FCEUX SDL Documentation

• Key Assignments
  • VS Unisystem
  • Famicom Disk System
  • Game Pad
  • Power Pad
  • Family Keyboard
• Command-line options

FCEUX is a cross platform, NTSC and PAL Famicom/NES emulator that is an evolution of the original FCE Ultra emulator. Over time FCE Ultra had separated into many separate branches.

The concept behind FCEUX is to merge elements from FCE Ultra, FCEU rerecording, FCEUXD, FCEUXDSP, and FCEU-mm into a single branch of FCEU. As the X implies, it is an all-encompassing FCEU emulator that gives the best of all worlds for the general player, the ROM-hacking community, and the Tool-Assisted Speedrun Community.

In several places references are made to the "base directory". If you are running a port on a UN*X-like system(Linux/*BSD/Mac OSX/SunOS/etc.), the base directory is "~/.fceux", or in other words, "your home directory plus .fceux".

FCE Ultra emulates the standard NES gamepad, the Four-Score multiplayer adapter, the Zapper, the Power Pad, and the Arkanoid controller. The Famicom version of the Arkanoid controller, the "Space Shadow" gun, the Famicom 4-player adapter, and the Family Keyboard are also emulated.

Most Zapper NES games expect the Zapper to be plugged into port 2. and most VS Unisystem games expect the Zapper to be plugged into port 1.

The left mouse button is the emulated trigger button for the Zapper. The right mouse button is also emulated as the trigger, but as long as you have the right mouse button held down, no color detection will take place, which is effectively like pulling the trigger while the Zapper is pointed away from the television screen. Note that you must hold the right button down for a short time to have the desired effect.

You will need the FDS BIOS ROM image in the base FCEUX directory. It must be named "disksys.rom". FCEUX will not load FDS games without this file.

You should make backups of all of your FDS games you use with FCEUX. This is because FCEUX will write the disk image back to the storage medium, and the disk image in RAM might have been corrupted because of inaccurate emulation(this case is not likely to occur, but it could occur).

The Game Genie ROM image is loaded from the file "gg.rom" in the base directory the first time Game Genie emulation is enabled and a ROM image is loaded since the time FCEUX has run.

The ROM image may either be the 24592 byte iNES-format image, or the 4352 raw ROM image.

Remember that enabling/disabling Game Genie emulation will not take effect until a new game is loaded(this statement shouldn't concern any of the "run once" command-line driven ports).

FCE Ultra currently only supports VS Unisystem ROM images in the iNES format. DIP switches and coin insertion are both emulated. The following games are supported, and have palettes provided(though not necessarily 100% accurate or complete):

• Dr. Mario
• VS Castlevania
• VS Duck Hunt
• VS Excitebike
• VS Gradius
• VS Golf
• VS Hogan's Alley
• VS Ice Climber
• VS Pinball
• VS Platoon
• VS RBI Baseball
• VS Sky Kid
• VS Slalom
• VS Star Luster
• VS Stroke and Match Golf
• VS Super Mario Bros
• VS Tetris
• VS The Goonies

Place the IPS file in the same directory as the file to load, and name it filename.ips.

        Examples:       Boat.nes - Boat.nes.ips
                        Boat.zip - Boat.zip.ips
                        Boat.nes.gz - Boat.nes.gz.ips
                        Boat     - Boat.ips
        

Some operating systems and environments will hide file extensions. Keep this in mind if you are having trouble.

Patching is supported for all supported formats(iNES, FDS, UNIF, and NSF), but it will probably only be useful for the iNES format. It can be used with the FDS format, but be warned that it will permanently patch your disk image, as the disk image is written back to disk when the game is unloaded(unless the disk image is in a zip file, in which case it isn't written back to disk). UNIF files can't be patched well with the IPS format because they are chunk-based with no fixed offsets.

Key:	Action:
F2	Cheat menu (command-line only)
F3	Load lua script
F5	Save state.
Shift + F5	Record FM2 movie.
Shift + F7	Playback FM2 movie.
F7	Load state.
0-9	Select save state slot.
F12	Save screen snapshot.
F11	Reset.

Does this work?

Key:	Action:
F8	Insert coin.
F6	Show/Hide dip switches.
1-8	Toggle dip switches(when dip switches are shown).

Does this work?

Key:	Action:
F6	Select disk and disk side.
F8	Eject or Insert disk.

Key:	Button on Emulated Gamepad:
K	B
J	A
Enter/Return	Start
Tab	Select
W	Up
A	Left
S	Down
D	Right

Does this work?

Side B
O	P	[	]
K	L	;	'
M	,	.	/

Side A
	P	[
K	L	;	'
	,	.

All emulated keys are mapped to the closest open key on the PC keyboard, with a few exceptions. The emulated "@" key is mapped to the "`"(grave) key, and the emulated "kana" key is mapped to the "Insert" key(in the 3x2 key block above the cursor keys).

To enable or disable Family Keyboard input, press the "Scroll Lock" key. When Family Keyboard input is enabled, FCE Ultra will also attempt to prevent any key presses from being passed to the GUI or system.

FCEUX supports arguments passed on the command line. Arguments are taken in the form of "--parameter value". Most arguments that have both a parameter and a value will be saved in the configuration file.

Argument:	Value Type:	Default value:	Description:
--pal	0|1	0	Emulate a PAL NES. Otherwise emulate an NTSC NES.
--gamegenie	0|1	0	Emulate a gamie genie (gg.rom required).
--nospritelim	0|1	1	Disbales the 8 sprites per scanline limitation.
--frameskip	integer	0	Sets number of frames to skip per emulated frame (must be built with frameskip support).
--palette	filename	0	Load a custom global palette from given file. Specifying "0" will cause FCEUX to stop using the custom global palette.
--ntsccolor	0|1	0	Enable NTSC NES colors.
--sound	0|1	1	Enable sound
--soundvol x	integer	100	Set sound volume.
--soundq x	0|1	1	Enable high-quality sound emulation.
--clipsides	0|1	0	Clip leftmost and rightmost 8 columns of pixels of the video output.
--slend /td>	integer	231	Last scanline to be rendered.
--slstart	integer	0	First scanline to be rendered

Name:	Contribution(s):
punkrockguy318	FCEUX SDL Documentation rewrite.