SimpleNES

An NES emulator written in C++ (now with audio!)

Roughly 50-60% of games should work (ie. games that use either no mapper or mappers 1, 2, 3 and experimental support for 4, 7, 66 and 11).

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ARCHIVED: I no longer have the capacity or motivation to entertain new features/issues/PRs. Feel free to fork and/or use the current build.

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Examples of games that have been tested to run (but NOT limited to):

(USA/Japan or World versions only i.e. NTSC compatible)

• Super Mario Bros.
• Contra
• Adventure Island
• Ninja Gaiden
• Wrecking Crew
• Megaman and Megaman 2
• Mario Bros.
• Donky Kong and Donkey Kong Jr.
• Battle City
• Paperboy
• Legend of Zelda
• Pacman
• Tennis
• Excitebike
• Nightmare Elm Street
• Cabal
• Battletoads
• Arch Rivals
• etc...

Screenshots

Videos

OUTDATED(missing audio) YouTube Playlist

Compiling

You need:

• SFML 2.* development headers and library
• C++11 compliant compiler
• CMake build system

Compiling is straight forward with cmake, just run cmake on the project directory with CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release and you'll get Makefile or equivalent for your platform, with which you can compile the emulator

For e.g., on Linux/OS X/FreeBSD:

$ git clone https://github.com/amhndu/SimpleNES
$ cd SimpleNES
$ mkdir build/ && cd build/
$ cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
$ make -j4    # Replace 4 with however many cores you have to spare

If SFML is installed on a non-standard location, specify SFML_ROOT as a cmake variable, e.g. on Arch Linux, after installing sfml2 from AUR:

$ cd SimpleNES && mkdir build/ && cd build/
$ cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DSFML_ROOT=/opt/sfml2 ..
$ make -j8

See also: compile.yaml for platform specific instructions

Download SimpleNES

1. Download an executable based on your platform from the latest run on Github Actions OR Latest Release
2. Install sfml

Installing SFML

• Windows: vcpkg install sfml. Alterntaively, download from SFML. See: compile.yaml for instructions on pinning sfml to version 2
• Debian/Ubuntu/derivates: sudo apt install -y libsfml-dev
• Arch/etc: yay -S sfml2
• MacOS: brew install sfml@2 && brew link sfml@2

Running

Just pass the path to a .nes image like

$ ./SimpleNES ~/Games/SuperMarioBros.nes

To set size of the window,

$ ./SimpleNES -w 600 ~/Games/Contra.nes

For supported command line options, try

$ ./SimpleNES -h
SimpleNES is a simple NES emulator.
It can run off .nes images.
Set keybindings with keybindings.conf

Usage: SimpleNES [options] rom-path

Options:
-h, --help             Print this help text and exit
--mute-audio           Mute audio
-s, --scale            Set video scale. Default: 3.
                       Scale of 1 corresponds to 256x240
-w, --width            Set the width of the emulation screen (height is
                       set automatically to fit the aspect ratio)
-H, --height           Set the height of the emulation screen (width is
                       set automatically to fit the aspect ratio)
                       This option is mutually exclusive to --width
-C, --conf             Set the keybindings file's path. The default 
                       keybindings file is keybindings.conf.

Controller

Keybindings can be configured with keybindings.conf

Default keybindings:

Player 1

Button | Mapped to --------------|------------- Start | Return/Enter Select | Right Shift A | J B | K Up | W Down | S Left | A Right | D

Player 2

Button | Mapped to --------------|------------- Start | Numpad9 Select | Numpad8 A | Numpad5 B | Numpad6 Up | Up Down | Down Left | Left Right | Right