• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

ArsTechnica: Hackers unlock NES Classic, upload new games via USB cable

If you get an 8bitdo adaptor you can use a range of controllers. I don't have one for the mini (yet) but I have one for my actual NES and I use my Wii U pro controller on that. It supports most modern controllers though (but not Xbox for some reason).

I can't buy that from my country for some reason. Well, that wired Wii U controller is probably my only solution. I do own a 3 meter cable adaptor for the NES controller that came with the NES Classic tho.
 

JP

Member
Thanks so much for the info..went ahead and downloaded both files with the Retro one I see this
retroarch.hmod
and inside there there are some files not sure what I am supposed to do with that..I always have to whenever there is a new hatcki update to start from scratch with the NES Mini in order to put everything back in which I dont mind just dont want to mess it up..I assume the games work just fine from the SNES..I know there is a list out for working games for the NES just haven't seen one for the SNES, Genesis, or N64..I saw one post where someone had an image of the consoles when they boot the console so you can have all SNES games in one folder, and etc etc not sure how to do that..Is there also a limit as to how many games from each console I can have on the NES Mini..for the NES I have about 70 games..for the SNES I have about 20, and so on
You can't do any damage. Trust me, I only started with emulator stuff about two weeks ago which you can see if you read my posts on here.

I've done it again as I was going from memory when I posted earlier. When you've uncompressed retroarch-clover-master you'll see the .hmod file that you're talking about.

You then need to find where you installed hakchi2 with File Explorer, the folder will be called hakchi2, inisde that folder is another called user_mods. You need to put the .hmod folder that you've already found inside that.

The same with retroarch-no_smooth.hmod but when you uncompress that one it will only produce a .hmod folder, just move the whole thing to your user_mods folder as you did with the first one.

You're done with moving files around then, now you need to load up the hakchi application. When it's open there's a heading called Modules, go into that and you'll then see the option to Install Extra Modules or Uninstall Extra Modules.

Choose which of the two that you want to use and install that one. Don't install both at the same time, it's completely safe but RetroArch can only use one at a time. If you try that version and you don't like it, go back into that menu and Uninstall it then Install the other one, it takes seconds to do this.

When you Uninstall one, it'll still be there to select if you change your mind later as time it doesn't actually uninstall it from your PC, it uninstalls it from the NES Mini.

I'd recommend perhaps only loading two or three games until you've sorted everything out, it'll just make it quicker while you play around with things s it can take time to sync loads of games. The Super Mario games and Secret of Mana look amazing so maybe use something like those to test the two versions.

The real difference between those two options is that one blurs the image to soften it while the other just gives you raw pixels, I prefer the second option but you may disagree with me. Try both.

Again, there's nothing that I'm talking about that can break it. I've not read anything about people doing any damage at all and when you first sync the NES Mini, it backs up the original kernel which you can then flash back to "out of the box, new" if you ever need to.

It seems really complicated at first but everything does when you don't know how to do it, I was confused as hell when this went live but I've been investigating it and asking people about it elsewhere to learn how to do this bit. Seriously, only two weeks ago I knew nothing at all about emulation and I had to ask about everything that I saw. ��
 
What is this snes blurring talk? I have only added Genesis games and am not sure what you may be referring to.

You can add SNES games now, from what I've been reading.

I can't wait for a simple-to-read, step-by-step breakdown on how to mod the console well, and which additional mods (like SNES and Genesis games) are the best to implement, and how. Holding on to my NES Classic like a diamond. Every day, it keeps getting better, and I want to mod it once.
 
I added GBA games and none of them are working. Am I missing something or they are just not compatible? I added the Pokemon games if anyone is wondering about it.
 

JP

Member
What is this snes blurring talk? I have only added Genesis games and am not sure what you may be referring to.
The default version of RetroArch enabled bilinear filtering on all SNES games.

There's mow an updated version which disables that in all of the three filter modes. You can get that .hmod file here. I've given it a very quick go and it's my favourite one by far out of the three that I've posted.

Release notes from that version
  • Added Stella core for Atari 2600 emulation
  • System dir is now '~/system'
  • Core info dir is now '~/info', also added info files. They're really useful if you use RetroArch's GUI.
  • RGUI default browser dir is now '/usr/share/games/nes/kachikachi' instead of '/'
  • Disabled bilinear filtering for every preset
  • Enabled integer scaling
  • Greyscale palette for Gambatte core
 

TLZ

Banned
You can add SNES games now, from what I've been reading.

I can't wait for a simple-to-read, step-by-step breakdown on how to mod the console well, and which additional mods (like SNES and Genesis games) are the best to implement, and how. Holding on to my NES Classic like a diamond. Every day, it keeps getting better, and I want to mod it once.

Same here. It's still kinda complicated now with all the unplugging and replugging and buttons pressed etc. I can do it but I'd rather wait.
 
You can't do any damage. Trust me, I only started with emulator stuff about two weeks ago which you can see if you read my posts on here.

I've done it again as I was going from memory when I posted earlier. When you've uncompressed retroarch-clover-master you'll see the .hmod file that you're talking about.

You then need to find where you installed hakchi2 with File Explorer, the folder will be called hakchi2, inisde that folder is another called user_mods. You need to put the .hmod folder that you've already found inside that.

The same with retroarch-no_smooth.hmod but when you uncompress that one it will only produce a .hmod folder, just move the whole thing to your user_mods folder as you did with the first one.

You're done with moving files around then, now you need to load up the hakchi application. When it's open there's a heading called Modules, go into that and you'll then see the option to Install Extra Modules or Uninstall Extra Modules.

Choose which of the two that you want to use and install that one. Don't install both at the same time, it's completely safe but RetroArch can only use one at a time. If you try that version and you don't like it, go back into that menu and Uninstall it then Install the other one, it takes seconds to do this.

When you Uninstall one, it'll still be there to select if you change your mind later as time it doesn't actually uninstall it from your PC, it uninstalls it from the NES Mini.

I'd recommend perhaps only loading two or three games until you've sorted everything out, it'll just make it quicker while you play around with things s it can take time to sync loads of games. The Super Mario games and Secret of Mana look amazing so maybe use something like those to test the two versions.

The real difference between those two options is that one blurs the image to soften it while the other just gives you raw pixels, I prefer the second option but you may disagree with me. Try both.

Again, there's nothing that I'm talking about that can break it. I've not read anything about people doing any damage at all and when you first sync the NES Mini, it backs up the original kernel which you can then flash back to "out of the box, new" if you ever need to.

It seems really complicated at first but everything does when you don't know how to do it, I was confused as hell when this went live but I've been investigating it and asking people about it elsewhere to learn how to do this bit. Seriously, only two weeks ago I knew nothing at all about emulation and I had to ask about everything that I saw. ��

Thanks so much for walking through this with me the app itself isnt too hard but I just dont want to mess anything up LOL..good thing I already have those two games so I can definately try those..now for the module thing..yeah Im not picky so I should go with Install Extra Modules.?and then click on the RetroArch? Yeah I dont like my images too pixelated so maybe the first one is the best for me? Now I have the NES Games and the SNES games in two separate folders on my PC so can I first put in the NES games, put in all the images for it..then do the same for the SNES games or should I add them in all at once? What I would love to do is make a separate category, one for SNES games, one for NES games, etc etc like someone posted earlier..so when you turn on the nes mini thats the first thing you see but I have no clue how to do that
Whenever I would upgrade the hakchi and I would plug in the NES Mini into the PC it would act as if I never done it before so I always just do it from scratch, I really only play one game on it so its not like I have many saves but it is kind of annoying constantly doing that and worrying that it wont create the kernal for me so if I go ahead and lets say just add two SNES Games..how can I do it so once I plug it back in I dont have to go through the whole process again and just add in the rest of the games
 

Darknight

Member
Yes Nintendo made this for club Nintendo in Japan.
snes-wii-controller.jpg

Where can i purchase these? Where they specials for the Nintendo club?
 

radcliff

Member
So in terms of folders, I want about 50 snes games, 30 Genesis games, and about 50 NES games. Would one folder for each system be ok, or do I need to break it down further to prevent overloading the thing? I had heard about 35 per folder, but it was for someone downloading 600 roms. Would my breakdown be fine for the relatively small number of roms I'm adding?
 

Chucker

Member
So in terms of folders, I want about 50 snes games, 30 Genesis games, and about 50 NES games. Would one folder for each system be ok, or do I need to break it down further to prevent overloading the thing? I had heard about 35 per folder, but it was for someone downloading 600 roms. Would my breakdown be fine for the relatively small number of roms I'm adding?

50 is fine.
 
I was able to get Akumajo Densetsu (JP Castlevania 3) running on 2.12 but I have this strange display issue with the HUD. The first letter of each line is cut off. So instead of SCORE it says CORE, ENEMY is now NEMY, etc.

Is there a setting I could look at in RA that can fix this? It seems like the gameplay area is fine.
 

JP

Member
Thanks so much for walking through this with me the app itself isnt too hard but I just dont want to mess anything up LOL..good thing I already have those two games so I can definately try those..now for the module thing..yeah Im not picky so I should go with Install Extra Modules.?and then click on the RetroArch? Yeah I dont like my images too pixelated so maybe the first one is the best for me? Now I have the NES Games and the SNES games in two separate folders on my PC so can I first put in the NES games, put in all the images for it..then do the same for the SNES games or should I add them in all at once? What I would love to do is make a separate category, one for SNES games, one for NES games, etc etc like someone posted earlier..so when you turn on the nes mini thats the first thing you see but I have no clue how to do that
Whenever I would upgrade the hakchi and I would plug in the NES Mini into the PC it would act as if I never done it before so I always just do it from scratch, I really only play one game on it so its not like I have many saves but it is kind of annoying constantly doing that and worrying that it wont create the kernal for me so if I go ahead and lets say just add two SNES Games..how can I do it so once I plug it back in I dont have to go through the whole process again and just add in the rest of the games
Yes, the modules are essentially the emulators that the games are running the games and instructions on how they should operate. You have to have one of them active but it's up to you which one.

You'll probably find that modules will be changed quite rapidly adding new systems that can be emulated and improving the ones that are there. The emulators that people are running currently weren't written specifically for the NES Mini so they aren't working as well as they will do a month down the line where people have spent time customising them for the hardware.

Whenever you sync with the NES Mini it will run through the entire sync process again, if you have 100 games and add 1 new game then it will have to sync all 101 games as if it's the first time rather than it just adding the new one. I don't know if it will always be that way or whether it will possibly be improved by somebody in the future.

The only time it won't sync all the games again is if you've changed the module and done nothing with the actual games, that way it just seems to sync the new module which is a lot quicker.

Go into File and there's an option there called Selection Presets, I've never used this so I can't really advise how it works but I'd assume that you'd create one called NES with all the NES games that you want selected and a second one called SNES with all the SNES games that you want to install.

Hopefully somebody on here who has used it will be able to give you advice on exactly what you need to do there.
 

ocean

Banned
So if I lost my original "clean" stock dump file... could I use somebody else's? Can I get a google drive link or something? 👀 Lol thanks in advance
 

ParityBit

Member
So if I want to install the retroarch mod, do I have to run anything in the zip, or just move the retroarch.hmod folder to the user_mods filer?
 
Sorry it it's been answered, but what's the easiest solution for a SNES controller? I don't own one but I recently added more games for a friend of mine. Are Wii Classic controllers supported out of the box or do I need an adapter or something?
 

jmizzal

Member
Sorry it it's been answered, but what's the easiest solution for a SNES controller? I don't own one but I recently added more games for a friend of mine. Are Wii Classic controllers supported out of the box or do I need an adapter or something?

Yes Wii classic controller works fine, thats what I use

I just wish I can get the settings for Wii classic controller analog to work with N64 games
 
The default version of RetroArch enabled bilinear filtering on all SNES games.

There's mow an updated version which disables that in all of the three filter modes. You can get that .hmod file here. I've given it a very quick go and it's my favourite one by far out of the three that I've posted.
How do you download that hmod from there? I can only browse through the folders
 

radcliff

Member
So some things I have noticed in SNES games:

- The screen is not formatted properly. It appears to be stretched too far. Sprites in Super SF2 for example are both too thin and too tall. Also, in TMNT IV, the top of the HUD is off screen. Not a big deal, but it is noticeable.
- There seems to be a weird effect going on when the screen scrolls. It creates a dark shimmering effect (not really sure how to describe it). It is really noticeable on darker scenes like the intro part of level 1 in Castlevania 4, level 1 of Super Ghouls n' Ghosts, or even in the dungeon rescue during the prologue of Zelda 3. The Wii U VC has a slight blurring effect instead of this dark shimmering. Anyone else notice this? Is there a way to disable?
- I have heard some weird crackling sounds in games, noticeably when text scrolls. I have noticed it when playing Zelda III and a translated rom of Seiken Densetsu III. It was really noticeable and frequent in SD III.
 
So some things I have noticed in SNES games:

- The screen is not formatted properly. It appears to be stretched too far. Sprites in Super SF2 for example are both too thin and too tall. Also, in TMNT IV, the top of the HUD is off screen. Not a big deal, but it is noticeable.
- There seems to be a weird effect going on when the screen scrolls. It creates a dark shimmering effect (not really sure how to describe it). It is really noticeable on darker scenes like the intro part of level 1 in Castlevania 4, level 1 of Super Ghouls n' Ghosts, or even in the dungeon rescue during the prologue of Zelda 3. The Wii U VC has a slight blurring effect instead of this dark shimmering. Anyone else notice this? Is there a way to disable?
- I have heard some weird crackling sounds in games, noticeably when text scrolls. I have noticed it when playing Zelda III and a translated rom of Seiken Densetsu III. It was really noticeable and frequent in SD III.
Your first point is a smoothing filter that is enabled by default but that can be disabled with the mod mentioned above.
 

radcliff

Member
Your first point is a smoothing filter that is enabled by default but that can be disabled with the mod mentioned above.

The screen doesn't look blurry. In fact, it was too sharp and I had to turn down the sharpness so as to not have the screen look like a pixelated mess. The aspect ratio is just off. As I mentioned, the HUD in TMNT IV doesn't even fit on the screen. Maybe you were referring to my second point?
 
The screen doesn't look blurry. In fact, it was too sharp and I had to turn down the sharpness so as to not have the screen look like a pixelated mess. The aspect ratio is just off. As I mentioned, the HUD in TMNT IV doesn't even fit on the screen. Maybe you were referring to my second point?
Yes, sorry, your second point
 

radcliff

Member
UPDATE
I'd recommend installing this .hmod file rather than the first one I posted. This one is an updated version of retroarch-clover, if you've installed the first version then you'll need to replace that .hmod file with this one.

END

I downloaded that .hmod and placed it in the user_mods folder, but I don't see the actual hmod file. Just several folders with several files, but not the actual hmod file. Am I missing something?

EDIT: Issues with Megaman X as well. When I get hit, it knocks me out of the stage yet gives me the boss' power. Also, some power-ups don't work all the time. Maybe this is just a rom issue?
 
Ok so I did everything and I Made folders and stuff..four folders actually..one with NES original 30 games..one with NES games A-M..one with NES Games M-Z, SNES Games, and N64 games..but when I try syncing it gives me this error message

"Sorry, there are 455bytes of games, its too much..so what should I do?
 

radcliff

Member
Ok so I did everything and I Made folders and stuff..four folders actually..one with NES original 30 games..one with NES games A-M..one with NES Games M-Z, SNES Games, and N64 games..but when I try syncing it gives me this error message

"Sorry, there are 455bytes of games, its too much..so what should I do?

How many games are in each folder? Maybe you have too many games in each folder and you need to divide them up further.
 

Robin64

Member
Initially we were supposed to use 140 x 204 sized images for covers, but now hakchi makes 148 x 204? And people are saying their covers look "blurry". I'd love to know exactly what size this thing wants, so I can make the covers myself and not rely on it scraping from Google and scaling. 8 pixels doesn't sound a lot, but it will make a difference.

rot86 on gbatemp said:
With all the code restructuring that has been done in the new hakchi2, @Cluster has changed the parameters with the size of the covers by creating a .png file with a resolution of 148 x 204 (random resolution). Well, this totally disregards the aesthetics of the menu, since with hakchi2 2.11 ALL the covers had the same resolution of 140 x 204.

Then, when adding new games, the new covers created by 2.12 are of different resolution to those already created with the previous version, I also perceive them more blurred.
 

mantis23

Member
when using the retroarch-nosmoothhmod how do you access the Retroarch Menu? I saw someone mention SELECT + START but that doesnt seem to be working for me.
 
How many games are in each folder? Maybe you have too many games in each folder and you need to divide them up further.

I have separate folders..so in folder one called Original 30 Games I have 30 games, NES A-M I have 30 games, and M-Z I have about 20 or so..for SNES Games I have about 22 games, same goes for N64 games..first when I tried syncing it told me that Paper Mario and Conker Fur game were too big..so I just unchecked them, but I still see them on the list..not sure how to totally remove them since they are way too big maybe thats why Im seeing the error message..what is the file size for each game that Im allowed to have
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
well most snes games run perfect
somehow tales of phantasia savestates do not work
killer instinct has glitchy sound

gba sound emulation is currently crap.

genesis runs perfect

gb and gbc perfect

nes runs perfect

n64? lol no just NO
 

Shaneus

Member
So, I've found somewhere to buy a NES Classic controller. Are they the best thing to get now, or are there better alternatives (like a Pro controller of some kind)?
 

radcliff

Member
I have separate folders..so in folder one called Original 30 Games I have 30 games, NES A-M I have 30 games, and M-Z I have about 20 or so..for SNES Games I have about 22 games, same goes for N64 games..first when I tried syncing it told me that Paper Mario and Conker Fur game were too big..so I just unchecked them, but I still see them on the list..not sure how to totally remove them since they are way too big maybe thats why Im seeing the error message..what is the file size for each game that Im allowed to have

You can't remove them from the list, but if they are "unchecked," they won't be added to the NESCE when you re-sync. You may have to remove more N64 roms.
 

radcliff

Member
Finally got the retroarch mod working and backgrounds no longer shimmer when scrolling. I do still hear some crackling sounds in games like Seiken Densetu 3, MK II, and Zelda III. Would this just be a rom issue and I should just install a different rom?
 

jmizzal

Member
Switch to mgba and glupen. Mario64 runs fine, Metroid Fusion, and Zero Mission both run fine also.

GBA runs like crap if you keep it on the VBA core.

What controller are you guys playing N64 games with?

I cant get the Wii classic controller to work as an analog for them
 
Top Bottom