There's no shortage of options when it comes to playing SNES games on a PC, but programmer Byuu's extensive work on bsnes throughout the years has ensured that it remains by far the most cycle accurate Super Nintendo emulator ever developed.
While not as user friendly or CPU-light as other offerings, it remains an impressive achievement since it boasts 100% compatibility with every commercial Super Nintendo game ever released. But even Byuu was not expecting what his incredible package could pull off when pushed beyond the limits of the humble Super Nintendo.
Enter DerKoun, who a few weeks ago presented a bsnes modification over Reddit, one that permitted upscaling of the 2D surfaces being handled in Mode 7. The original Super Nintendo hardware allowed for a single background surface to be stretched and rotated, allowing for clever tricks like the futuristic tracks we zipped around in F-Zero, the training areas we flew through in Pilotwings and the rotating stages, giant chandeliers and giant Stone Golem boss in Super Castlevania IV (which is, in fact, a background and not sprite).
These transformations used the SNES' built-in specs to fake perspective, and more often than not made quite a blurry mess of the 'far away' bits of the scenery. What if you could use the power of your current device to apply further precise calculations? What if you could upscale the default grid? The end results are nothing short of astonishing.
Byuu was so impressed that he has already stated HD Mode 7 will be implemented within the next stable release of bsnes. The latest beta of the emulator is already capable of this, even allowing further upscaling of Mode 7 surfaces up to 4K and switching HD upscaling resolutions on the fly. Do note that using the emulator even on a powerful PC, those higher resolutions cause the frames-per-second counter to dip well below 15, so don't expect this to be (at least for now) practical beyond Full HD resolutions.
DerKoun was, however, not done with the concept of having a modern take on Super Nintendo emulation and has since continued to develop his own bsnes emulator fork to allow 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio Mode 7 support. Of course, no Super Nintendo game was ever developed supporting this, so for now the only bits of the game that properly stretch beyond their 4:3 original confinements are the Mode 7 backgrounds. However, with some game-specific hacks it is theoretically possible to extend further elements of the screen, like sprites and user interfaces, beyond their original constraints. Byuu is naturally not very keen to implement this extra feature into the bsnes main branch since it is a far too distant deviation from the project's main purpose, but it's hard to deny the amazing possibilities this opens up.
So there you have it, this unexpected (and very literal) twist on Super Nintendo emulation has taken retro gamers' hearts and minds by storm. You can see several examples of this modification in action on this playlist. Other authors are tinkering away at their own emulation offerings in order to implement similar functionalities to other systems like Sega Saturn and Game Boy Advance. It looks like there is a bright, highly-defined new future for retro gaming enthusiasts everywhere.
What do you make of this new achievement in SNES emulation? Give your HD toughs in the comment section below.
[source arstechnica.com]
Comments 51
A site dedicated to nintendo shouldn't promote this poop.
@jobvd It's a better enhancement than the companies of the originals will endeavour to make, so if people want to know what is possible, then it's fine. They aren't saying "you should definitely download this for free.". Perhaps sone people own the original cartridges, in which case it is completely legal to download the ganes and play them on bsnes.
If this could have been used on the Super NT via flashcarts that would be incredible. Sadly I'm told it's impossible.
It makes a huge difference in Pilotwings for sure. It's a shame Nintendo hasn't built this option into its own VC and msc. emulation efforts
This is bloody brilliant! Would really like it to become an official thing.
I always thought that ZSNES already had this option, but it never seemed to do anything when I enabled it.
They need to do SuperFX next...some emus already support overclocking it, which is pretty nice.
@jobvd Why not ? Emulation in itself isn't illegal and I don't see where's the problem with sharing some work from passionate people
Dammit that just makes me want a new Pilotwings even more... also one that isn’t just like a tech demo like the 3DS game, but a full game like PilotWings 64
Cool! F-Zero looks absolutely beautiful!
I need this in my SNES Classic! Will look into it if the hachiko emulator can be updated. I really hope so
It really does an amazing job of making these old pixel games look great today.
Now someone needs to figure out a way to get old polygon games like Star Fox and F-Zero X to output at HD, 60fps and with no pop-in, just like M2 managed for the Switch port of the arcade version of Virtua Racing--because just imagine how gorgeous and awesome SNES Star Fox running in super smooth HD at 60fps with literally no pop-in would be. . . .
@jobvd A site for fans of all ages shouldn't have to put up with bad language in posts either
I know it's not on anyone's top list of Mode 7 classics but HAL Laboratory's Hyper Zone running with with both these enhancements is just stunning.
@LightBeam nuff said. Som can't be reached...
@jobvd isn't new, they always promote pirate,hacks,clone systems
Mario Kart needs this treatment. I love the SNES original but man, it can be a little hard on the eyes. Sometimes it’s hard to see the track in the distance.
@NotTelevision With a few game specific hacks, it could turn into quite something special. Same for F-Zero really.
😮wow very cool
@LightBeam To the best of my knowledge, there is no official legal WY to have a Ron of a Nintendo game. Nintendo has never supported it and has actively gone against it almoata since day one.
Sure, emulation is fine, but where do you get the romcto emulate? Now, if we're talking about building something to play your cartridges then that's fine but I have a feeling that a not what's going on here.
This has certainly been a long time coming!
I'd love to see what this does for FFVI and Terranigma.
The jitteriness of the camera in Pilotwings does become slightly more off-putting at the higher resolution, though. ^^
@Pod The Pilotwings jitter was a bug that has since been squashed. As for FFVI it is as glorious as one might expect.
@Shiryu
Wow, that really is a game changer!
This look fantastic. And not only that, it seems, that it ads widescreen support to these games. Nice, very nice!
When's it going to be available for SNES9X?
I love this so much ^.^ Enhancing old games in any significant way technically is always so exciting.
The option for the original rendering still being easily available also means all camps are pleased!
@Kalmaro It's settled law in the US that backing up something you've purchased is perfectly legal. It's not really relevant whether nintendo "likes" or "supports" this
Outside the US ymmv
@tr573 Where is the law used to support backing up your games? I may have just overlooked it.
@jobvd Are you kidding me? This has nothing to do with pirate games or pirate groups or piracy itselft
@Kalmaro it's part of fair use case law, not legislation.
Even the ESA admits that on their website FAQ: http://www.theesa.com/public-policy/intellectual-property/content-protection/content-protection-faqs/
https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-digital.html
maybe i'll put this on my gaming rig when it gets built although i already have a huge steam backlog as it is to even think about this lol
Seeing the side by side of Pilot Wings is incredible. Watching F-Zero is funny to me, because that is exactly how I remember it looking in my nostalgia distorted memory.
@tr573 I see, so long story short, you are protected if you own the game and... That's pretty much it apparently.
@Kalmaro That's the not the subject at all
You can dump your own roms, afaik that's the only way to play roms legally
But do we really care about Nintendo's position here? I mean, we're not on an official website, and emulation is still part of Nintendo's history, whatever if they want it or not
And there's no problem about a Nintendo website talking about emulation or even hacks, as long as there are no links provided to piracy stuff. Nintendo Life doesn't endorse hacks or emulation by any means, it's just talking about Nintendo related news.
I still don't understand why some people here are that triggered about hacking or emulation, it's just not the same as piracy
@Kalmaro Of course yes, that's why it's a backup. If you don't own it then it's an illegal copy.
@Kalmaro There are two TECHNICALITIES that Nintendo and its lawyers point to in order to make ANY emulation of their games illegal. But in reality this is just lawyer speak. If someone got a big enough team of lawyers together they could argue that breathing is illegal. What's really important is that the SPIRIT of the law made in the 70's was to protect consumers so that they didn't have to buy the same piece of software over and over again due to loss, damage or just the simple passage of time. This is EXACTLY what Nintendo doesn't want you to do and why they look for these technicalities to quash emulation.
@jobvd Counterpoint: A site dedicated to Nintendo should absolutely promote this.
Looks good but the black square boxes on the upper two corners in F-Zero are really bothersome.
@impurekind The Sega Ages version of Virtua Racing was based on the arcade version which already looking good and running smooth. All M2 does is upscale the game to HD and add some new features to it. It would be really tough to turn those pixelated polygon of the Super FX into something like the ones you see in Virtua Racing. Also forget the original Star Fox, just take Star Fox 64 and turn that into HD, it's a proper remake of Star Fox anyways.
I'm not a fan of mods and emulators that claim to "fix" games (in someone's opinion), but this is an amazing idea that actually adds a lot of value. It probably won't happen, but I really wish this either gets added officially, or at least a version of the emulator can be run in the SNES Classic.
@retro_player_22 I explained why in the article that happens. It is indeed distracting but... it is a first step in the right direction. Sprite draw and the sky box need to be extended so that the game will support 100% widescreen.
Looks nice but I’m a purist love the real hardware running these games. The SNES is and always will be a remarkable system.
@tr573 I was under the impression that when you buy a Nintendo game, you are buying a license to play it, not the game itself.
@Kalmaro that's the case for literally every piece of media you purchase, but that doesn't change your right to make backup copies of the media you have purchased a license to.
@tr573 But if the right is tied to you owning the property, and the owner says that you did not buy the property but a license to use it, what happens then?
I guess it boils down to if you really own something even though someone says you don't.
The piracy debate really should have nothing to do with this. Emulators aren't illegal and this just updates the SNES's affine texture mapping to display in higher resolutions (higher, and better than the old ZSNES implementation). You should be able to have an article about emulators without 30 comments arguing about it.
This does wonders for F-Zero. My jaw dropped when I could see the little moving white dots representing cars on the roads in the first track's background.
@retro_player_22 They did a whole lot more than just upscale the arcade version of the game for the Switch build. The arcade version has blatant pop-in, which they completely removed for the Switch version. This is hugely impressive and something I've never/rarely seen any modern updates of classic games do (not talking about complete remakes here but just the games where they use the original games directly and try to update the textures and stuff a bit or whatever then release them again). And, yeah, they also took the resolution and framerate all the way up to HD and 60fps too.
And it would actually be easier to render the original Star Fox's flat polygons in full HD than Star Fox 64's terrible blurry/muddy textured polygons because polygon are inherently mathematical and scale perfectly, such that the higher the resolution you output them game in the sharper/smoother the edges of the polygons become, but low-res textures do not. Also, the original Star Fox is, imo, a much better game than 64--it just needs someone to make it run in 1080p, 60fps and with no pop-in for that to become abundantly clear (even if both games received similar treatment).
This is wizard works. Looks awesome
Nintendo should be giving this guy a call to see if this can be implemented for any potential SNES games coming to the Switch
While I dislike emulation in general what I like about reporting things like this is it shows what can be done and should make Nintendo and other companies make more effort when they try to resell their 20 year old games for £5 or £10 with no improvements. I know we're seeing some games come to us with improvements but that's still few a far between. If they could HD the Mode 7 of SNES games when they eventually come to Switch, that would be a massive bonus to everyone.
@Morph Teaching piracy to children. Omg.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...