Best Snes Emulator For PC Archives

About Snes9X

This tutorial is to help you with Snes9X for Windows. Snes9X is one of the best SNES emulators out there. It offers high game compatibility, runs well even on low-end PCs, and offers tons of great features. It's easy to use, too. Sometime around 2010, Snes9X was split off into two versions: Snes9X-64 and Snes9X-32. Snes9X-64 is optimized for 64-bit Windows and Snes9X-32 is optimized for 32-bit Windows.

*If you would like to download Snes9X, I have it on my emulators page.

Should you use Snes9X?

With all the emulator offerings as of 2020, should you use Snes9X? Well, it depends. There are several options for Super Nintendo emulation. If your computer can handle a CPU heavy emulator, BSNES is the #1 SNES emulator for its cycle-accurate emulation. RetroArch is a popular multi-system emulator that supports multiple cores (emulators) for SNES emulation.

Snes9X is still a good option if you want a standalone emulator that 'just works out of the box'. It's simple and very easy to use. Unless you're an emulation purist, you won't notice the difference between the emulation quality of Snes9X and a cycle-accurate emulator.

64-bit and 32-bit versions

When you go to download Snes9X, the first thing you're going to see is two versions: 64-bit and 32-bit. So what is that and which version do you download? I won't drown you with technical jargon. In short: these are types of Windows systems. 64-bit is newer and faster, and 32-bit is older and slower. If you have 64-bit Windows, you need to download the 64-bit version of Snes9X. And vice versa with 32-bit.

They stopped making 32-bit computers around 2017, so chances are you're most likely using a 64-bit computer. If you're not sure if you have 64-bit or 32-bit Windows, here's how you can check:

1. On the bottom left where you see Search the web and Windows, do a search for “64-bit”.
2. You'll see this come up: “See if you have a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows”. Click it.
3. You'll arrive here . Look for “System type”. If it says “64-bit operating system” then you're using 64-bit Windows. If it says “32-bit operating system” then you're using 32-bit Windows.

Using Windows XP? Here are directions for that .

Installation

Snes9X is a standalone program so it does not have an install wizard. Installation is simple: just extract Snes9X from its zip file. Not sure how to extract zip files? Here's a video tutorial showing you how: how to unzip files on Windows.

IMPORTANT! Snes9X must be placed in a common folder on your computer. I recommend Documents, Downloads, or create a folder on your desktop. If you place Snes9X somewhere else on your main C drive, then you may be restricting it to read-only access. Doing so prevents Snes9X from saving anything.

To open Snes9X, double-click on

Q: Application was unable to start correctly?

Upon opening Snes9X, you might get this error:

The application was unable to start correctly (0x000007b). Click OK to close the application.

This error happens on some machines when using Snes9X-64 on 64-bit Windows 7. The resolution is simple: just use Snes9X-32 instead. I know, it's a confusing contradiction. Snes9X-64 was specifically optimized for 64-bit Windows. Yet to resolve this error you need Snes9X-32 that was optimized for 32-bit Windows.

Q: Unable to initialize XAudio2?

Upon opening Snes9X, you might get this error :

Unable to initialize XAudio2. You will not be able to hear any sound effects or music while playing.

It is usually caused by not having a recent DirectX release installed.

You need to install the full DirectX package. You can download it here: DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer (284 KB). This installer promises to install all the legacy files that correct issues such as this.

Q: ddx9_38.dll is missing?

Upon opening Snes9X, you might get this error:

The program can't start because ddx9_38.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix the problem.

You need to install the full DirectX package. You can download it here: DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer (284 KB). This installer promises to install all the legacy files that correct issues such as this.

Setting up the keyboard or gamepad

Click on Input > Joypad Configuration, or press Alt+F7. You'll end up here:

This box tells you the buttons that correspond to each SNES button. To reassign a button to another keyboard key or a gamepad button, just click on the field you want to change. Then press that keyboard key or gamepad button.

Loading a game

When you open Snes9X for the first time, within its folder it will create a folder called “Roms”. I recommend tossing your games in this folder, but you don't have to.

To load a game:

1. Click on File > Load Game; or press Ctrl+O.
2. The “Open” window will pop up with the “Roms” folder in view. From this window click on the game you want to play, then click Open - as shown here .
3. The game will begin playing immediately.

Q: Failed to initialize display output!

Upon loading a game with Snes9X, you might receive the following error:

Failed to initialize currently selected display output! Try switching to a different output method in the display setting.

First, check these points:

• Make sure you have the latest version of Snes9X. Simply using the latest version could resolve this issue.
• Make sure DirectX is installed. You can download it here: DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer (284 KB). This installer promises to install all the legacy files which may fix this problem.
• Make sure the game you're trying to load is actually a SNES ROM. SNES ROMs are in “smc” or “fig” format. If your ROM is in a zip file, open it and make sure it's smc or fig.

If you're good on the above, this issue is probably happening because your computer is lacking support for OpenGL. So your computer might be old or have a cheap, generic video card. In most cases, changing the output method to DirectDraw resolves this. Here's how to do that:

1. In Snes9X, access the display configuration by going to Video > Display Configuration.
2. In Display Configuration, click on the drop-down for “Output Method” and select DirectDraw, as shown below:
   
3. Click OK and try loading a game.

If you continue to receive the “Failed to initialize currently selected display output” error then you're out of luck. There's no way to fix this. This is an issue with your computer, not Snes9X. You can't use video game emulators without the ability to use OpenGL or DirectDraw.

Full screen

Press Alt+Enter to enter full screen. Press Alt+Enter again to go back to window mode. During forget, pressing Esc disables/enables the top menu bar.

Output image processing

Output image processing enhances graphics to make them look better than the real thing! This feature is also known as screen renders or screen filters. You can access this feature by clicking on Video > Display Configuration. Look for the box titled “Output Image Processing”, as shown here:

Click on the drop-down (where you see None) and choose a filter you want to try; here's an expanded sample . Snes9X doesn't have an immediate preview, so to see how it looks you need to click OK to close this window. Repeat the process to select a different filter.

About Hi-Res: In the same box you'll see a “Hi Res” option. Thanks to the wonders of emulation, a handful of SNES games can render its font higher than 16-bit! Games such as Seiken Densetsu 3, Romancing SaGa 3, and Treasure of the Rudras. Enabling Hi-Res applies a filter for these special fonts to make them look nice and sharp. Otherwise, these fonts look pixel-ish.

Save states

Save states is a feature that saves the exact spot you are in any game. You can use this feature manually by going into the File menu or by quick keyboard shortcuts.

• Capturing a state: To capture a save state go to File > Save Game Position and choose any of the 9 slots. These slots are reserved to allow you to save up to 9 different save states. The keyboard shortcut for saving states is Shift+F1 to save in Slot 1.
• Loading a state: To load a state you previously saved, go to File > Load Game Position. Then choose the slot where your save resides. The keyboard shortcut for loading saves is F1 to load from Slot 1.

*All the RPG shrines in my FantasyAnime.com offer complete collections of periodical game saves. With them, you can continue at any significant point in the game. I offer a Game Saves Tutorial where you can learn more about how to use somebody else's saves. You can also learn about how to transfer saves between other emulators.

Fast forward

Fast forward is the feature that speeds up the game. To access it, press the Tab key. Hold it down and let go until you want the fast forwarding to end.

Using Game Genie & Pro Action Replay

1. First load the game. Click on Cheat > Game Genie, Pro-Action Replay Codes.
2. (1) In the “Enter Cheat Code” field type the code. You could also Ctrl+V to paste it from a site. There cannot be any spaces in the code!
3. (2) In the “Cheat Description” field type a short description for the code.
4. (3) Click on the Add button to add the code. You'll see a box next to it - put a check in that box to activate the code, as shown here .
5. Repeat the process to enter more codes. Know that Snes9X does support cheats with multiple lines. You need to enter such codes one line at a time, and in order. Click OK when you're done.
6. Reset or reload the game. If the cheat doesn't work then you either typed it wrong or it's a bad code.

Finding cheats:GameGenie.com is a good site. The next best source is Google. The best search keywords to use is to type the name of the game then “game genie”. For example: “super mario world game genie”.

Capturing screen shots

While a game is open, just press F12 to capture a screen shot. That's it! You could also do it via the menu by going to File > Save Other > Save Screenshot. Snes9X will place the screen shot as a PNG image in a sub folder called “Screenshots”.

Capturing sprites: Capturing sprites is easier if you disable background layers before capturing a screen shot. Super Nintendo graphics are made up of 5 layers: four graphics layers and the sprites layer. You can turn any of these layers on and off. Keyboard buttons 1-4 turn the graphics layers on/off. Keyboard button 5 turns the sprites layer on/off.

*In need of a graphics editor to edit screen shots? Here are The Best Free Photo Editors.

Recording AVI movies

Want to upload your own SNES gameplay videos to YouTube? Well Snes9X will let you capture them! Here's how you do it:

1. Play a game up to the point you want to start recording. If you're in full screen mode, press the Esc key to enable the top menu.
2. Go to File > Record AVI.
3. Snes9X will prompt you with the Save As window . Where I have the red outline, enter the name you would like for your movie clip, then click Save.
4. Snes9X will prompt you with the Video Compression window . Leave it as “Full Frames (Uncompressed)” and click OK.
5. The recording begins. Snes9X will most likely have sound disabled and be running sluggish. Don't worry! That doesn't mean your movie clip will come out the same way. When you're ready to stop the recording, go to File > Stop AVI Recording.
6. That's it! :) Jump into Snes9X's folder and enter the “Movies” folder. Your movie clip is there.

Finding ROMs

In my links page, I have some good links to sites where you can download ROMs. If you want to try to find more sites than what's in my collection of links, just Google around. For example, if you want to download Super Mario World just Google “download super mario world snes”.

Patching ROM hacks

Learn all about patching ROMs with ROM hacks in my Patching Tutorial. Note that the best place to find ROM hacks is Romhacking.net.

Q: I get a 'checksum fail' error!

This comes up when you play a ROM hack or fan translation. It's normal; everything's fine. It comes up because the size of the ROM increased due to the ROM hacking. It's a misleading error message because that's not a big deal. If you're having problems with your game right now - the bad checksum error has nothing to do with it.

Q: My game freezes at a specific spot!

If your game keeps freezing at a specific point, then you are a victim of the infamous game freeze. It's rare! I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there's nothing you can do to fix this problem. Restarting the game from the beginning won't help either. Why does this happen? Well, you can't expect every game to work 100% perfectly with every version of every SNES emulator.

There's hope if the game you're playing is an RPG. If you've been using in-game saving you could copy over the SRM file to another SNES emulator to continue where you left off.

Q: Can I transfer my saves to another emulator?

Snes9X lets you save your game in two ways:

1. State States: Snes9X's save states are exclusive to Snes9X so they cannot be transferred to other SNES emulators.
2. Saved RAM: This is the internal save in RPGs. They have an SRM file extension. View this for a clearer picture . SRM files are what can be transferred to other SNES emulators. You can literally just copy & paste the ROM and the SRM file over to the other SNES emulator and it'll pick it up. Although some SNES emulators want to be organized. They require you to dump the SRM file in a designated saves folder. I have a Game Saves Tutorial where you can learn more about transferring saves. You could also learn about using somebody else's saves.

Q: Snes9X isn't saving anything!

If you're using Snes9X for the first time and you're finding that you have all these problems:

1. Save states aren't working. You save a state, then when you try to reload it nothing happens.
2. In an RPG when you save your game at a save point and close/re-open Snes9X, you find that the save is lost.
3. Emulator configurations that you changed such as adding a screen filter aren't saved. When you close/re-open Snes9X, you have to make those configuration changes again.

Then your problem is that you currently have Snes9X in a read-only location on your computer. You must move Snes9X to a more common location such as Documents, Downloads, or a folder on your desktop.

Files that end in .smc are Super Nintendo Entertainment System files. They allow you to play SNES games using your computer by using an emulator, which acts as the system. The emulators necessary to play .smc files are free and range in size and features. You can download an emulator and have it up and running in less than 10 minutes.

References

Warnings

Writer Bio

I will begin this guide by asking you to check your internet law degree at the door. Yes, emulation software is entirely legal. Yes, "backing up" games is entirely legal and downloading other people's backups of games you already own might be legal (but nobody has tested it in court). No, downloading other people’s copies of games you don't own is definitely not legal. Are we all clear on that? Great.

If you are a scared baby and cannot handle some gray market hi-jinx, I will direct you towards your local smile.amazon.com where you can purchase a variety of Classic or Mini consoles and game compilations. If you’d like to live your life within the confines of the PlayStation Store, Nintendo Switch Online, or the Google Play or Apple App Store, I cannot stop you. Go forth, rich person, and pay for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the twelfth time in your life. You are morally superior to us all and can close this tab.

Okay, now that the narcs are gone, let’s play some damn video games.

To start off, let’s assume you don’t know anything about emulation. An emulator is a piece of software that mimics the console hardware of game systems past, allowing other hardware to run games that were specifically built for another machine. The files of these games are pulled off of retail release copies and are mostly called ROMs or ISOs depending on the console’s software medium. TL;DR: The emulator is a copy of the console and the ROM is a copy of the game.

I cannot legally tell you where to find ROMs or ISOs for games you do not own. Perhaps you should Google "[Game Title] + ROM + download" and see what you find. Perhaps you should ask our friends over at Archive.org for some help. Perhaps there are subreddits dedicated to this. Legally, I cannot say.

The emulator is a copy of the console and the ROM is a copy of the game

Now once you have a copy of a game, there are different places one can run an emulator, such as an Android device, PC, or Mac. At the moment Apple does not allow emulation on its iOS platform but if you’re interested I shall direct you to the geniuses behind AltStore.io.

When you’ve decided which platform you prefer, each OS will have a variety of apps one can run for each console—but the universal solution for nearly every legacy console on nearly every piece of hardware is an open-source app called RetroArch. RetroArch is very powerful and versatile, but confusing enough that we shall set it aside for today. (I can hear the hardcore emulation enthusiasts groaning in the back but, I’m sorry, if you can work RetroArch, you do not need this guide. Please go argue with the aforementioned narcs.)

Below I will break down the piece of dedicated software I recommend that you use for each major retro console, depending on whether you use a Mac, PC, or Android device. Because each app has a specific interface and its own approach to controllers, graphics, and audio settings, we suggest you use YouTube to find a tutorial on each app.

Without further ado, here are the emulators you will need to play the vast majority of retro games:

Nintendo

Nintendo games are by far the easiest to emulate, thanks to their popularity and straightforward design. If you’d like to emulate the NES, you can do that in your browser, but for the best experience, we suggest traveling to the Mushroom Kingdom via higan, a multi-system emulator for Windows, OpenEmu, a gorgeous multi-system emulator for Mac, and NES.emu for Android.

To step things up to the 16-bit SNES, you can use the same Mac and PC apps, but we’d recommend Snes9x EX+ for Android. For N64, there’s Project64 for Windows, trusty old OpenEmu for Mac, and Mupen64Plus FZ on Android.

By the time you get to the GameCube or Wii, your main option is Dolphin for all platforms. It’s very good! For the entire Game Boy and Game Boy Advance libraries, we’d use mGBA on Windows, OpenEmu again on the Mac, and GBA.emu on Android. For Wii U, use Cemu.

DS emulation has come a long way recently and you can use DeSmuME on Windows, our old pal OpenEmu on Mac, and DraStic DS on Android. If you’re really ambitious, you can get into 3DS emulation with Citra for Windows and Mac and its unofficial port for Android. Phew!

Sega

Sega does what Nintendon’t! Sega systems are a bit harder to emulate than Nintendo systems, largely thanks to their architecture. When systems are harder to emulate, you’re going to see scattered differences between what plays on the emulator and what you’d get from an official console experience. For Sega systems, these are most often sound problems. However, if you’d like to emulate the Sega Master System or Game Gear you can once again use higan for Windows, OpenEmu for Mac, and MD.emu or Nostalgia.GG for Android.

For the giant library of Sega Genesis/Mega Drive/CD/32x (never change, Sega) games, we’d use Kega Fusion on the Mac and PC and MD.emu on Android. Sega Saturn is a bit harder to emulate than other consoles, both due to a lack of public interest in the library and its overly complex architecture. However, if you need some Panzer Dragoon, we’d use Yabause on Windows and Mac and Yaba Sanshiro on Android.

Finally, to play Dreamcast’s phenomenal library of classics, download the excellent Redream which is compatible with all three platforms. SEGA!

Sony

Sony’s PlayStation consoles each have enormous libraries, but after the PSX it gets a bit harder to run each of them. To play Crash Team Racing on PSX, use ePSXe for Windows and Android or OpenEmu for Mac.

For PS2, you can use PCSX2 on Windows with mixed results, or DamonPS2 on Android for very, very bad results. Mac users are left out in the cold here. Similarly, the PS3 can only be emulated on Windows with RPCS3. You won’t be running PS3 games on your MacBook. (Sorry, babe, but why did you think that would be possible?) Finally, for all your PSP needs, there is PPSSPP available for all platforms.

SNK

Neo Geo and Neo Geo Pocket Color games like the King of Fighters series can be played using Mednafen on Windows, OpenEmu on Mac (you’ll need to enable "experimental" cores in the settings menu and then download the MAME core), or either NEO.emu or NGP.emu on Android.

NEC

Though it goes by many names, the TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine/CoreGrafx platform is home to some spectacular titles (like Ys I & II) you might have missed out on in your youth. To play these games, use Mednafen on your PC, OpenEmu once again on the Mac, and PCE.emu on Android.

Arcade

Save your quarters and get your old school arcade fix using Mednafen on Windows, OpenEmu on Mac (you’ll need to enable "experimental" cores in the settings menu and then download the MAME core), or the appropriately titled Mame4droid on Android.

Microsoft

And not to end on a sour note but, for a variety of reasons, there are no good options for emulating Xbox or Xbox 360 games. The good news is that many Xbox exclusives are also available for Windows because... ya know… Microsoft. All hail Master Chief (at least for the first two games.)

And with that, we leave you to go get your feet wet with emulation. There are so many games scattered throughout the history of this glorious industry that you will likely never run out of retro titles to explore. But, once more for legal reasons: Don't pirate games. 😉