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About
Nintendulator is an open source Win32 NES emulator written in C++. The original goal was to emulate the NES down to its hardware quirks, and while it's not 100% perfect, it does emulate a variety of special cases that most other emulators neglect to handle. However, this emulation precision comes at a price - a 1500MHz (estimated) or faster CPU is required to emulate at full speed.
Supported file formats include .NES, UNIF, FDS (fwNES format), and NSF. Mappers are handled using external DLLs, complete with extra sound channels for most games which provide them. Other notable features include writing to FDS images (by storing the differences in separate files), authentic Game Genie support (limited to 3 codes), customizeable controllers (including 4 player), input movie recording and playback (with re-recording), AVI capturing, and a debugger with simple breakpoint support. Savestates and battery-backed RAM are saved within the current user's Application Data folder, allowing Nintendulator to function properly when not run as an Administrator.
To contact the author, send email to quietust at either @qmtpro.com or @gmail.com, or look on the NESdev Discord server (link available from the Wiki) or in the #nesdev IRC channel on EFnet.
News
September 10, 2014
Palette configuration is now specific to the selected region (NTSC, PAL, and Dendy/Hybrid) rather than the CPU/PPU clock divider ratio. Additionally, both PAL and Dendy mode will now swap the Red and Green color emphasis bits as has been observed on actual hardware.
August 10, 2014
A rather annoying bug with POV hat configuration (which I introduced back in February with some "code cleanup") has been fixed, so you can actually use them again.
June 12, 2014
Breakpoints now trigger on "dummy reads" that result from page crosses and indirection.
May 29, 2014
A few fixes to frameskip rendering for today - took me a few tries to get it right, since I was in a hurry to get a working build available.
March 21, 2014
Today's build includes a number of PPU updates to make emulation better match findings from Visual 2C02. The savestate version number has also been updated, so any new saves will be incompatible with older builds.
Downloads
Here you may download various versions of Nintendulator and other related applications.
- Versions 0.985 and later are available in both 32-bit and 64-bit editions and are only officially supported on Windows 10 and later, though they should also work fine on versions as far back as Windows XP. Builds made since January 2023 are also tested in the latest version of Wine, but if you find a problem, please let me know.
- Versions 0.960 through 0.980 were 32-bit only but included both ANSI (for Windows 95/98/Me) and Unicode (for Windows XP and later) binaries.
- Versions 0.950 and earlier were 32-bit ANSI only.
Latest unstable build
This is a snapshot of my latest development code. Though this has features not present in the current release below, it may also have significant bugs, so download it at your own risk!
This is NOT a release!
- Nintendulator v0.985 Beta (last updated 7/21/2024 6:45 PM)
Current release
This is the latest officially released version of Nintendulator. You are highly recommended to use this version instead of the latest build above unless you require any of the new functionality added since the last release.
- Nintendulator 0.980 (January 1, 2019)
Outdated releases
These are old releases of Nintendulator, archived here for historical purposes.
- Nintendulator 0.970 (January 2, 2010)
- Nintendulator 0.960 (January 11, 2006)
- Nintendulator 0.950 (March 14, 2005)
- Nintendulator 0.900 (June 20, 2002)
- NESten 0.61 Mappers
Mappers Supported
These mappers are supported in the latest released version of Nintendulator. Mappers listed in bold have been added or improved in the latest beta build; for iNES and VS, strike indicates what the compatibility was in the official release, while for UNIF it indicates boards that have been removed.
- FDS.dll: FDS (with sound)
- NSF.dll: NSF (FDS, MMC5, Namco 163, VRC6, VRC7, and Sunsoft-5 sound)
- iNES.dll: 154 mappers supported (156 in latest build)
- Full: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 19, 24, 26, 28, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 73, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 100, 101, 105, 114, 118, 119, 125, 126, 127, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 152, 155, 159, 180, 182, 184, 189, 205, 206, 207, 209, 210, 211, 218, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 233, 234, 235, 242, 243, 250, 254
- Nearly: 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 30, 33, 48, 57, 64, 71, 72, 74, 76, 82, 83, 92, 107, 112, 113, 115, 132, 154, 164, 165, 185, 188, 191, 192, 193, 194, 200, 201, 203, 225, 232, 240, 245, 246
- Partial: 116
- VS.dll: 8 mappers supported (9 in latest build)
- Full: 0, 1, 2, 4, 67, 68, 75, 99, 151, 206
- Nearly: (none)
- Partial: (none)
- UNIF.dll: 101 boards supported
- Licensed:
- Plain: NES-NROM-128, NES-NROM-256, NES-RROM-128
- Discrete: NES-AMROM, NES-AN1ROM, NES-ANROM, NES-AOROM, NES-BNROM, NES-CNROM, NES-CPROM, NES-GNROM, NES-MHROM, NES-UNROM, NES-UOROM
- MMC1: NES-SAROM, NES-SBROM, NES-SC1ROM, NES-SCROM, NES-SEROM, NES-SFROM, NES-SGROM, NES-SH1ROM, NES-SHROM, NES-SIROM, NES-SJROM, NES-SKROM, NES-SL1ROM, NES-SL2ROM, NES-SL3ROM, NES-SLROM, NES-SLRROM, NES-SMROM, NES-SNROM, NES-SOROM, NES-SUROM, NES-SXROM
- MMC2: NES-PEEOROM, NES-PNROM
- MMC3: NES-TBROM, NES-TEROM, NES-TFROM, NES-TGROM, NES-TKROM, NES-TKSROM, NES-TL1ROM, NES-TL2ROM, NES-TLROM, NES-TLSROM, NES-TNROM, NES-TQROM, NES-TR1ROM, NES-TSROM, NES-TVROM
- MMC4: NES-FJROM, NES-FKROM
- MMC5: NES-EKROM, NES-ELROM, NES-ETROM, NES-EWROM
- MMC6: NES-HKROM
- FME-7: NES-BTR, NES-JLROM, NES-JSROM
- NAMCO 109: NES-DEIROM, NES-DEROM, NES-DRROM
- HVC-* (Famicom), UNL-* (unlicensed look-alikes), and BTL-* (bootleg look-alikes) also supported
- Unlicensed Singles: UNL-8237, UNL-A9712, UNL-DRIPGAME, UNL-H2288, UNL-SA-0036, UNL-SA-0037, UNL-SA-016-1M, UNL-SA-72007, UNL-SA-72008, UNL-Sachen-74LS374N, UNL-Sachen-8259A, UNL-Sachen-8259B, UNL-TC-U01-1.5M
- Bootleg Singles: BTL-MARIO1-MALEE2
- Bootleg Multicarts: BMC-1991SuperHiK7in1, BMC-1992Ballgames11in1, BMC-Generic115in1, BMC-Generic15in1, BMC-Generic20in1, BMC-Generic20in1A, BMC-Generic42in1, BMC-Generic52in1, BMC-Generic76in1, BMC-GoldenGame150in1, BMC-Mario7in1, BMC-NovelDiamond9999999in1, BMC-Reset4in1, BMC-SV01, BMC-StudyGame32in1, BMC-Super1Min1, BMC-Super24in1SC03, BMC-Super700in1, BMC-Supervision16in1, BMC-T3H53, BMC-WS