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When you launch higan the main window appears, with a menu-bar across the top, a status-bar across the bottom, and a large area in the middle that shows the running game's video output.
The Systems menu
This menu lists the systems higan emulates. Choosing any system from this menu allows you to play games for that system that you've already imported into higan's game library. See Importing and playing games.
You can customise this menu in higan's Systems settings to hide systems you don't care about, or add a specific cartridge for any supported system. This makes it more convenient to play games that involve mini-cartridges: for example, you can add the Sufami Turbo to the list and load SD Ultra Battle in two clicks instead of three.
Load ROM File ... opens a filesystem browser allowing you to choose a single ROM file. It will be imported and immediately start playing. See Importing and playing games.
The console menu
Note: The console menu does not appear until a game is loaded. Also, it's not named "console", it's named for the console that runs the loaded game. For example, when playing a Game Boy game, you will have a "Game Boy" menu.
The console menu contains commands relevant to the particular console being emulated. All consoles will have some of the following items, but few consoles have all of them.
Controller Port 1 allows you to connect different emulated controllers to the first controller port, if there is one. See higan's Input settings for information about configuring which PC controller inputs are used for the emulated controllers.
This menu appears for the Famicom, even though the Famicom did not support alternate controllers, because the Famicom emulation core also emulates the NES, which did.
Controller Port 2 allows you to connect different emulated controllers to the second controller port, if there is one. See higan's Input settings for information about configuring which PC controller inputs are used for the emulated controllers.
This menu appears for the Famicom, even though the Famicom did not support alternate controllers, because the Famicom emulation core also emulates the NES, which did.
Controller is like "Controller Port 1" for consoles that only have one controller port.
Hardware appears for consoles with buttons on the main unit, like the Game Boy, or Master System. It only allows the built-in controls to be used.
Cartridge appears for the Game Boy and Game Boy Colour. The options inside it do nothing.
Expansion Port allows you to connect different emulated devices to the console's expansion port, if there is one.
For the Super Famicom, the 21fx is a homebrew device that allows a program running on a PC to control a physical Super Famicom (or SNES). This option allows the same program to control the emulated SNES, for development or testing.
Extension Port is the name the Sega Mega Drive used for its expansion port.
Soft Reset restarts the emulated console's CPU while leaving the console's memory untouched, like pressing the "reset" button on a physical console.
This menu item does not appear for consoles that did not have a "reset" button, like hand-helds.
It also does not appear for the Sega Master System, since that console's reset button is wired up like a controller rather than directly attached to the CPU. To reset the Master System, bind a keyboard or joypad button to the "Reset" function on the "Controls" controller in the "Hardware" port of the Sega Master System in higan's Input settings.
Power Cycle restarts the loaded game as though the emulated console were switched off and on again.
Unload stops the current game, as though the emulated console were switched off. You can load a new game from the Systems menu.
The Settings menu
The Settings menu allows you to configure things that aren't specific to any particular console.
Size determines the size of the emulated console's video output when higan is running in windowed mode (as opposed to fullscreen). The menu-items that indicate particular sizes are only approximate, since aspect correction can be applied, different consoles have different native image sizes, and some consoles can change the size of their output image dynamically.
- 1x (240p) resizes the higan window so that each pixel of the emulated console's video output is drawn as a single pixel on the computer screen.
- 2x (480p) resizes the higan window so that each pixel of the emulated console's video output is drawn as a 2×2 block of pixels on the computer screen.
- 3x (720p) resizes the higan window so that each pixel of the emulated console's video output is drawn as a 3×3 block of pixels on the computer screen.
- Shrink Window To Size resizes the higan window to fit the emulated console's video output at its current scale, so there's no black padding between the image and the window border (some padding may remain if "Show Overscan Area" is enabled in the Output menu).
- Center Window moves the higan window to the centre of the computer screen.
Output controls how higan draws the emulated console's video output into the space available, in both windowed and fullscreen modes.
- Center draws the emulated video at the largest integer multiple of the native size that will fit, centered in the space available. This gives the most crisp output, but often has black borders.
- Scale draws the emulated video at the largest size that will fit, and which preserves the image's aspect ratio. This strikes a balance between displaying the video output as it was intended, and eliminating black borders.
- Stretch draws the emulated video to cover the entire available output area, even if that distorts the image. This completely eliminates black borders, but can look very weird.
- Adaptive Sizing allows higan to resize its window when the emulated console changes the resolution of its video output. This can avoid black borders, but the window resizing itself might be even more distracting.
- Aspect Correction horizontally stretches the emulated video output to match the aspect ratio produced by the original console. It can make the output look more "lumpy", but is a more accurate representation of the original console's output.
- Show Overscan Area controls whether the area defined by the "Overscan Area" sliders in the Video settings is clipped from the emulated video output or shown.
Emulation applies various effects to the emulated console's video output to reproduce some behaviours that aren't technically part of the console itself:
- Blurring
simulates the limited horizontal resolution
of standard-definition TVs
by blurring together horizontally-adjacent pixels.
For hand-held consoles,
this simulates the slow response time
of the cheap LCD screens these consoles used
by blending each output frame with the previous one.
- Games like Jurassic Park for the Super Famicom or Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS for the Game Boy depend on this to emulate a transparency effect.
- Colors simulates the way a console's display device differs from modern computer monitor's colour reproduction. In particular, it simulates the slightly-different gamma correction used by the Super Famicom, the dim, washed out colours of the original Game Boy Advance, and the pea-green display of the original Game Boy.
Shader controls how the low-resolution video output of the emulated console is scaled up to suit modern high-resolution displays. Using video shaders describes all the options in this sub-menu.
Synchronize Audio causes higan to wait for audio playback to complete before resuming emulation. This should reduce popping and glitching noises, and slows the emulation down to approximately the correct speed. If your PC cannot emulate at full-speed, (60fps for most consoles, 75fps for WonderSwan) this has no noticeable effect.
Mute Audio causes higan to not output sound from the emulated console. The sound hardware is still emulated.
Show Status Bar causes higan to show or hide the status bar at the bottom of the window. This option has no effect in fullscreen mode. See The status bar for more information.
Systems ... opens higan's Systems settings.
Video ... opens higan's Video settings.
Audio ... opens higan's Audio settings.
Input ... opens higan's Input settings.
Hotkeys ... opens higan's Hotkeys settings.
Advanced ... opens higan's Advanced settings.
The Tools menu
The Tools menu contains features for manipulating the emulated console.
Save Quick State stores the current state of the emulated console into one of the quick state slots. See Save States for more information.
Load Quick State restores the emulated console to a state previously saved to one of the quick state slots. See Save States for more information.
Pause Emulation pauses the emulated console until this menu-item is selected again. This can also be triggered by the pause hotkey.
Cheat Editor ... opens the Cheat Editor tab of the Tools window.
State Manager ... opens the State Manager tab of the Tools window.
Manifest Viewer ... opens the Manifest Viewer tab of the Tools window.
Game Notes ... opens the Game Notes tab of the Tools window.
The Help menu
The Help menu contains information about higan itself.
Documentation loads the official higan documentation in your web-browser.
Credits loads a list of people who have contributed to higan in your web-browser.
About opens the About dialog, which displays basic information about higan, including the version number.
The status bar
The status bar appears at the bottom of the main higan window, while "Show Status Bar" is ticked in the Settings menu.
Before any game is loaded, the status bar displays "Unloaded".
When a game is loaded and running, the status bar displays the current emulation speed in frames-per-second. For PAL-based consoles, this should be around 50 FPS for "full speed" emulation, for NTSC and most portable consoles the ideal speed is 60 FPS, but the WonderSwan runs at 75 FPS. If the number is too low, you may need a faster computer, or a faster video driver. If the number is too high, you may need to Synchronize Audio, or you may have pressed the "turbo" hotkey.
The status bar displays "Paused" if you have pressed the "pause" hotkey, selected "Pause Emulation" from the Tools menu, or if "When focus is lost: Pause Emulation" is ticked in higan's Input settings and the main higan window is not the foreground window. To resume emulation, make sure the main higan window is in the foreground, select "Pause Emulation" from the Tools menu again, and/or press the "pause" hotkey.
The status bar briefly displays "Selected quick state slot X" (where X is one of the Quick State slot numbers) when you press the "Increment Quick State" or "Decrement Quick State" hotkeys, to show which Quick State slot will be used the next time you press the "Save Quick State" or "Load Quick State" hotkeys.
The status bar briefly displays "Slot X quick state does not exist" (where X is one of the Quick State slot numbers) when you choose a slot from the Tools → "Load Quick State" sub-menu that has not had a save-state saved to it, or when you press the "Load Quick State" hotkey while the current Quick State slot has not had a save-state saved to it,
The status bar briefly displays "System has been power cycled" when you choose "Power Cycle" from the console menu, or press the "Power Cycle" hotkey.
The status bar briefly displays "Display rotation not supported" when you press the "Rotate Display" hotkey while the emulated console does not support display rotation.