It's Been a While

Wow, it's really been a long time since I have done anything here and obviously I get no visitors but I can tell by the stats I do get the occasional view which is amazing to me.

Well since the last time I posted an entry it was about SNES MSU-1 emulation I may as well make this new one about it as well and a lot has happened and changed since that time. Back then there was only a small selection of games that had received the MSU-1 treatment and getting them to work was a bit of a chore with the emulators at the time. Now we have quite a lot more games done with amazing soundtracks and the emulator choices and ease of use has improved quite a lot. The structure of how these hacks are put together has been improved and standardized along with support from Snes9x.

If you are wanting to get into these hacks I highly suggest using either a stand alone version of Snes9x 1.54 or newer or the Snes9x core in Retroarch. If using Retroarch make sure you are using the Snes9x core that does not have a year in its name, it's the one that's been updated to use the 1.54 code. With the Snes9x emulator or Retroarch core all you have to do is simply load the rom file and it should just work. Not every single one will work with Snes9x but as long as it is not an older hack it should work but of course there are no guarantees and I have run into a couple that don't. My second recommended option if you are absolutely against using Snes9x for some reason is to use one of the BSnes cores in Retroarch but there will be some extra legwork in order to use this emulator core. When you download a pre done MSU-1 pack you will find a bunch of files but most notably the manifest.bml and the rom file itself. If you open the manifest.bml file you will notice a line there that contains "program.rom", this is to support the use of the stand alone version of Higan and these files would all go in the "rom folder" that Higan uses, If you are a Higan user you will know what this is and where it is and how to use it. For the BSnes core however as it sits this won't work and you have two options, you can either replace the "program.rom" text in the manifest.bml file or you can rename the rom file itself to program.rom. I suggest making a copy of the rom file and renaming it to program.rom, you don't have to do this of course but better to have a backup copy and not need it.

Now of course all this is well and good but what about getting the hacks and stuff ? Well luckily enough there is a website with all the latest hack files and everything else you need to put it all together. The only thing they don't provide the rom itself because that would be illegal and we don't want to break the law now do we ? Head on over to the Zeldix forums here https://www.zeldix.net/f45-msu-1-hacking and you can find a lot of information to get you patching and compiling your own MSU-1 rom packs in no time.