SECTION I: FIRST TIME
SECTION II: BURNING
SECTION III: SAVE
SECTION IV - MISC
1. What do I need to run ImbNES?
Since the regular PSX dosen't runs cd-r media, you'll need a mod-chip or a
Action Replay/Game Shark (with boot CD) to run ImbNES.
Then you need to burn it using some method as the ones that can be
found at ImbNES Help page.
2.What is the hexadecimal thing?
Well, think of hexadecimal as a extended decimal system.
Instead of going from 0 to 9, it goes from 0 to F.
So in decimal - 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (and then loop back to 0);
in hexdecimal we have - 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F
(and then loop back to 0).
Note that ImbNES starts with 000, if you press a button one time it will
go to 1, then 2, and so goes one...
So if you need for example AF1 you have to press:
Square - 10 times
X - 15 times
Circle - 1 time
3.Does ImbNES supports game genie codes?
Not yet, but Allan is already planning support for it. But notice that no date for this was given yet.
4.Does ImbNES support save or save-state?
Please see SECTION III on this FAQ.
5.What mappers are supported on ImbNES?
According to Allan: 0,1,2,3,4,7,9,11,66 and 71
6.My XXX game dosen't run! When mapper XXX will be implemented?
ImbNES is developed in free time so things need a period for being implemented
and aren't pre-determined to ocurr in a certain time.
So give it a time. It take a long time before a good emulator as ImbNES
came out, so be patient.
7.Does ImbNES support PSX pistols as NES ones?
Not for now.
8. How do I reset the emulator and return to game selection screen?
Press and hold L1+R1+select+start
9.When I try to run a game or return to the game list I get a black screen
Seems like this game isn't supported yet or you have some problem with the emulator.
Try to reset the emulator holding L1+R1+select+start, and if this don't work
reset your console.
10.How can I run ImbNES on PAL or NTSC console/TV?
On game selection screen press L2 or R2 to change between PAL and NTSC operation
mode, then run a game.
11.I can't make it work on my PS2!
Search the
ImbNES Phorum, there are some threads about running ImbNES on PS2.
12.I downloaded ImbNES but can't find roms. Where are the roms?
OK, roms distribution isn't completally legal. You can only copy games you own, and
in most cases those roms sites have roms that you don't own or even that the site
owner dosen't own.
ImbNES have nothing to do with roms or piracy.
1.Can I test ImbNES before burning it?
You can use a PSX emulator like epsxe and run the iso file.
But be warned that it's not 100% sure that the CD will run, because if you burn in
a wrong way or one that your psx console dosen't like, the cd can not work.
CD-RWs dosen't run on PSX so it's not possible to use it for testing.
2. How do I burn ImbNES?
Instructions can be found at
http://imbnes.gamebase.ca/help.htm (cdrwin/fireburner),
http://imbnes.gamebase.ca/nero.htm (nero) and
http://www.consolevision.com/ps1/tutorials/imbnes/ezcd.shtml for easy cd creator tutorial.
Please note that for burning you should get the lastest release from imbnes homepage,
because some sites have older releases. Note too that the Easy CD burning tutorial
is outdated and that instead of a system.cnf you will have a psx.exe file.
3.Can I use ImbNES on ps2?
Sure, but there is a problem: the game selection menu dosen't shows up.
This is a known problem on the emulator and can't be fixed for now once Allan dosen't
have a PS2 console. If you want you can send him your PS2 so he can try to find
out what is the problem and fix it.
4.I've burned the CD but it only spins and nothing happens...
This is probally due to the CD not being well burned.
There are a lot of ways to burn cds, and sometimes depending
on your software/hardware only one of them works.
Try different ways to burn it, and remember to burn it at 1 or 2X.
5.I have a PS2 and all I can see are green and black lines!
There is a know problem with ImbNES on PS2 systems, it's just dosen't
shows the game menu, but still you can play on it.
Please see question 2 in section I
to understand how to use hexadecimal.
6. Does 700MB/80min CDs work on PSX?
Yes, but PSX can only read about 610MB/71min from a cd, so, if you respect
this limit, it will run without problems.
7. I can't boot it. I don't have a modded PSX!
There are some tricks that could be done, please take a look on
ImbNES Phorum
and good luck.
8.I'm getting major graphics problems on ImbNES when I try to play it on my PS2. What is happenening?
Version 1.2b of ImbNES is known to have grafic problems when played on the PS2.
Try using version 1.1 for the time being.
(thanks to Rob6021 for this question)
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1.Does ImbNES supports save state or saves?
2.I saved the game and reseted my Playstation and I have no save!
3.Can I save on memory card1? How many blocks do I need?
4.I can't see the ImbNES save blocks!
5. Some games that do not have saves are asking me to save SRAM.
1.Is there a snes, n64, ps2, gameboy advance emulator for psx?
2.But PSX can emulate Atari 2600, gameboy and other old systems right?
3.There is a emulator inside Chrono Trigger for Playstation. Can I use it to play other SNES games on PSX?
4. PnesX is open source, so why not you just copy save and menu from it?
5.Aren't emulators ilegal?
6. Where can I find a compatibility list?
7. Is there a IRC channel for ImbNES?
SECTION III: SAVE
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ImbNES 1.2 beta and higher versions support save, but not save-state.
For saving from SRAM to memory card you must first save in the game
then you shold press L1+R1+SELECT+START to reset the game.
A screen will appear asking you to press:
CIRCLE to save the SRAM to memory card
X to cancel and do not save, just reset
TRIANGLE+SQUARE to delete de SRAM on memory card for this game
Please notice that the saves will be stored on memory card 1 only
and each save requires a save block.
The saves ccan do not appear or appear with errors on Game Shark and
Playstation's memory card managers.
For erasing the saves you must do as explained on question 3.
PS2 can show you the data as some game enhancers as
gamehunter, goldfinger, and gamewizard (thanks b_ski).
Yes, some games that do not have save asks for saving SRAM data,
such as Super Mario 3. NES games could use SRAM without having a
battery for save.
Just ignore it (press X when asked to save).
Psx does only have 2MB RAM, so it can't handle big games as those systems,
even if it could, they have better or similar CPUs than the psx.
Emulation a system needs a CPU much more powerfull than the original system emulated.
Yes it can. And there are already some gameboy emulators made to run on the
black PSX console that was sold by Sony to developers. But making a cd with it
to run on regular PSX units isn't trivial.
Unhapply for now there isn't any other good emulators as ImbNES, but maybe it can
serve as incentive for other developers to do emulators for old systems.
The fact is that there is a Super Nintendo rom on the CD, but it isn't
for emulation purporses.
Instead Square choose to get the graphic of the game from the rom, instead of
exporting it to other formats in other files.
So this rom just servers to a PSX program (not a emulator) get the graphics/text/etc from
the rom directly, there is no SNES emulator for PSX.
See http://exult.sf.net
and http://scummvm.sf.net for programs that do the same thing.
PnesX is writen in C while ImbNES is writen in ASM.
ASM and C are two kinds of very different programming languages,
you can rewrite one language to another, but it's a complex
task, think about translating programs, they never do a very good job,
you need to know some experssions on each language to make a good translation.
PnesX make use of some C libraries that can't simply be ported without knowing
how psx hardware works. This takes time, even with the help of PnesX source.
No, emulators are 100% legal. What isn't legal is distribution of non-owned copyrighted
programs, as most roms are copyrighted, you can only download games you own, because,
in this case, the rom is considered a backup, and backuping your games is legal.
Eberry have created a great site for compatibility.
You can even add entries to the list easily:
http://www21.brinkster.com/imbnes/
Yes, on irc.newnet.net, channel #imbNES.
There you can talk about ImbNES without making spam on the phorum :)