The K Desktop Environment

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4. Options meaning

This is the description of each option, as on the snes9x 1.26 readme.txt file

4.1 Graphics options

Transparency

Enable transparency effects, also enables 16-bit screen mode selection. Transparency effects are automatically enabled if the depth of your X server is 15 or greater.

16-bit rendering

Enable 16-bit internal screen rendering, allows palette changes but no transparency effects.

Hi-res

Enable support for SNES hi-res. and interlace modes. USE ONLY IF GAME REQUIRES IT (FEW DO) BECAUSE IT REALLY SLOWS DOWN THE EMULATOR.

interpolate

Enables 'TV mode', hires support, 16-bit internal rendering and transparency effects. TV mode scales the SNES image by x2 by inserting an extra blended pixel between each SNES pixel and 80% brightness 'scan-lines' between each horizontal line. The result looks very nice but needs a fast machine. Use with the full-screen X mode and a 15 or 16 depth X server, or the SVGA port for fastest operation.

No mode switch

The Linux X Windows System port can change the screen resolution when switching to full-screen mode so the SNES display fills the whole screen. Specify this option to stop it if causes you problems.

Full screen

Start the emulator in full screen mode, rather than a window on the X11 port if supported by your X server, a suitable screen mode is defined in your XF86Config file and the snes9x binary has root permissions (see above).

Scale

Stretch the SNES display to fit the whole of the computer display. Linux X Window System full-screen mode or SVGA port only. Use only if you have a very fast machine.

Display frame rate

Display a frame rate counter superimposed over the bottom, left-hand corner of the SNES display. The value before the slash (/) indicates how many frames per second are being rendered compared to a real SNES, the value of which is displayed after the slash.

4.2 Sound options

No sound

Disable sound CPU emulation and sound output, useful for the few ROMs where sound emulation causes them to lock up due to timing errors.

Stereo

Enable stereo sound output.

Sound quality

Sound playback rate/quality: 0 - disable sound, 1 - 8192, 2 - 11025, 3 - 16500, 4 - 22050 (default), 5 - 29300, 6 - 36600, 7 - 44000.

Envx

Enable volume envelope height reading by the sound CPU. Can cure sound repeat problems with some games (e.g. Mortal Kombat series), while causing others to lock if enabled (eg. Bomberman series). Use with -sy option below to fix the problems this option can otherwise create.

Threadsound

Starts to feed data to the sound card using a separate thread rather than using timers, signals and polling. Use to work around a bug in the Sound Blaster Live Linux driver that keeps telling Snes9x that the sound card can accept more sound data, when it actually cannot and Snes9x slows down or locks up, or if use have a multi-CPU system so sound processing can take place on the other CPU for speed.

Soundsync

Turns on sound-sync code where sound data is generated in sync with the emulation of the SNES sound CPU instructions. Slighty slower emulation speed but helps reduce note and sound effects timing problems and one or two games actually require this mode, notably Williams Arcade Classics. Also turns on interpolated sound and envelope height reading. Pressing the ']' key during gameplay toggles sound-sync only on and off. Not very effective/useless when thread sound is enabled due to mutex data locking timing problems.

Interpolated Sound

Turns on interpolated sound. Any samples played at a lower frequency than the current playback rate (-r option) have additional sample points computed and played where previously the same sample data was played repeatedly. Lower frequency sounds have improved bass and sound much less harsh - I suspect the real SNES does this. Pressing '[' during gameplay toggles the feature on and off.

Buffersize

Sound playback buffer size in bytes 128-4096.

No sample caching

Disable decompressed sound sample caching. Decompressing samples takes time, slowing down the emulator. Normally the decompressed samples are saved just in case they need to be played again, but the way samples are stored and played on the SNES, it can result in a click sound or distortion when caching samples with loops in them.

No echo

Turn off sound echo and FIR filter effects. Processing these effects can really slow down a non-MMX Pentium machine due to the number of calculations required to implement these features.

No master volume

Disable emulation of the sound DSP master volume control. Some ROMs set the volume level very low requiring you to turn up the volume level of your speakers introducing more background noise. Use this option to always have the master volume set on full and to by-pass a bug which prevents the music and sound effects being heard on Turrican.

4.3 Cheat options

Game genie

Supply a Game Genie code for the current ROM. Up to 10 codes can be in affect at once. Game Genie codes for many SNES games are available from: http://game-genie.nvc.cc.ca.us

Action replay

Supply a Pro-Action Reply code for the current ROM. Up to 10 codes can be in affect at once. At the moment, codes which alter RAM do not work.

Gold finger

Supply a Gold Finger code for the current ROM. Up to 10 codes can be active at once.

4.4 Speed options

Sound skip

ONLY USED IF SOUND IS DISABLED. The algorithm to use when trying to fool a ROM into thinking that the SPC700 sound CPU is there when actual emulation of it is turned off (for speed reasons).

Frameskip

Set this value to deliberately fix the frame skip rate and disable auto- speed regulation. Use a larger value faster emulation but more jerky movement and a smaller value for smooth but slower screen updates. Use '+' and '-' keys to modify the value during a game. Ideal for some Super FX games that confuse the auto-adjust code or for games that deliberately flash the screen every alternate frame.

Frametime

If auto-adjust frame skip option is in effect, then the emulator will try to maintain a constant game and music speed locked to this value by skipping the rendering of some frames or waiting until the required time is reached. Increase the value to slow down games, decrease it to speed up games. During a game the value can be adjusted in millisecond steps by pressing Shift '-' or Shift '+'.

Cycles

Percentage of CPU cycles to execute per scan line, decrease value to increase emulation frame rate. Most ROMs work with a value of 85 or above.

4.5 Rom options

Interleaved

Force interleaved ROM image format.

Interleaved

Force alternate interleaved format (i.e. most Super FX games).

Hi-rom

Force Hi-ROM memory map for ROMs where the Hi-ROM header test fails.

Lo-rom

Force Lo-ROM memory map for ROMs where the Hi-ROM header test fails)

Header

Force the detection of a ROM image header. Some ROM images have been hand-edited to remove unused space from the end of the file; if the resultant image size is not a multiple of 32k then Snes9x can't auto-detect the presense of a 512 byte ROM image header.

No header

Force Snes9x into thinking no ROM image header is present. See -header above.

Pal

Fool ROM into thinking this is a PAL SNES system and adjust frame time to 20ms (50 frames per second)

Ntsc

Fool ROM into thinking this is a NTSC SNES system and adjust frame time to 16.7ms (60 frames per second)

layering

Swap background layer priorities from background involved in sub-screen addition/subtraction. Can improve some games play-ability - no need to constantly toggle background layers on and off to read text/see maps, etc. Toggle feature on and off during game by pressing '8'. Not used if transparency effects are enabled.

Load snapshot

Load snapshot file and restart game from saved position.

No hdma

Turn off the H-DMA emulation. Pressing '0' during a game toggles H-DMA on and off.

No speed hacks

Turn off a couple of speed hacks. The hacks boost the speed of many ROMs but cause problems a few ROMs.

No windows

Disable graphics windows emulation. Use 'backspace' key during a game to toggle the emulation on and off.

4.6 Joystick options

Joystick configuration

Configures the joystick buttons. (Not yet implemented)

Swap

Swap emulated joy-pad 1 and 2 around, pressing '6' during a game does the same thing.

No joy

Turn off joystick, SideWinder and GrIP detection (joystick polling on the PC slows the emulator down).

Old

Enable old-style SNES joystick emulation

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