Homebrew SNES Emulation Help

[Kalisiin]

OK, is there an SNES Emulator out there that does not require a bunch of complicated settings? I have no idea what all of them do. some games work well with what I'm using, some don't. Some improve when I muck with the settings (even though I dunno what I'm doing) and some don't.

Can anyone tell me the best settings to use, or is there a specific emulator which is best/easiet, works best?

I'm looking for something like the NES Emulator that seems to work perfectly with any .nes game, no problem. Jenesis seems to work pretty good with most Genesis games, but the SNES emulator is giving me fits!

 

[PettingZoo]

SnemulDS (Can't spell properly lol) does the job just fine, make a SNES folder on the root of your microSD card and put the emulator in there with all the games, run the emulator and it just works.

 

[Kalisiin]

SnemulDS (Can't spell properly lol) does the job just fine, make a SNES folder on the root of your microSD card and put the emulator in there with all the games, run the emulator and it just works.

I wish it did!!
I have a number of games it does NOT work well with, and some games were improved by mucking with the settings, like I said, but I don't really know what the settings are or what they really DO.

I'm having trouble, for example, with graphics being out of line, like the select radio button for start game being down too far, other weird graphics problems...text boxes that just plain are unreadable...

I do not have these problems with NESDS, for NES games or Jenesis for Genesis games.

Only SNES is giving me problems.

ON EDIT: I ought to mention I'm using a DSLite rather than a DSi, if this makes a difference.
also, using an AK2i with AKAIO firmware.

 

[Jamstruth]

SNEmulDS has different layer settings due to the differences between DS and SNES hardware and does not contain the settings for every single game. If you get one that doesn't work you have to fiddle until it does.
Its the best emulator as the others don't have as high compatibility rate and most of the time it does not require faffing about with settings. So sorry. There is no better emulator.

 

[benjaminlibl]

SnemulDS (Can't spell properly lol) does the job just fine, make a SNES folder on the root of your microSD card and put the emulator in there with all the games, run the emulator and it just works.

I wish it did!!
I have a number of games it does NOT work well with, and some games were improved by mucking with the settings, like I said, but I don't really know what the settings are or what they really DO.

I'm having trouble, for example, with graphics being out of line, like the select radio button for start game being down too far, other weird graphics problems...text boxes that just plain are unreadable...

I do not have these problems with NESDS, for NES games or Jenesis for Genesis games.

Only SNES is giving me problems.

ON EDIT: I ought to mention I'm using a DSLite rather than a DSi, if this makes a difference.
also, using an AK2i with AKAIO firmware.

Emulators are not perfect. Most of the people working on these projects are probably doing for fun or out of the goodness of their hearts. I'm sure you know this, but I'm going to put it out there anyways. This being said, you could try a couple of things to help your text boxes or whatever weird graphic problem you have. One of which is the screen size. There's normal, squish and more squish. Try all of them out, it should help you out. It seems that individual games have their own settings which are best for them.

 

[Kalisiin]

SnemulDS (Can't spell properly lol) does the job just fine, make a SNES folder on the root of your microSD card and put the emulator in there with all the games, run the emulator and it just works.

I wish it did!!
I have a number of games it does NOT work well with, and some games were improved by mucking with the settings, like I said, but I don't really know what the settings are or what they really DO.

I'm having trouble, for example, with graphics being out of line, like the select radio button for start game being down too far, other weird graphics problems...text boxes that just plain are unreadable...

I do not have these problems with NESDS, for NES games or Jenesis for Genesis games.

Only SNES is giving me problems.

ON EDIT: I ought to mention I'm using a DSLite rather than a DSi, if this makes a difference.
also, using an AK2i with AKAIO firmware.

Emulators are not perfect. Most of the people working on these projects are probably doing for fun or out of the goodness of their hearts. I'm sure you know this, but I'm going to put it out there anyways. This being said, you could try a couple of things to help your text boxes or whatever weird graphic problem you have. One of which is the screen size. There's normal, squish and more squish. Try all of them out, it should help you out. It seems that individual games have their own settings which are best for them.

Oh, I didn't mean any insult or anything...folks who work on these things get major props from me...but I could use some real help in understand what the heck all the settings are FOR...and what they do. I just do not understand them.

I've tried fiddling with the controls...for some, things got better, for others, they did not. Just was wondering if there was anything simpler to use, like what is there for the NES emulator.

I guess I'm thinking in terms of the PC emulators, you didn't have to set much of squat on the ZSNES emulator, to make everything work...unlike, say, the ePSXe emulator...where you had to mess around with everything, and it took me two hours to set everything all up for optimal settings.

I was just thinking this is as complicated as the ePSXe...and why should it be when ZSNES is so easy-peasy?

Specifically, the gamnes I'm having trouble with are...graphix trouble on Sonic...and text box trouble (cannot make out the stats of players at all when in battle) in the translated version of DQ5...and no text box at all in the translated version of DQ6.

Would really like to be able to make those games work....

BY the way...does it keep individual settings for each game...or do you have to fiddle around every time you load a new game...and know which settings go best for which game?

 

[benjaminlibl]

Oh, I didn't mean any insult or anything...folks who work on these things get major props from me...but I could use some real help in understand what the heck all the settings are FOR...and what they do. I just do not understand them.
Me neither. Hahaha.

Specifically, the gamnes I'm having trouble with are...graphix trouble on Sonic...and text box trouble (cannot make out the stats of players at all when in battle) in the translated version of DQ5...and no text box at all in the translated version of DQ6.

Would really like to be able to make those games work....
I can't get a lot of games to work either. The graphics don't even come up, actually. Most of them are the translated versions.
QUOTE(Kalisiin @ Aug 15 2009, 05:44 PM)

BY the way...does it keep individual settings for each game...or do you have to fiddle around every time you load a new game...and know which settings go best for which game?

It keeps individual settings. There is a save option. But that might not be a good thing, because different games need different settings.

 

[Domination]

Not all SNES games can work on SNEmulDS. Some games require special chips that can't be emulated.

Though we do have some compatibility lists on Pocket Heaven Wiki, and on WikiTemp

Personally, I'm already grateful for it working onthe DS. You can do PC emulation if you really want to play those games.

 

[Jamstruth]

I was just thinking this is as complicated as the ePSXe...and why should it be when ZSNES is so easy-peasy?

You can't compare ZSNES to SNEmulDS due to the different hardware. ZSNES has a lot more power at its disposal on a PC system to perform the emulation correctly therefore it doesn't have as many different settings to fiddle with.

 

[DanTheManMS]

Right, SNEmulDS emulates in an entirely different way. With ZSNES for instance, it processes each frame, figures out what the screen is supposed to look like, and then paints it to the screen pixel by pixel. This could in theory be done with SNEmulDS, but the main issue is that the method of "painting to the screen pixel by pixel" is a very slow process for the DS. You would spend half the time figuring out what the screen should look like, and the other half of the time actually drawing it to the screen. In short, it would be way too slow to be playable.

Because of this, all the SNES emulators for the DS use what is called "hardware rendering." With this, the emulator attempts to directly translate the SNES graphics commands to commands that the DS's dedicated 2D hardware can understand (remember that the DS is a game machine, so it does have dedicated graphics hardware for handling sprites and backgrounds and other graphics). Hardware rendering is much, much faster (only about 3-5% of the CPU time is spent drawing to the screen), but since the graphics hardware is after all different, you don't get a perfect picture. Layering in particular is troublesome, as the SNES had some layering capabilities that the DS doesn't have.

To help fix some of the graphical issues Archeide knew were going to show up, he made many aspects of the emulation user-configurable. This does make it difficult for the user, but if the right settings are found, game compatibility can increase. If you go to the PocketHeaven Wiki and go to the SNEmulDS article, you'll find a full description on most of the options, what they do, and how to use them. Now granted, this guide is out of date (it was made for v0.5 Beta, which doesn't have the GUI introduced in v0.6 Alpha) but most of the settings remain the same. It's worth a look at least.

 

[Kalisiin]

Right, SNEmulDS emulates in an entirely different way. With ZSNES for instance, it processes each frame, figures out what the screen is supposed to look like, and then paints it to the screen pixel by pixel. This could in theory be done with SNEmulDS, but the main issue is that the method of "painting to the screen pixel by pixel" is a very slow process for the DS. You would spend half the time figuring out what the screen should look like, and the other half of the time actually drawing it to the screen. In short, it would be way too slow to be playable.

Because of this, all the SNES emulators for the DS use what is called "hardware rendering." With this, the emulator attempts to directly translate the SNES graphics commands to commands that the DS's dedicated 2D hardware can understand (remember that the DS is a game machine, so it does have dedicated graphics hardware for handling sprites and backgrounds and other graphics). Hardware rendering is much, much faster (only about 3-5% of the CPU time is spent drawing to the screen), but since the graphics hardware is after all different, you don't get a perfect picture. Layering in particular is troublesome, as the SNES had some layering capabilities that the DS doesn't have.

To help fix some of the graphical issues Archeide knew were going to show up, he made many aspects of the emulation user-configurable. This does make it difficult for the user, but if the right settings are found, game compatibility can increase. If you go to the PocketHeaven Wiki and go to the SNEmulDS article, you'll find a full description on most of the options, what they do, and how to use them. Now granted, this guide is out of date (it was made for v0.5 Beta, which doesn't have the GUI introduced in v0.6 Alpha) but most of the settings remain the same. It's worth a look at least.

You are, indeed, THE MAN, Dan! I'll give it a look. Can you give me a link? Or do I gotta look for it in Google or something? i'm at work, so I'm sorta limited, from here, as to what I can do, trying to resolve as much as I can from here, so that, when I get home, I can just get right to what I want to get to.

 

[DanTheManMS]

http://wiki.pocketheaven.com/SNEmulDS

What you're looking for starts about 1/3 of the way down - "The Options Menu" and "The GFX Menu" (which is in Advanced Settings in v0.6 Alpha)

 

[Kalisiin]

http://wiki.pocketheaven.com/SNEmulDS

What you're looking for starts about 1/3 of the way down - "The Options Menu" and "The GFX Menu" (which is in Advanced Settings in v0.6 Alpha)

You rock my world, Dan!!!

Thanx!

Now I can look up all this stuff when I get home, and hopefully, make it all work.