlust/NESticle.html Email me about ROMs and your suffering will be legendary. --------------------- Acknowledgements --------------------- Marat Fayzullin for his priceless NES.DOC and iNES emulator. Multi-6502 CPU emulator by Neil Bradley (neil@synthcom.com) Y0SHi for taking the time to maintain his 'nestech.doc' Y0SHi, Marat and FanWen for supplying valuable information on NES sound. Additional help by Neill Corlett, if you haven't gotten MGE yet then you suck: http://www4.ncsu.edu/eos/users/n/nscorlet/mge/ Additional info: FanWen (yangfanw@ms4.hinet.net) Andrew Davie (adavie@comcen.com.au) Matthew J Richey (mr6v+@andrew.cmu.edu) Benzene (demu@wspice.com) DeceiverX, Loopy, Vectriff, Zophar Scrotum-art and testing by digger. Nesticular name idea by _Dsk_. --------------------- Disclaimer --------------------- NESticle Copyright 1997 Bloodlust Software Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is a registered trademark of Nintendo. Game Genie is a trademark of Galoob. Neither Bloodlust Software nor the author are affiliated with Nintendo nor advocate the piracy of NES games. NESticle is freeware and can be distributed freely as long as it is not modified and ROMs are not packaged with the program. The source code and any resources used to create NESticle are NOT freeware and cannot be redistributed, modified or used in ANY other projects as prohibited by their respective copyrights. When you use this software you do so at your own risk. The author is not responsible for any loss or damage resulting from the use or misuse of this software. If you do not agree with these terms then NESticle is not for you.