higan, the multi-system emulator
================================

higan emulates a number of classic videogame consoles of the 1980s and 1990s,
allowing you to play classic games on a modern general-purpose computer.

As of v102,
higan has top-tier support for the following consoles:

  - Nintendo Super Famicom/Super Nintendo Entertainment System,
    including addon hardware:
      - Super Game Boy
      - Sufami Turbo
  - Nintendo Game Boy Advance

It also includes some level of support for these consoles:

  - BS-X Satellaview addon for the Super Famicom
  - Nintendo Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System
  - Nintendo Game Boy
  - Nintendo Game Boy Color
  - Sega Master System
  - Sega Game Gear
  - Sega Megadrive/Genesis
  - NEC PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 (but not the CD-ROM² System/TurboGrafx-CD)
  - NEC SuperGrafx
  - Bandai Wonderswan
  - Bandai Wonderswan Color

higan is actively supported on
FreeBSD 10 and above, and
Microsoft Windows XP and above.
It also includes some level of support
for GNU/Linux and macOS.

higan is officially spelled with a lowercase "h", not a capital.

About this document
-------------------

This is the unofficial higan README,
a community-maintained introduction and reference.
It may be out of date
by the time you read this,
and it may contain errors or omissions.
If you find something that's wrong,
or you have a suggestion,
see "Unofficial higan resources" below.

Official higan resources
------------------------

  - [Official homepage](https://byuu.org/emulation/higan/)
  - [Official forum](https://board.byuu.org/viewforum.php?f=4)

Unofficial higan resources
--------------------------

  - [Source code repository](https://gitlab.com/higan/higan/)
    archives official higan releases
    and WIP snapshots
    since approximately v067r21.
  - [Quark shader repository](https://github.com/hizzlekizzle/quark-shaders)
    collects shaders that higan can use
    to add special effects like TV scanlines to its video output,
    or smarter algorithms for scaling up to modern PC resolutions.
    See [Installing custom shaders][shaders] below for details.
  - [Mercurial Magic](https://github.com/hex-usr/Mercurial-Magic/)
    is a tool for converting MSU-1 games and mods into a format
    higan can use.
    See [Importing MSU-1 games][msu1] below for details.

[shaders]: #installing-custom-shaders
[msu1]: #importing-msu-1-games

There are also other projects
based on current or older versions of higan,
in whole or in part,
that you might want to check out.

  - [Mednafen](https://mednafen.github.io/)
    is another multi-system emulator.
    Its SNES emulation is based on bsnes v059,
    from the time before bsnes was renamed to higan.
  - [BizHawk](http://tasvideos.org/BizHawk.html)
    is another multi-system emulator,
    specialising in the creation of
    tool-assisted speedruns.
    Its SNES emulation is based on bsnes v087.
  - [nSide](https://github.com/hex-usr/nSide)
    is a fork of higan that greatly enhances
    its NES emulation support,
    and adds minor features to the other cores too.
    It also restores the "balanced" SNES emulation core
    that was removed from higan in v099,
    which is less CPU intensive
    than the current accuracy-focussed core.
  - [bsnes-plus](https://github.com/devinacker/bsnes-plus)
    is a fork of bsnes v073
    that adds improved support for debugging SNES software.

Installing and uninstalling higan
=================================

Installing an official release on Windows
-----------------------------------------

Official higan releases are distributed in [7-zip][7z] archives.
You will need to install 7-zip,
or another compatible archiving tool,
to install higan.

[7z]: http://www.7-zip.org/

Compiling from source on Windows
--------------------------------

Compiling from source on Linux
------------------------------

Installing the GBA BIOS
-----------------------

Importing games
===============

What's a game folder?
---------------------

Importing regular games
-----------------------

Importing games with co-processor firmware
------------------------------------------

Importing BS-X games
--------------------

Importing Sufami Turbo games
----------------------------

Importing Super Game Boy games
------------------------------

Importing MSU-1 games
---------------------

Configuring higan
=================

Drivers
-------

Installing custom shaders
-------------------------

Controls
--------

Notes on specific emulation cores
=================================

The WonderSwan rotates!

Shaders look weird on SNES because of interlace/hi-res

GBA in-game saves are Difficult

Frequently Asked Questions
==========================

where is the vsync option?

exclusive full-screen?

phones and tablets