Homebrew Snes9x RX - A new fork.

[niuus]

Patiently waiting for the updated Wii U channel for WiiSX RX v5.0!

TIA, niuus!

Now available, and also properly tested. I couldn't responsibly release it before, as my Wii U broke, and I couldn't be sure there was absolutely no problem with the installation process. I hate untested releases in the wild posing a possible threat for any user's console.

One of my best friends lent me his Wii U for some weeks, so I can properly test Snes9x RX 5.1.0 installer too.

Thanks a ton for testing! If you get a chance to test the turbo remap with a Wii U Gamepad

On it! Testing now.

 

[StupidGamer1]

Done. All previously available styles are uploaded, along with a new addition: Metallic Red.

Updated all previews on the first post.


Nope, I don't own one of those.

looks like I'll miss out then. I don't like Ps4 or Xbox Dpads and playing classics with a analog is sacrilege imo.

 

[niuus]

looks like I'll miss out then. I don't like Ps4 or Xbox Dpads and playing classics with a analog is sacrilege imo.

I own all the original consoles and tons of games from back in the day, as I was an avid collector. I wouldn't even make homebrew or emulate if I was a purist. You are gonna miss a lot with "purism". There is no such thing as "sacrilege" in gaming, except being a gamer and not playing, to be honest.

 

[StupidGamer1]

I own all the original consoles and tons of games from back in the day, as I was an avid collector. I wouldn't even make homebrew or emulate if I was a purist. You are gonna miss a lot with "purism". There is no such thing as "sacrilege" in gaming, except being a gamer and not playing, to be honest.

I'll just have to stick to batteries and the CC. I love the D-pad on the CC. would have like to modify it to use a gamecube input to use on HB...but I don't have that ability.

 

[niuus]

I'll just have to stick to batteries and the CC.

I love my Wii U Pro Controller, so I recommend it to anyone. Whether for Wii or Wii U homebrew, it is a helluva fine controller with absurdly long battery time.

I love the D-pad on the CC. would have like to modify it to use a gamecube input to use on HB...but I don't have that ability.

There are cable converters for almost anything these days, I don't think such one doesn't exist yet (Wii CC to Gamecube). Heck, I am drooling for a PSX to GCN converter that I saw on a near shop the other day, no money for non-essential expenses though.

 

[StupidGamer1]

I love my Wii U Pro Controller, so I recommend it to anyone. Whether for Wii or Wii U homebrew, it is a helluva fine controller with absurdly long battery time.


There are cable converters for almost anything these days, I don't think such one doesn't exist yet (Wii CC to Gamecube). Heck, I am drooling for a PSX to GCN converter that I saw on a near shop the other day, no money for non-essential expenses though.

we're in the same boat. I just have money for the essentianls of life (rent,food,insurance,etc). I forgot there is a PS2 adapter for GC as friends used one (Don't know why as GC imo is the best controller for 3D games). I may look into that eventually. ps2 controller is ok enough, I beat friends in fighters with it and wasn't uncomfortable. we'll see in the future.

 

[niuus]

Don't know why as GC imo is the best controller for 3D games

Key being "3D". Not 2D gaming.

D-pad is fine, as it resembles a Game Boy, but I know for a fact it could be better. I prefer normal sized d-pads and arcade joysticks, the latter which I already own a generic-cool-working one, so it is enjoyable for fighters.

 

[StupidGamer1]

Key being "3D". Not 2D gaming.

D-pad is fine, as it resembles a Game Boy, but I know for a fact it could be better. I prefer normal sized d-pads and arcade joysticks, the latter which I already own a generic-cool-working one, so it is enjoyable for fighters.

Same. I,too, wish the Dpad on the gamecube was bigger. I have a pandora's treasure 9s which I use for mame or FBA (also has 4,000 + built in games). I remember raging trying to use the D-Pad on CVS 2 E.O and MK A on GC because of the size and wasn't working out for me. ha ha.

 

[InfiniteBlue]

Congrats on the new release! I'll probably have more time to work on features later in the week. The one I'm most eager to tackle is making all "Go Back" buttons in the menu instantly focusable upon pressing B. It's weird that you can only do it on menus with an OptionBrowser... this should make menu navigation much snappier.

I'm open to attempt the following as well, just had some questions:

Y-X-B-A mapped to the Right Analog Stick, like when you use the Xbox 360 Controller.

Smash TV would be the ideal game to test with this? Trying to think of good use cases for this option.

Use Mouse in alternate port.

Does it only work for port 1? I've never used the mouse feature before - if it's just making it usable on more than port one, I think this seems doable.

Use Satellaview BIOS if present ON/OFF. (you wouldn't have to rename or delete the file manually)

I'm guessing the emulator always uses it if detected? Are there any indicators that let you know it's being used/not used?

 

[niuus]

Smash TV would be the ideal game to test with this? Trying to think of good use cases for this option.

In this case, you can use Williams's Smash TV, and Midway's Total Carnage, both multidirectional Twin-stick shooters.

Congrats on the new release! I'll probably have more time to work on features later in the week. The one I'm most eager to tackle is making all "Go Back" buttons in the menu instantly focusable upon pressing B. It's weird that you can only do it on menus with an OptionBrowser... this should make menu navigation much snappier.

Super cool! Definitely a much snappier experience.

Does it only work for port 1? I've never used the mouse feature before - if it's just making it usable on more than port one, I think this seems doable.


I'm guessing the emulator always uses it if detected? Are there any indicators that let you know it's being used/not used?

Though I haven't played every single Mouse compatible game yet (between 20 and 30 games, not that much), it caught my attention as the option is exposed inside the Snes9x GUI, and I never stopped to think that, funny enough, the SNES mouse did not have a "standard" port to use, and developers chose one or the other. So in that sense, like the original hardware, you can't just plug the mouse in port 1 or 2 as we would with USB devices on the modern era, as the game would not recognize the input if it isn't being used on the correct port (or at least specified for both in the code). Never used or owned the Genesis Mouse, so my guess is that it's probably the same thing . I don't have any theories, so i'd chalk it up to limitations from the era? Lazy devs?

I don't mind going through every single Mouse compatible game to test how the emulator behaves on the Wii, so i'll let you know with a full list!

I'm guessing the emulator always uses it if detected? Are there any indicators that let you know it's being used/not used?

Yes, right now it will use it if present.

The only indicator is that, when you boot any Satellaview game (.bs file extension), and the BIOS is present and properly named (BS-X.bin inside the snes9xgx config folder) the game will boot through it, then you need to enter the building to load the "downloaded" data from the "satellite", like the original hardware did.

There's no toggle for the BIOS like, for example, WiiSXRX, and compatibility between games is different with and without it, so you would need to rename or delete the file. I'm releasing a full compatibility list for that too, as I already backported the feature from Snes9x 1.57 to RX, i'm currently re-testing the 200+ dumped/known games available.

If you're interested in testing the feature someday, you can use the Cooly Skunk prototype, and get the English patched BS-X file from here.

 

[niuus]

Does it only work for port 1? I've never used the mouse feature before - if it's just making it usable on more than port one, I think this seems doable.

Results are in! Really looking forward to not having to do these thorough mouse tests ever, EVER again, lol...

73 unique games tested, 26 beta / region variants (couldn't find any non-working Mouse one between those, so I stopped checking them all at some point), and even found 2 games not available on the Wiki, plus some that have really limited support for the SNES Mouse. All tests were conducted with Snes9x 1.61 first.

Quick summary of relevant results:

The games that will not work with the SNES Mouse (RX/TX/GX) unless it is connected to Port 2:

• Jurassic Park (USA 1.0) (USA 1.1)
• Super 3D Noah's Ark (USA) (Unl)
• Wolfenstein 3-D (USA)

Games with emulation problems (RX/TX/GX) inherited from the original PC code that makes the game unplayable with the emulated SNES Mouse:

• Operation Thunderbolt (USA): Cursor movement works fine in-menus, but does not respond in-game, only Left/Right click buttons.

Pleasant surprises that I didn't knew or heard about before: games that support not one, but also two SNES Mouse peripherals! These were verified with BSNES to be extra sure. RX/TX/GX are, of course, not compatible with this mode until the Mouse in Port 2 gets activated.

• Operation Thunderbolt (USA)
• Revolution X (USA)
• Shanghai III (USA)
• T2 - The Arcade Game (USA)

Awfully controlled with the virtual SNES Mouse? Doom. Seriously, stick to traditional joystick for this one.

 

[InfiniteBlue]

Pleasant surprises that I didn't knew or heard about before: games that support not one, but also two SNES Mouse peripherals! These were verified with BSNES to be extra sure. RX/TX/GX are, of course, not compatible with this mode until the Mouse in Port 2 gets activated.

Wow, all this sounds like an extremely niche edge case haha. Great work going through all those games! I'll take a stab at fixing this at some point in the future.

RX/GX: Pressing B in the Main Menu should be able to allow you to cycle between Game List, Settings-Exit button, and the Credits button in the upper corner.

This is actually blowing my mind right now, I've used the GX emulators for a decade and this is the first time I've become aware of the credits being there! I guess I never used the wiimote to click on that logo, normally I access the emu with a gamepad which obviously makes it impossible to access the credits.

It being accessed via the logo feels needlessly obscure to me. How would you feel if I made a "Credits" button in the main menu settings so that it's clear that they're there? There's plenty of room in the settings for more buttons, and doing so would solve two problems for the price of one.

 

[niuus]

Wow, all this sounds like an extremely niche edge case haha. Great work going through all those games! I'll take a stab at fixing this at some point in the future.

LOL, it sure is a niche case! Maybe one of the reasons no one ever mentioned it before, in any previous threads about the Snes9x Wii port.

This is actually blowing my mind right now, I've used the GX emulators for a decade and this is the first time I've become aware of the credits being there! I guess I never used the wiimote to click on that logo, normally I access the emu with a gamepad which obviously makes it impossible to access the credits.

Hahaha. You discovered an easter egg, basically. Funny you didn't stumble on it before.

Credits button also doubles as activation / verification for the supported USB controllers, sans the DualShock 3 which has its own special method.

It being accessed via the logo feels needlessly obscure to me. How would you feel if I made a "Credits" button in the main menu settings so that it's clear that they're there? There's plenty of room in the settings for more buttons, and doing so would solve two problems for the price of one.

Sure thing! Sounds very cool having both options at the same time. It would also allow people without a Wiimote to plug the supported USB controllers and activate them, if the emulator was already running. I could add the method to the readme if it gets added.

 

[niuus]

Forgot to post about this days ago.

For the gamers that enjoy new-lost releases:
https://tcrf.net/Puggsy_(SNES)

The original proto has a malformed ROM header, which the emulator does not ignore. I've made a quick fix and posted the IPS patch here to fix it. You can either hard-patch the ROM file, or just rename the ROM file and the IPS file with the same name, in the same folder, and then load the game. It will soft-patch it on-the-fly every time.

 

[InfiniteBlue]

New pull request is up, made a bunch of menu UI enhancements to make the UI easier to navigate: https://github.com/niuus/Snes9xRX/pull/53

• The user can now press the B or 1 button to quickly return to the previous menu, for all menus except those with more than one button outside of an OptionBrowser (controller button mappings menu for example - you need to focus out of the OptionBrowser to select "Reset").
• A Credits button was added to the main menu Settings, which launches the credits window in the same fashion as clicking the logo.
• The menu can now be closed with the GC controller's Start button, in all the same places where closing with the Home button is allowed.
• Fixed an issue where the hidden Save SRAM button could be selected (but not clicked).
• Fixed text clipping on the Credits window and updated the credits.

I also learned that the Credits window is kinda funky in how it's implemented relative to the other window prompts. Regardless, now there's a button for the Credits for people like me who never found the easter egg

 

[niuus]

New pull request is up, made a bunch of menu UI enhancements to make the UI easier to navigate: https://github.com/niuus/Snes9xRX/pull/53



I also learned that the Credits window is kinda funky in how it's implemented relative to the other window prompts. Regardless, now there's a button for the Credits for people like me who never found the easter egg

I was compiling 5.1.0, lol. This arrived perfectly. Gonna compile and thoroughly test these on the Wii & the Wii U right now!

 

[niuus]

New pull request is up, made a bunch of menu UI enhancements to make the UI easier to navigate: https://github.com/niuus/Snes9xRX/pull/53

I also learned that the Credits window is kinda funky in how it's implemented relative to the other window prompts. Regardless, now there's a button for the Credits for people like me who never found the easter egg

Tested!

I liked the speedy navigation. But i'm kinda torn on this one. The reason is because of the custom.

When I enter sub-menus (except Button Mappings), I am used to quickly press B to put the focus on the "Go Back" button and immediately press 'A' button, once if I want to change something else inside "Game Settings", or twice to just go back to the game. Now I find myself suddenly going back to the previous menu.

In a sense, it mimics most video game inventory page or RPG menus, though that behavior is mostly reserved for when you are inside the gameplay area. I guess this could lead to the symbolic death of the "Go Back" GUI button, as you can't press it now unless you are pointing it with the Wiimote cursor.

Now, I got curious and made a quick research by revisiting "Options" menus inside a bunch of SNES games, just to check what's the most common way to exit out of the principal settings. Whether or not an Exit button is offered among the selection, they use 'Start' to get back to the "Main Menu", as 'A / B' can change or toggle some of the options offered: Street Fighter II, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat I - II - 3 - Ultimate, Samurai Shodown, Earthworm Jim 1 - 2, Power Rangers Zeo, Jurassic Park II, Clay Fighter 1 - 2, NBA Jam T.E., Castlevania - Dracula X, Captain Commando, Tuff E Nuff, Toy Story, Beavis & Butt-head, Batman Returns, TMNT IV Turtles in Time, TMNT Tournament Fighters, Jim Power.

The only one I could randomly find (so far) that uses 'B' to go back to the "Main Menu": Primal Rage.

Paging @Muliro @johw @Maeson @RunningSnakes @Tanooki16 @A29 @SaulFabre @hug0-a7x . What do you guys think/feel about this navigation tweak? Taking into account the explanation above, feel free to express all your thoughts about it as users.


Unrelated to the change above, just found another bug (RX/TX/GX) while checking all the menus: the "Delete" option inside "Game Settings" does not show any SRAM which isn't numbered or has Auto in the filename.

 

[Muliro]

When I enter sub-menus (except Button Mappings), I am used to quickly press B to put the focus on the "Go Back" button and immediately press 'A' button, once if I want to change something else inside "Game Settings", or twice to just go back to the game. Now I find myself suddenly going back to the previous menu.

I'm also very used to this by now, but I'm open to the changes.
And yeah, the Go Back button will never see a press bt myself anymore if that's the case.
If I can point something, what about the Home button? Can't it be changed to always cycle between the Menu/Game at any time? Or is this nonsense?
Again, Thank you guys for your time and work

 

[Charco]

While it's interesting to look back at in-game menus in old games, it's probably not worth the effort from a UX perspective in 2022.

It might be more beneficial to look at more modern UIs from consoles that have game and app launching from a dashboard. I'd imagine the Snes9x GX UI was originally created to mimic the Wii UI. I can't remember if the Wii UI supported navigation through button presses or if it was all Wii Remote pointer based, but that is probably worth looking into. Was the Classic Controller supported to navigate the Wii UI? If it was, I would replicate how Nintendo may have handled it.

 

[niuus]

While it's interesting to look back at in-game menus in old games, it's probably not worth the effort from a UX perspective in 2022.

It might be more beneficial to look at more modern UIs from consoles that have game and app launching from a dashboard. I'd imagine the Snes9x GX UI was originally created to mimic the Wii UI. I can't remember if the Wii UI supported navigation through button presses or if it was all Wii Remote pointer based, but that is probably worth looking into. Was the Classic Controller supported to navigate the Wii UI? If it was, I would replicate how Nintendo may have handled it.

The Wii OS is navigated through pointing and clicking exclusively. What the wii Classic Controller differs is using the Left Analog stick to control the pointer, and the 'A' button in that controller to confirm. Pressing 'B' does not allow you to go back, needing you to press the "Back" UI button.

The original emulator's GUI replicated this and also, thankfully, added the possibility of jumping between UI buttons with the Dpad, with 'B' letting you go back and forth the Upper/Lower UI buttons layer, and the middle UI buttons layer. This wasn't possible in all internal menus, though, which is what the commit is trying to remedy.

Don't know about the Switch OS, since I don't own one.