Is it possible to create or port a SNES emulator with msu-1 Support?

Sonic Angel Knight

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
May 27, 2016
Messages
14,404
Trophies
1
Location
New York
XP
12,963
Country
United States
This is just a question of mine. Before i ask anything, i will try to explain why i am asking in the first place.

I recently found out about this thing called a "SD2SNES" To put it simple, is a form of EVERDRIVE cart used for stuff like genesis and gba systems (Cart based systems) Basically is a flash cart like the NIntendo ds but for SNES. You put roms on a sd card and insert the sd card into the cart and load it into the snes console, the menus shows up and you select a game and it plays.
20151104_131327.jpg

The reason why i mention this is cause this special cart has another feature, it is equipped with what is called "MSU-1" Chip. Just like those games that had special chips, like SA-1 SDD-1 Super FX CX4 and DSP and such, this MSU-1 chip is special.

I'll explain to best of my knowledge. The MSU-1 is a form of expansion capible of holding up to 4GigaBytes of data. It has been used for things like CD quality music replacement in the same way the sega cd games would work or the Sega genesis CD support of some rom hacks or games. It is also capible of Full motion video as well. In short, it does what cd based games did at the time, Sega cd, PC Turbo duo, Philips CDI, Panasonic 3DO, playstation... etc. In most cases it is used for rom hacks or some other homebrew.

Well to be honest, many people may seem like this isn't a big deal, and i get it, maybe not. But I dunno, so far only two emulators and this mentioned retail cart has support for this function. There is a example video i found below.
The video shows off the replaced music with non chiptune bits, and a full motion video before the game starts.


If you are reading this and feeling disappointed in something here, sorry i wasted your time, but i felt i shoud share this with someone. If your feeling quite the oppisite and more invested, then i am glad i helped out. :)

Basically i just wanted to know if this MSU-1 could be used in some console emulators for snes? Currently the only two emulators using this is Higan and bsnes for PC, for some reason i never heard of those emulators since the only popular snes emulators were snes9x and ZSNES but there is many ports of snes9X to consoles such as GC, WII, Android, Playstation, Xbox and others. I run out of things to say for now, so sorry if this suddenly sound unfinished or worst. :unsure:
 

Qtis

Grey Knight Inquisitor
Member
Joined
Feb 28, 2010
Messages
3,817
Trophies
2
Location
The Forge
XP
1,737
Country
Antarctica
MSU-1 is highly taxing on any system running it. Even higan has issues with it unless you have a high end PC. As it was not originally a part of the SNES, but instead made afterwards by byuu to replace the Sony SNES CD addon, it has a bit different system requirements. I think the main challenge for getting MSU-1 support for everything and the kitchen sink is wide adoption of the format. If there are only a few games using it, it won't be the most asked feature by users :)

Also on the matter of higan/bsnes, they aim for 100% accuracy in emulation. snes9x and zsnes have far from 100% accuracy, but this is acceptable for many due to the lesser system requirements allowing emulation on lower end machines.

ps. SD2SNES doesn't have a physical MSU-1 chip, it has the support. It uses a massive programmable FPGA for all special chip support coded by the creator, ikari_01. See the GBAtemp review for more details on the cart itself :)
 

Sonic Angel Knight

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
May 27, 2016
Messages
14,404
Trophies
1
Location
New York
XP
12,963
Country
United States
MSU-1 is highly taxing on any system running it. Even higan has issues with it unless you have a high end PC. As it was not originally a part of the SNES, but instead made afterwards by byuu to replace the Sony SNES CD addon, it has a bit different system requirements. I think the main challenge for getting MSU-1 support for everything and the kitchen sink is wide adoption of the format. If there are only a few games using it, it won't be the most asked feature by users :)

Also on the matter of higan/bsnes, they aim for 100% accuracy in emulation. snes9x and zsnes have far from 100% accuracy, but this is acceptable for many due to the lesser system requirements allowing emulation on lower end machines.

ps. SD2SNES doesn't have a physical MSU-1 chip, it has the support. It uses a massive programmable FPGA for all special chip support coded by the creator, ikari_01. See the GBAtemp review for more details on the cart itself :)
Oh, it seem you already did a review of this thing a long time ago. I didn't know, you must been using it all this time. I only found out about it recently. I know what i am asking may not concern many people enough to care but i was just curious. Anyway thanks for sharing that. Even if is possible or not, i like to hope it could be and even be useful, but as old as something like snes is, may seem of low concern, but to me is interesting news like finding out how people still make games for classic consoles (pier solar and the great architects for sega genesis megadrive for example):)
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
    Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYZD7ykz9aQ