The ImbNES FAQ 0.4.2 - (c) 2k2 Iuri Fiedoruk Thanks to all people who helped in making this FAQ. Thanks to Allan for his great emulator. Thanks for MEGAMAN for his great help. This document is licensed under the terms of GPL 2.0 Changelog: 11/08/2002 - changed from txt to html, fixed or removed broken links. 22/04/2003 - updated for version 1.3. SECTION I: FIRST TIME SECTION II: BURNING SECTION III: SAVE SECTION IV: MISC SECTION V: - TROUBLESHOOTING ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SECTION I: FIRST TIME ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. What do I need to run ImbNES? Since the regular PSX dosen't runs cd-r media, you'll need a mod-chip or a Action Replay/Game Shark (with boot CD) to run ImbNES. For PS2 you need a modchip or bootcd that allows playing PSX cds, one that just runs PS2 games won't work. Then you need to burn it using some method as the ones that can be found at ImbNES Help page. 2.What is the hexadecimal thing? Well, think of hexadecimal as a extended decimal system. Instead of going from 0 to 9, it goes from 0 to F. So in decimal - 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (and then loop back to 0); in hexdecimal we have - 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F (and then loop back to 0). Note that ImbNES starts with 000, if you press a button one time it will go to 1, then 2, and so goes one... So if you need for example AF1 you have to press: Square - 10 times X - 15 times Circle - 1 time 3.Does ImbNES supports game genie codes? ImbNES 1.3 does support GameGenie codes, to use it, on menu press triangle to enter ImbNES configuration and then choose gamegenie option. Insert the code for the game, then load it. 4.Does ImbNES support save or save-state? Please see SECTION III on this FAQ. 5.What mappers are supported on ImbNES? According to Allan: 0,1,2,3,4,7,9,11,66 and 71. Version 1.3 added support to mappers 9 (punchout) and 34 (deadly towers). 6.My XXX game dosen't run! When mapper XXX will be implemented? ImbNES is developed in free time so things need a period for being implemented and aren't pre-determined to ocurr in a certain time. So give it a time. It take a long time before a good emulator as ImbNES came out, so be patient. 7.Does ImbNES support PSX pistols as NES ones? Not for now. 8. How do I reset the emulator and return to game selection screen? Press and hold L1+R1+select+start 9.When I try to run a game or return to the game list I get a black screen Seems like this game isn't supported yet or you have some problem with the emulator. Try to reset the emulator holding L1+R1+select+start, and if this don't work reset your console. 10.How can I run ImbNES on PAL or NTSC console/TV? On game selection screen press L2 or R2 to change between PAL and NTSC operation mode, then run a game. 11.I downloaded ImbNES but can't find roms. Where are the roms? OK, roms distribution isn't completally legal. You can only copy games you own, and in most cases those roms sites have roms that you don't own or even that the site owner dosen't own. ImbNES have nothing to do with roms or piracy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SECTION II: BURNING ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.Can I test ImbNES before burning it? You can use a PSX emulator like epsxe and run the iso file. But be warned that it's not 100% sure that the CD will run, because if you burn in a wrong way or one that your psx console dosen't like, the cd can not work. CD-RWs dosen't run on PSX so it's not possible to use it for testing. 2. How do I burn ImbNES? The short answer for ImbNES 1.3 is to build the rombank file with the rombank tool - it basically gets all your roms in just one file because PSX file system don't support lots of files and long names very well - then, in the same tool, generate a ISO file. Then get your cd-recording tool (it must support ISO cd-image format) and burn the CD. Other instructions can be found at http://imbnes.gamebase.ca/help.html (cdrwin/nero), and http://www.consolevision.com/ps1/tutorials/imbnes/ezcd.shtml for easy cd creator tutorial. Please note that for burning you should get the lastest release from imbnes homepage, because some sites have older releases. Note too that the Easy CD burning tutorial is outdated and that instead of a system.cnf you will have a psx.exe file. 3.Can I use ImbNES on ps2? Yes, but but there is a problem with versions older than 1.3: the game selection menu dosen't shows up. In ImbNES 1.3 the problem dosen't happen, so you can play without problem. 4.I've burned the CD but it only spins and nothing happens... This is probally due to the CD not being well burned. There are a lot of ways to burn cds, and sometimes depending on your software/hardware only one of them works. Try different ways to burn it, and remember to burn it at 1 or 2X. 5. Does 700MB/80min CDs work on PSX? Yes, but PSX can only read about 610MB/71min from a cd, so, if you respect this limit, it will run without problems. 6. I can't boot it. I don't have a modded PSX! There are some tricks that could be done, please take a look on ImbNES Phorum and good luck. 7.I'm getting major graphics problems on ImbNES1.1 when I try to play it on my PS2. What is happenening? Version 1.2b of ImbNES may have grafic problems when played on the PS2. Use ImbNES 1.3 that is better and supports menu in PS2. (thanks to Rob6021 for this question) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SECTION III: SAVE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.Does ImbNES supports save state or saves? ImbNES 1.2 beta and higher versions support save, but not save-state. 2.I saved the game and reseted my Playstation and I have no save! For saving from SRAM to memory card you must first save in the game then you shold press L1+R1+SELECT+START to reset the game. A screen will appear asking you to press: CIRCLE to save the SRAM to memory card X to cancel and do not save, just reset TRIANGLE+SQUARE to delete de SRAM on memory card for this game 3.Can I save on memory card1? How many blocks do I need? Please notice that the saves will be stored on memory card 1 only and each save requires a save block. 4.I can't see the ImbNES save blocks! This is a problem with saves from versions prior to 1.3, but ImbNES 1.3 not only fix this problem as you can load up the old saves, save over it and they will start showing a save icon. For older versions the saves can do not appear or appear with errors on Game Shark and Playstation's memory card managers. For erasing the saves you must do as explained on question 3. PS2 can show you the data as some game enhancers as gamehunter, goldfinger, and gamewizard (thanks b_ski). 5. Can I change the save icons? ImbNES 1.3 allows you to change the icon of ImbNES saves when generating the rombank file. 6. Some games that do not have saves are asking me to save SRAM. Yes, some games that do not have save asks for saving SRAM data, such as Super Mario 3. NES games could use SRAM without having a battery for save. ImbNES will ask for saving the a game if the rom make use of SRAM, that is the memory used for most games to save the game, but there are some games that make use of this memory just for the game itself, so ImbNES wrongly assumes the game had a battery for saving. This is a know error, but the fix isn't trivial, so it probally won't be fixed soon, so ignore it (press X when asked to save). 7. I have a PS2, can I use a PS2 memory card with ImbNES? No, you must use a PSX memory card on your PS2 to save games in ImbNES. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SECTION IV - MISC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.Is there a snes, n64, ps2, gameboy advance emulator for psx? Psx does only have 2MB RAM, so it can't handle big games as those systems, even if it could, they have better or similar CPUs than the psx. Emulation a system needs a CPU much more powerfull than the original system emulated. 2.But PSX can emulate Atari 2600, gameboy and other old systems right? Yes it can. And there are already some gameboy emulators made to run on the black PSX console that was sold by Sony to developers. But making a cd with it to run on regular PSX units isn't trivial. There is a Gameboy emulator in the works (no release yet). You can find it in the address: http://agbe.gamebase.ca/. Unhapply for now there isn't any other good emulators as ImbNES, but maybe it can serve as incentive for other developers to do emulators for old systems. 3.There is a emulator inside Chrono Trigger for Playstation. Can I use it to play other SNES games on PSX? The fact is that there is a Super Nintendo rom on the CD, but it isn't for emulation purporses. Instead Square choose to get the graphic of the game from the rom, instead of exporting it to other formats in other files. So this rom just servers to a PSX program (not a emulator) get the graphics/text/etc from the rom directly, there is no SNES emulator for PSX. See http://exult.sf.net and http://scummvm.sf.net for programs that do the same thing. 4. PnesX is open source, so why not you just copy save and menu from it? PnesX is writen in C while ImbNES is writen in ASM. ASM and C are two kinds of very different programming languages, you can rewrite one language to another, but it's a complex task, think about translating programs, they never do a very good job, you need to know some experssions on each language to make a good translation. PnesX make use of some C libraries that can't simply be ported without knowing how psx hardware works. This takes time, even with the help of PnesX source. 5.Aren't emulators ilegal? No, emulators are 100% legal. What isn't legal is distribution of non-owned copyrighted programs, as most roms are copyrighted, you can only download games you own, because, in this case, the rom is considered a backup, and backuping your games is legal. 6. Where can I find a compatibility list? Eberry have created a great site for compatibility. You can even add entries to the list easily: http://www21.brinkster.com/imbnes/ 7. Is there a IRC channel for ImbNES? Yes, on irc.newnet.net, channel #imbNES. There you can talk about ImbNES without making spam on the phorum :) 8. How do I change buttons in ImbNES? In ImbNES menu, press triangle to enter options, choose button config, then press the buttons you want when asked. 9. How to I turn on/off turbo? In key configuration you can choose a turbo-switcher button for A and B buttons, by default those are triangle for B and circle for A. Press those keys to swtich between no-turno, fast-turno, normal-turbo and slow-turbo. 10. How I can use analog stick of dual shock controller with ImbNES? Basically, press the analog buttonm (the one that turn on the red led in the joystick), and just start using it. You can use both analog and digital at same time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SECTION V - TROUBLESHOOTING ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. I have only one rom and the menu dosen't appear! It is acctually a feature to make ImbNES more like a real NES for people that had a few cartridges on the original system, and want all that nostalgia that makes emulation so cool. 2. When using PAL the size or position of the screen isn't right! In the menu you can adjust screen position simply by using left/right. ImbNES 1.3 have a better support to PAL and should fix most of the problems with screen position and size 3. I can't make it work on my PS2! All I can see are green and black lines! There are problems with the menu in the PS2 in ImbNES 1.0 to 1.2b. The emulator is working, but the menu is invisible, but you can input hexadecimal (see how in question 2 in section I) codes and play, because the games appears in the screen. ImbNES 1.3 fixes the problems of the menu in PS2. 4. What is the max number of characters I can have in a ROM name? The limit is 28 characters, and you can change the names in rombank (no need to rename your roms). Thanks to [veX] for the information. 5. Where can I find ImbNES FAQ in other languages? English: http://www.protohome.hpg.ig.com.br/imbfaq.html Espaņol: http://members.tripod.com/michaelreina/id87.htm German: http://home.arcor.de/unholy-evil/Emulord/ImbNES-FAQ/imbfaq_ger.htm Swedish: http://w1.859.telia.com/~u85920559/imbNES/imbNES_faq_swe.html French: http://pages.infinit.net/shadowld/imbfaq_french.txt norweigan: http://www30.brinkster.com/mattcarroll/imb.txt Japanese: http://www30.brinkster.com/mattcarroll/imbnesjap.txt Thanks to MEGAMAN,[vEX],Shadow Lord,Emulord and imbnes fan for the translations! Thanks to djgarf for the translations links.