[NEW] iNES 2.0 Released!
David E. Smith
[ From: Marat Fayzullin <ma...@kom.kon.dot.org> ]
[ Subject: [NEW] iNES 2.0 Released! ]
[ Newsgroups: comp.emulators.misc,comp.emulators.game-consoles ]
[ Message-ID: <akttlu$1hmh$1...@news.kis.ru> ]
Hello, Everybody!
After several months of work, it's time to present to you iNES 2.0
for Unix and Windows, available from
http://www.komkon.org/fms/iNES/
iNES is a portable emulator of the Nintendo's NES, known as Famicom in
the East.
In this version of iNES, I have completely reworked the memory mapper
implementations, fixing bugs, removing deadwood, and adding more mappers.
This includes some mappers whose numbers were assigned by people other
than me. Thus, mappers 64 (Tengen RAMBO-1), 65 (Irem H-3001), 66 (GNROM),
67 (SunSoft3), 68 (SunSoft4), 69 (SunSoft5 FME-7), 71 (Camerica), 78
(Irem 74HC161/32), and 91 (HK-SF3) are now officially part of the
standard. I will be working on adding more mappers in the future.
The .NES file format has been extended to include the number of 8kB
RAM pages contained on a cartridge.
Among other things, MMC5 has been emulated much more extensively, so most
MMC5 games work and use MMC5 features, such as extended video hardware.
MMC2 and MMC4 are also implemented and the Punchout game works properly
(I still don't understand why so many folks requested this: it is a
stupid game). After several important bugfixes, you will also notice
nice compatibility increase: many more games run now with much fewer
glitches.
I have also switched to a different color palette, as measured by
Chris Covell. The original iNES palette is available as an option.
Due to the public request, iNES-Windows now includes options to configure
joystick buttons.
iNES-Unix binaries are free. Currently, you can download latest binaries
compiled for FreeBSD, Solaris, and Linux from the iNES homepage.
The iNES-Windows is available for $35US (same as VGB, VGBA, fMSX, and MG).
If you are a registered user of iNES-Windows, you should get your copy in
the next several days. If you haven't got it in a week, please, contact
me.
iNES for PocketPC palmtops is available from Aaron Oneal. Check his
website at
iNES for Windows is available from John Stiles. Look for it at
And finally, the list of new things in this version of iNES:
* Number of 8kB RAM pages added to the .NES header!
* State file format has changed.
* Major overhaul of the screen update driver to get rid of
memcpy() calls in mapper handlers.
* Replaced the original iNES color palette with the one Chris Covell
obtained from the real NES. The original palette is still available
in the Old-iNES.pal file.
* Added support for loading/saving multiple (up to 4x8kB right now)
battery-backed RAM pages from a .SAV file.
* Fully implemented mappers 9 (MMC2 used in Punchout) and 10 (MMC4).
* Limited IRQ counter updates in MMC3 to situations when screen
refresh is on and ChrGen/SprGen use different tables.
* Added mapper 24 (Konami VRC6) but interrupts are still wrong.
* Added mapper 25 (Konami VRC4B).
* Added mappers 64 (Tengen RAMBO-1), 65 (Irem H-3001), 66 (GNROM),
67 (SunSoft3), 68 (SunSoft4), 69 (SunSoft5 FME-7), 71 (Camerica),
78 (Irem 74HC161/32), 91 (HK-SF3).
* Implemented a lot of special features of mapper 5 (MMC5) such as
extended graphics and sound.
* Fixed mapper 11 (Color Dreams games).
* Fixed mapper 19 (Namcot 106).
* Fixed mapper 16 (Bandai) although some timing problems still persist.
* Fixes to mappers 1 (MMC1), 21 (VRC4A), 22 (VRC2A), and 23 (VRC2B).
* Now generating VBlank NMI at line 244 (Galaxian, Toki, Goonies 2,
etc.).
* Now retaining mirroring bits when MMC1 is reset (Jekyll And Hyde).
* Added "PPU interface mode" (Elite).
* Fixed vertical offset calculation inside sprites.
* Fixed horizontal scroll calculation from VRAM address.
* Changed HitFlag computation again.
* Changed sound length setting for the sound channel 2.
* Fixed frequency sweep for sound channels 0,1.
* Some general fixes to the sound chip emulation.
* Some improvements to the built-in debugger.
* Documentation has a new section describing iNES-Windows menus
and setup.
* Set background color in iNES-Windows to black.
* Added F6 and F7 to quickly load and save emulation state in
iNES-Windows.
* Added "JoyA", "JoyB", "JoySELECT", and "JoySTART" parameters to the
[iNES] section of the iNES.INI file to configure joystick button
assignments (no GUI yet).
* Obsoleted headers.tgz and headers.zip files.
Have fun!
Marat Fayzullin