ZSNES Frequently asked Questions -------------------------------- Q : How come I don't get any sound? Q : Why is zsnes giving me an error that it can't support stereo sound? Q : When do you think you'll support GUS/PAS sound cards? Q : When do you think transparency will be emulated? Q : Why doesn't *name of game* work on zsnes? Q : Can you get *name of game* working by the next release? Q : Why is *name of game* not working in v.*version #* of zsnes? It was working before. Q : Where do you get the games? Q : When do you think you will emulate the *DSP/SFX/C4* chip? My favorite game *name of game with chip* won't run without it. Q : Why is zsnes slow? Q : How do I speed up zsnes? Q : Can you please make zsnes faster? Q : Do you think you'll implement a tile based engine? Q : Can you implement dynamic recompilation into zsnes? Q : Why does the game slow down even though I'm using auto frame rate and the FPS is pretty high? Q : Why is the sound in zsnes not very good? Q : Why can't I access the config menu and why is it dark? For more Q & A's, visit this great unofficial zsnes faq located at : http://gameshark.simplenet.com/zsnes/ Thanks to AptivaMan for this great site! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q : How come I don't get any sound? A : There could be several situations : 1.) You haven't enabled sound. You can enable sound by either : - Editing zsnes.cfg using by notepad or edit.exe and changing Sound = 0 to Sound = 1 - Running zsnes through the commandline -s 2.) Your windows 95 doesn't create a SET BLASTER string. To verify this, type SET in DOS and look for a string starting with BLASTER= If such a string exists, then this is not your problem. 3.) You don't have a SB2.0 compatible sound card. If this is your case, then there is nothing you can do at the moment. ZSNES uses auto-initialization mode for sound which requires SB2.0+ 4.) Your SB IRQ conflicts with another device. If this is the case, read the following message below from lil of Emulation Camp. Thanks to lil for this great message! 5.) Zsnes doesn't like your sound card *------ Start Message -------------------------------------------* Posted by lil of Emulation Camp the 02/21/98 at 21:21 It's well known that alot of us, myself included, have had problems getting sound to work in zsnes. No matter what options we use, stereo, force 8-bit, sound rate, nothing changes. Well at long last I present the solution to all our problems. :-) I will explain how I got it working today. I have a sound blaster 64 awe (not gold) so my example should work for everyone else, if it doesn't, don't complain to me, I'm not a hardware guru. First, its not a totally a problem with the zsnes code. It's more of a hardware configuration problem. All you have to is change the IRQ of your sound card to 5 and it should work. If you don't know how to do that, here's how to do it in Windows 95: 1. Press Start, goto Settings, and select Control Panel. 2. Double Click the System icon 3. Click the Device Manager tab on the System Properties screen 4. In the list box, double click on Sound, video, and game controllers 5. Double click on the sound blaster driver in the sub-list 6. Click on the Resources tab in the Properties screen 7. Double Click on Interrupt Request in the list box 8. In the Value box, change the number to 05 (zero+five). This is hexadecimal so don't forget to put the zero. 9. If it says theres a conflict in the Conflict Information Box you've got a problem, otherwise click Ok and reboot your computer, sound should work when you run zsnes. (Assuming you have sound enabled in the zsnes.cfg or use the -s parameter on the command-line.) 10. If you do have a conflict you can try changing the IRQ of the device thats already using irq 5 using the same steps listed above, but its dangerous if you don't know what you are doing. In fact, i had my modem on 5, moved it to 4 which conflicted with my mouse, so when I got on the internet my mouse froze. My modem only works on irq 4 and 5 when its in com 3, so I had to open up the case and move the modem to com 2, which ran on the unused irq 3. And I had to search for new hardware in Windows of course. I don't suggest moving hardware around if you aren't experienced with computers. 11. You may need to edit your autoexec.bat at the DOS Prompt. This is what my blaster line looks like and yours should look similar if you did what I did. SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6 The only thing you need to change is the I5 because that tells you what IRQ you are using. (Which was just changed to five.) 12. Close all windows and reboot when your done. I hope that's enough explanation to get it working for you. Its worked for two others already, so it appears to be a feasible solution. Just don't forget to change that zsnes.cfg file! ^_^ zsknight and _Demo_: Feel free to put this info in the next zsnes readme. Thanks goes out to GB for helping me with the device setup. - lil of Emulation Camp *------ End Message ---------------------------------------------* ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q : Why is zsnes giving me an error that it can't support stereo sound? I have an SB Pro/Compatible which has stereo sound. A : Zsnes doesn't support 8-bit stereo sound. You need a 100% SB16 compatible card to support stereo. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q : When do you think you'll support GUS/PAS sound cards? A : We've considered implementing those sound cards, but a lack of time and also by the fact that we haven't really touched those cards before prevents us from implementing it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q : When do you think transparency will be emulated? A : Transparencies are already in zsnes. You first need a vesa 2.0 driver for dos. SDD6.0 should include a file called univbe.exe in its directory. Run it under dos, then run zsnes.exe using -v 3 or -v 5. Running with transparencies on is definitely slower because of the extra math equations, memory, and video space involved. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q : Why doesn't *name of game* work on zsnes? A : Getting the compatibility higher is a very hard task to do. We're always trying to get more games working. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q : Can you get *name of game* working by the next release? A : We're always trying, but we can never guarantee a specific game will be working because of the difficulties involved in bug fixing. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q : Why is *name of game* not working in v.*version #* of zsnes? It was working before. A : Whenever we change something in the emulation, whether it's optimisation or bug fixes, it is always likely to have caused a problem elsewhere. Usually, these problems aren't discovered until after a release. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q : Where do you get the games? A : zsKnight or _Demo_ will *NOT* provide any games or any links to games. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q : When do you think you will emulate the *DSP/SFX/C4* chip? My favorite game *name of game with chip* won't run without it. A : We will consider emulating extra chips only if decent information on those chips are found. However, even if we find info on them, we cannot guarantee to be able to implement them. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q : Why is zsnes slow? A : Emulating a snes is slow because it is a complex system. Also, zsnes is using a line by line engine which is slow, but should be accurate. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q : How do I speed up zsnes? A : If you have a lower end system such as a 486, you can use -Q to speed up emulation with sound enabled. The drawback is that you get lower quality sound which can get sometimes get annoying. Also, try running zsnes in pure dos. This will give a noticeable speed increase when compared to running under a win95 dos box. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q : Can you please make zsnes faster? A : We're always trying and there are still a lot of room left for optimisation, but a lack of time keeps us from implementing them. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q : Do you think you'll implement a tile based engine? A : There are plans and a tile based engine will make zsnes faster. But we'll only implement it when we have time. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q : Can you implement dynamic recompilation into zsnes? A : There is no plans to implement it since it doesn't seem necessary. The snes only uses a 3mhz cpu compared to say a 33mhz on a playstation or a 93mhz on an n64. Implementing a dynamic recompilation engine will be hard work and won't improve performance by much. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q : Why does the game slow down even though I'm using auto frame rate and the FPS is pretty high? A : A game slows down like that when it executes its code beyond the speed of cpu emulation that zsnes currently handles. To reduce such slowdowns, increase the percentage of execution by using either -p or editing zsnes.cfg. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q : Why is the sound in zsnes not very good? A : It's because zsnes is still lacking some sound features. The sound documents available to us are also lacking a lot of detailed information such as on filtering. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q : Why can't I access the config menu and why is it dark? A : The config menu isn't implemented and will probabily never be implemented. It's mainly because a rewrite of the gui is planned. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------