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Nintendo Entertainment System for MiSTer Platform

This is an FPGA implementation of the NES/Famicom based on FPGANES by Ludvig Strigeus and ported to MiSTer.

Features

  • Supports saves for most games
  • Savestates
  • Supports NTSC, PAL, and Dendy system types
  • FDS Support with expansion audio
  • Multiple Palette options
  • Zapper, Powerpad, Microphone, and Miracle Piano support
  • Supports four players
  • Setting for increasing sprite per line by 8
  • Supports up to 32 cheat codes
  • Supports NSF Player
  • Supports expansion audio from mappers including VRC6 & 7, MMC5, Namco 163 and Sunsoft 5b
  • Supports many popular mappers including VRC1-7, MMC0-5, and many more (see below)
  • Supports large games such as Legend of Link and Rockman Minus Infinity

Installation

Copy the NES_*.rbf file to the directory or subdirectory of /media/fat/. Create a games/NES/ directory on the root of the SD card (/media/fat/games/NES/), and place NES roms (*.nes) inside this NES directory. The ROMs must have an iNES or NES2.0 header, which most already do. NES2.0 headers are preferred for the best accuracy. To have an NES or FDS game ROM load automatically upon starting the core, place it in the NES directory named as boot1.rom or boot2.rom, respectively.

  • boot0.rom = FDS BIOS file. Will be used for any FDS images loaded
  • boot1.rom = NES Cart file. Can be used with boot0.rom (BIOS) in place
  • boot2.rom = FDS image file. Requires boot0.rom (BIOS). Use a blank FDS (header only) to boot the FDS BIOS without a disk image.
  • boot3.rom = PAL file. It can be used to set your default custom palette. Save the menu option on "Custom" to apply immediately.

Famicom Disk System Usage

Before loading *.FDS files, you must first load the official, unpatched FDS BIOS. The BIOS file should be renamed to boot0.rom and placed in the same folder as the ROMs (NES). Alternatively, it can be loaded from the OSD if boot0.rom doesn't exist. After loading the core and the bios you may select an FDS image. By default, the NES core will swap disk sides for you automatically. To suppress this behavior, hold the FDS button on the player 1 controller. The "Disk Swap" OSD option manually controls the disk side. Each button press increments the disk side. Press and hold the fds button to eject and increment the disk side in this mode. Some games only work correctly in manual disk swap mode, and require holding the FDS button for up to a few seconds (Gall Force,...).

Extra Sprites

This feature will double the number of sprites drawn per scanlines, decreasing the flickering sprites that NES is known for. Some games relied on the 8 sprite behavior to work correctly, such as Simon's Quest swamps. Other mappers may be impacted by using extra sprites. While it works well in most games, glitches may occur with this enabled.

Saving and Loading

The battery backed RAM (Save RAM) for the NES does not write to disk automatically. After saving in your game, you must then write the RAM to the SD card by selecting Save Backup RAM from the menu. If you do not save your RAM to disk, the contents will be lost next time you restart the core or switch games. Alternatively you can enable to Autosave option from the OSD menu, and if you do your games will be recorded to disk every time you open the OSD menu. FDS saving uses the same method as for cartridge RAM saves. Save RAM is stored as a .sav file based on the NES/FDS filename in /media/fat/saves/NES/. Examples:
Metroid (Japan) (Rev 3).fds -> Metroid (Japan) (Rev 3).sav
Legend of Zelda, The (USA) (Rev 1).nes -> Legend of Zelda, The (USA) (Rev 1).sav

Savestates

Core provides 4 slots to save and restore the state (FDS not supported). Those can be saved to SDCard or reside only in memory for temporary use(OSD Option). Usage with either Keyboard, Gamepad mappable button or OSD. Save states are stored as .ss files in /media/fat/savestates/NES/, with an underscore and the save slot number (1,2,3,4) preceding .ss. Example (save slot 1): Metroid (USA).nes -> Metroid (USA)_1.ss

Keyboard Hotkeys for save states:

  • Alt-F1..F4 - save the state
  • F1...F4 - restore

Gamepad:

  • Savestatebutton+Left or Right switches the savestate slot
  • Savestatebutton+Start+Down saves to the selected slot
  • Savestatebutton+Start+Up loads from the selected slot

Zapper Support

The "Zapper" (aka Light Gun) can be used via two methods. You can select Peripheral: Zapper(Mouse) to use your mouse to aim and shoot with the left button. This mode uses relative mouse motion, so devices that rely on absolute coordinates will not work via this method. Alternatively, you can choose Zapper(Joy) to use the Analog stick to aim, and the defined Trigger button to fire. Guns such as Aimtrak have joystick modes which may be compatible with this method.

Miracle Piano Support

The Miracle Piano is a MIDI keyboard compatible with the Miracle Piano Education System cart. To use it with SNAC, no further settings are needed. To use it with midilink, in the System Settings, set the UART connection to use MIDI. The piano will then be connected on controller port 1 as expected. The primary controller will automatically be assigned to port 2 as the cart expects. The header for the ROM file should be set to NES 2.0 with controller type (0xF) set to the Miracle Piano (0x19).

Supported Mappers

#
0 1 2 3 4 5 7 9 10 11 12 13 15
16 18 19 FDS 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 30 31
32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47
48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63
64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79
80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95
96 97 99 100 101 104 105 107 108 109 110 111
112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 122 123 125 126 127
128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143
144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159
160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 171 172 173
180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191
192 193 194 195 196 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207
208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 222
224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237
240 241 242 243 244 245 246 248 249 250 251 252 254 255
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
268 413 547 --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Key: Supported+Save state, Supported, Not Supported. Mappers that are not existent or not useful are blank.