Emulators: NES

PocketNES

This is the ultimate NES emulator for the GBA. Written by Loopy and Flubba, PocketNES has superb compatibility—as good as any NES emulator for the PC, and it also works as a PogoShell plug-in. Check out the website for a compatibility list, and go to the PocketNES forum to discuss the emulator.

Controls:

Menu navigation: Press L+R to open the menu, A to choose, B (or L+R again) to cancel.
Unscaled modes: L and R buttons scroll the screen up and down.
Scaled modes: Press L+SELECT to adjust the background.
Speed modes: L+START switches between throttled/unthrottled/slomo mode.
Quick load: R+START loads the last savestate of the current rom.
Quick save: R+SELECT saves to the last savestate of the current rom (or makes a new one if none exist).
Sleep: START+SELECT wakes up from sleep mode (activated from menu or 5 minutes of inactivity)

Multiplayer Mode: If you've never tried the multiplayer mode, do so. One of the biggest assets of this emulator is the ability to link transfer the game to another GBA (if it's small enough), and play any game via a link cable (size doesn't matter, as long as both GBAs have the game, and usually a Nintendo cable is your best bet). Just link up, set the controller Link2p (if you're playing two-player) in the menu of both GBAs, and leave the menu. Recommended games for this mode are Ice Hockey, and Super Mario Brothers 3, where you just play constant battles.

Using Game Genie Codes: Though the emulator does not allow you to enter cheats in, there is a program that lets you imbed codes into a ROM. For instance, if you want to automatically have 99 lives in Contra, you can back up the ROM, and make another copy that has that built-in.

PocketNES Key Changer is a utility by DWEdit to change the keys used to access the menu in Goomba and PocketNES (default of L+R)

If you don't have a flashcart (you multiboot PocketNES), and you would like to save your games onto a different cart while playing in multiboot mode, Dwedit made a hacked version of PocketNES that allows you to do this. It does erase whatever you had saved on that cart.

PocketNES Hacks: A few talented programmers have taken it upon themselves to update PocketNES independently of FluBBa, and have added very useful features. These hacks add such features as ROM compression, speed hacking and cheat searching.

PocketNES_compy is a version of PocketNES specifically made for the GBA Movie Player. This hack supports ROM sizes up to and including 256k

PocketNES-k allows for smaller roms (sub 205k) to be compressed with LZO and used with PocketNES. More information can be found at the PocketNES-k website.

Dwedit's hacked versions of PocketNES allows for speed hacking and cheat searching. First is the speed hacking: here, in the author's own words, are how to use this hacked version of PocketNES:

First turn off Vsync, otherwise you won't notice any speed improvments. If the Jump Hack or PPU Hack is enough to speed up the game, don't use the auto speedhack detector. After using the auto speedhack detector, run the game for a couple frames, then go back to the menu. Return to the game and watch it fly!

The second version allows for cheat finding. This version will not allow multi-booting of 192k ROM images. More info on usage as it comes in. Both versions can be found below for downloading.

The latest version updates the following features:

Added correct PAL sound pitch (and shaved off 4kB).
Added correct PAL timing.
Added option to automaticly load savestates.
Fixed sprite problems in Downtown special.
Better MultiBoot transfer. (thanks to Loopy)

ROM hacks and translations:

• SMB2j (lost levels) hack to play it on PocketNES (and an alternative)
• Metroid Deluxe is a very well put together remake of Metroid (very high quality, definitely worth playing)

HVCA – Unofficial Famicom Advance

This is an update to Famicom Advance, which uses the same scaling method as FCA (see below), but now touts FDS image compatability, save states and PogoShell support. The compatability has been improved, too. It now even supports a few mappers that PocketNES does not! The newest version has been renamed to HVCA, but since we're not quite sure what that stands for, it shall remain listed under the uFCA heading.

To compile ROMs into the emulator, just download the build scripts made by nerox91. Here's a description of how to use them, from the readme:

There are two batch files to use, use only the one that corresponds with your version of Windows:

hvca-build-win9x_me.bat - Windows 95/98/ME
hvca-build-winxp_2000.bat - Windows 2000/XP

1. Copy the batch file that matches your operating system into the "hvca-v0.6\bin\split" directory.
2. Copy or move hvcamkfs.exe from "hvca-v0.6\bin\" into the "hvca-v0.6\bin\split" directory.
3. Place some ".nes" or ".fds" rom files into the "hvca-v0.6\bin\split" directory. Remember, the "disksys.rom" BIOS rom file is required to run ".fds" images.
4. Double-click the batch file and follow the menu instructions to compile HVCA.

Famicom Advance

This discontinued Famicom (NES) emulator is in Japanese. This collection of files you can download below was compiled by Rosary. It has all of the versions released, including an English version and a ROM injector. Even though PocketNES has better compatibility and features, this emulator uses a different scaling method which makes text easier to read—useful for playing RPGs. The pictures below are from EarthBound Zero, and you can see that the letters are more packed together in some cases, but still easier to read than the scaled mode used in PocketNES.

• Author: Unknown
• Status: Unofficially active (see above)
• Download FCA Collection

acNES

This is the GBA NES emulator used in Nintendo's Animal Crossing for the GCN. The emulator is copyrighted material, so it is unavailable on this page. This emulator supports only Mapper 0 ROMs. To see what works and what doesn't, check the compatibility list. The compiler, nes2mb, was programmed by an anonymous author, and is command-line based (DOS). The syntax is as follows:

nes2mb *.nes

InfoNES

This is a multiplatform Japanese NES emulator, currently on version 0 for the GBA—the "for developer" release. On the website it is dubbed as "The Family Computer emulator which holds transferability and high-speed characteristic" [sic]. There are newer versions out on other platforms, notably the GP32.

This version is abandoned, since it was last updated in August, 2002. It supports mappers 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4, with a max size of 160k. To add roms to the emulator, go into the folder in DOS and type "kakipee romname.nes". Most games don't seem to work at all, and some just give the title screen. This is a very buggy release, but source code is included.

• Author: Jay
• Status: Inactive
• Website
• Download emulator