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SNES Mini Classic Hacking | More games, more borders, more gooder.

If you are doing it via the command line prompt, you don't need to do it to each game. I don't have access to mine right now but in one of the top menus there is a global command line filter which will do it for all the games.
Oh crap, that's exactly what I wanted. There's an option to apply command line arguments to everything at once. Thank you!
 

JP

Member
hikarutilmitt hikarutilmitt
It's really simple to do and it takes priority of anything you've done manually.

I had to try a few commands before finding one that worked for me as I wanted, this is the command that I ended up using.
Code:
--enable-crt-scanlines

I'm happy with how it works is that the only way you can switch it off is to go back to hakchi and remove it from the global command line. Not ideal but I'm happy with it.
 

Mathrin

Member
So I've flashed my friends Mini NES and Mini SNES as both him and his partner have one. On the SNES - the games work fine, but when we flashed the NES, it turns out Mario Tennis/Advance Wars will lock up and shut the console down (even though the power light) stays on.

The Mini SNES runs fine, and I've flashed my own mini SNES with the same games without issue or lockup.

What could be wrong with the NES? Is it worth flashing the stock kernel back, and then adding custom+Retroarch again to see if that fixes it? Bad flash perhaps?

Cheers
 

Robin64

Member
Good news, one of the holy grails of SNES Mini compatability now works. Marvelous: Mouhitotsu no Takarajima, or Marvelous: Another Treasure Island, just needs a Preset ID of 1E11 in hakchi and -no-lowlatency added to the end of its command line. Enjoy one of the SNES's hidden gems, and Eiji Aounuma's first game. :)

Translation here.
 

DonMigs85

Member
Good news, one of the holy grails of SNES Mini compatability now works. Marvelous: Mouhitotsu no Takarajima, or Marvelous: Another Treasure Island, just needs a Preset ID of 1E11 in hakchi and -no-lowlatency added to the end of its command line. Enjoy one of the SNES's hidden gems, and Eiji Aounuma's first game. :)

Translation here.
I forgot - do you put a space before -no-lowlatency when putting it in the command line?
 

Robin64

Member
Something awesome is on the way.

wTqHKyu.png
 

JP

Member
It's looking like daPhie79 is going to be dealing with the main fork of hakchi2 from now on. She's aiming to simplify things and incorporating DarkAkuma's sfrom tool at some point as well as other useful projects.

It's going to be worth keeping an eye on her Releases page on GitHub although I'm sure people will post in here when things really start moving.
 

Robin64

Member
Yep, as soon as .sfrom Tool and daphie's fork of hakchi talk to each other, that will be the recommended way to do things.

Heck, I personally use both right now, but just that extra layer of usability will be perfect.
 
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pitt_norton

Member
Yep, as soon as .sfrom Tool and daphie's fork of hakchi talk to each other, that will be the recommended way to do things.

Heck, I personally use both right now, but just that extra layer of usability will be perfect.

Exciting!! I definitely will hold out from modding my MINI any further until that all settles!

When that time comes, will Street Fighter Alpha 2 need to go through all that jazz again to get working or will the .sfrom tool make that transition smoother? I've curated SNES 200 titles (that emcompasses the bests, the giants, the hidden gems and the little unique oddities) but if SFA2 can work with compression, then I can fit a few more titles in!
 
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Robin64

Member
Exciting!! I definitely will hold out from modding my MINI any further until that all settles!

When that time comes, will Street Fighter Alpha 2 need to go through all that jazz again to get working or will the .sfrom tool make that transition smoother? I've curated SNES 200 titles (that emcompasses the bests, the giants, the hidden gems and the little unique oddities) but if SFA2 can work with compression, then I can fit a few more titles in!

SFA2 already works with .sfrom Tool now, just select the ROM and it does all the work. No more of that old .bat graphics adding method, sfrom Tool is doing that behind the scenes.

Also, to put things in perspective, to get SFA2 working on their emulator, Nintendo had to make about 2,700 edits to the ROM. In comparison, and its no wonder they didn't bother with it, Star Ocean has thus far had to have over 32,000 edits to get it working.
 

TLZ

Banned
SFA2 already works with .sfrom Tool now, just select the ROM and it does all the work. No more of that old .bat graphics adding method, sfrom Tool is doing that behind the scenes.

Also, to put things in perspective, to get SFA2 working on their emulator, Nintendo had to make about 2,700 edits to the ROM. In comparison, and its no wonder they didn't bother with it, Star Ocean has thus far had to have over 32,000 edits to get it working.
And sfrom tool does these edits on the fly? Couldn't Nintendo create something that did that too?
 
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Deafsnake76

Neo Member
Hi, I'm new here and I wanted to say thanks to the OP because if it wasn't for Gaf, I wouldn't have rushed out to get a SNES Mini. It's now a NES/SNES hybrid. SNES Mini is perfect for traveling. Check into a hotel, just plug the mini into the TV and just play :) No need for clutter. I look forward to reading and finding out about more hacks :)
 

Robin64

Member
A while back I posted how my SNES Mini front-end looks, using the title screen from games as the art instead of a box, as seen below.

FH5sJIl.png


(Click here to see full size)

Some people expressed interest in wanting me to upload the images for use, but as I had only done the games I wanted I felt that would be a bit silly.

It's not a terribly hard process, though. SNES images are (usually) 256 x 224, and the box here for artwork isn't too much smaller. So basically you just use an image tool shrink the height down to 204. keeping the aspect ratio locked, and then trim off the sides to get a width of 228. Usually you can't even tell sides have been trimmed, it's such a small amount, and the scaling looks fine too. Then you just trim L shapes off the top two corners, leaving them transparent so that they don't cover over the "curve" you see at the top of the boxes.

v5spIyK.png


You go from the one on the left to the one on the right.

Anyway, cutting to the chase, I've now done this for 872 SNES title screens. There are probably sites out there with collections, but every image was taken by me in a PC emulator and then processed in a batch with the above rules. But at least now I feel comfortable releasing the .zip to the world! So here it is: http://bit.ly/2nRtQsB

(And as a bonus, if you want the original unaltered title screens for your own devious ends, that's here: http://bit.ly/2BgIDVO)

Enjoy. :)
 
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BANGS

Banned
Hey gotta question. I'm using an NES emulator on my SNES mini. All the extra SNES games I've added and Gameboy games work great, but the NES games have some severe latency. A game like SMB is practically unplayble with all that lag. Anybody else notice this?

I mean, the gameboy and snes games have SOME lag, but it's not that bad. The NES games are really noticeable though...
 

Robin64

Member
Hey gotta question. I'm using an NES emulator on my SNES mini. All the extra SNES games I've added and Gameboy games work great, but the NES games have some severe latency. A game like SMB is practically unplayble with all that lag. Anybody else notice this?

I mean, the gameboy and snes games have SOME lag, but it's not that bad. The NES games are really noticeable though...

Your best bet is to look into dual booting the system so you use the official NES emulator from the NES Mini on there. Retroarch is pretty poor.
 

zweifuss

Member
Hey gotta question. I'm using an NES emulator on my SNES mini. All the extra SNES games I've added and Gameboy games work great, but the NES games have some severe latency. A game like SMB is practically unplayble with all that lag. Anybody else notice this?

I mean, the gameboy and snes games have SOME lag, but it's not that bad. The NES games are really noticeable though...

Yes I've noticed this too, the Retroarch NES emulator seems to have some lag to it. I thought I was the only one!
 

BANGS

Banned
Your best bet is to look into dual booting the system so you use the official NES emulator from the NES Mini on there. Retroarch is pretty poor.
Interesting. Will I still be able to support GBC/GBA games that way? Have a link to a decent tutorial?

I'd rather cannibalize the NES games then those games if that's the choice I have to make lol...
 

pitt_norton

Member
I made some 14 alternate boxart covers for some of the 21 stock games on the Classic. Enjoy!

N/M: It seems the forum is not letting some images through, will try again later....
 
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dacuk

Member
Your best bet is to look into dual booting the system so you use the official NES emulator from the NES Mini on there. Retroarch is pretty poor.
Hi, Robin64... thanks for mentioning this. While there are several tutorials all over the web to configure the SNES Mini to dual boot to NES mode, I have not find any tutorial to add NES games to the NES mode of a SNES mini.
Do you happen to know or point me to a guide for this?
 
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Scopa

The Tribe Has Spoken
Hi, Robin64... thanks for mentioning this. While there are several tutorials all over the web to configure the SNES Mini to dual boot to NES mode, I have not find any tutorial to add NES games to the NES mode of a SNES mini.
Do you happen to know or point me to a guide for this?
Have you tried Youtube? There are tons of step by step guides on there. Not sure about NES mode, but I assume someone would have done a video.
 
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I hate how I cant figure out how to save any game using Retroarch no matter where I look or what video I watch. Somebody please help me. I just want to play a save Phantasy Star 4 via Retroarch without losing my progress if I power down. And would love if my kids could save their progress in any of the numerous GBA Pokemon games.
 
I hate how I cant figure out how to save any game using Retroarch no matter where I look or what video I watch. Somebody please help me. I just want to play a save Phantasy Star 4 via Retroarch without losing my progress if I power down. And would love if my kids could save their progress in any of the numerous GBA Pokemon games.
That game supports SRAM so it should save through the game interface and reload next run? You can also create save states on the SNESC mini interface the same way as they built-in games. I do both with MegaDrive games that I play.

Which approach are you attempting?
 
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I will save 'in' game then save using the save states that are built into the system. So it creates a thumbnail of the save. When I try to load the thumbnail it just loads the Rom from the beginning with no save to load from 'in' the game even though the thumbnail shows obvious progress
 
I will save 'in' game then save using the save states that are built into the system. So it creates a thumbnail of the save. When I try to load the thumbnail it just loads the Rom from the beginning with no save to load from 'in' the game even though the thumbnail shows obvious progress
Are you pressing START to resume the save state? Not A as that launches the game fresh.
 
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BANGS

Banned
Your best bet is to look into dual booting the system so you use the official NES emulator from the NES Mini on there. Retroarch is pretty poor.
Interesting. Will I still be able to support GBC/GBA games that way? Have a link to a decent tutorial?
I'd rather cannibalize the NES games then those games if that's the choice I have to make lol...
Robin64 Robin64 seriously would like answers to this lol
 
Interesting. Will I still be able to support GBC/GBA games that way? Have a link to a decent tutorial?

I'd rather cannibalize the NES games then those games if that's the choice I have to make lol...
You can dual boot SNES and NES (and even quad boot SFC and FC) and run RetroArch on the side for GBC/GBA. You can have your cake and eat it. Check YouTube for details.
 
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Trogdor1123

Member
Im almost done my playthrough of ff6 and im ready to try this. I just have a few questions.

1. Is there a good YouTube guide on the most recent method to add games? In a super noob to this stuff.

2. Will I lose my ff6 save?

3. Anywhere I can find a list of incompatible games?
 

BANGS

Banned
Ya know it's funny, I unhooked my SNES mini from my 70" 4k upstairs and hooked it up downstairs to my 50" 1080 and the lag is completely gone... everything plays better. There's a border on the top and bottom for some reason but everything else is butter. Funny how that works...
 
Ya know it's funny, I unhooked my SNES mini from my 70" 4k upstairs and hooked it up downstairs to my 50" 1080 and the lag is completely gone... everything plays better. There's a border on the top and bottom for some reason but everything else is butter. Funny how that works...

Higher elevation and gravity has always lagged gaming consoles.
 

Scopa

The Tribe Has Spoken
Hi folks, I was going to try this tonight with my mini. Just want to drop 5 or so games on. Any good video guides for a noob?
Honestly, there are a ton on Youtube, just do a search. I have one bookmarked, but it is old and out of date as Hakchi has been updated many times since then.

Just search on Youtube for videos from the last month or two.
 

Trogdor1123

Member
Honestly, there are a ton on Youtube, just do a search. I have one bookmarked, but it is old and out of date as Hakchi has been updated many times since then.

Just search on Youtube for videos from the last month or two.
Sounds good, I want to ensure im doing the most recent method. I'd hate to brick one. Is there a really good webpage that's up to date to help duders like me that have never done this stuff?
 

Scopa

The Tribe Has Spoken
Sounds good, I want to ensure im doing the most recent method. I'd hate to brick one. Is there a really good webpage that's up to date to help duders like me that have never done this stuff?
Since I finished hacking mine, I haven’t really kept up to date, but this is the official github page of Hakchi with the latest releases. Github pages can be a bit hard to follow if you’re not used to them, sorry.

https://github.com/ClusterM/hakchi2/releases

In terms of bricking. If you do the initial kernal backup like the program prompts you to and back it up 2 or 3 times so you don’t lose it, bricking is virtually impossible as you can always flash your original stock kernel back on.

Of course, this was the state of things up to a few months ago, I haven’t been paying attention lately, as I said.
 
Just wanted to throw a "Thank You" to Robin64 and all other Members contributing to this thread. With the help (never needed to post a question) of all your posts, i was able to transform a boring 21-Games-Vanilla-SNES-Mini into a nice 175-Games-in-one-Machine for a good friend of mine. I could do the same last year with the NES Mini. And though, these consoles are not to my taste, my friend loves the shit out of these.

So again, thank you, for the easy to understand tutorials, the endless amount of work put into getting games to work and your creativity concerning bezels, cover artwork and the likes. :)
 
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Trying to dive into this SNES modding using my Mac running Parallels with Windows 7 32 bit and seem to have encountered an issue with Sfrom Tool:

Each time I try to launch it I get a "SFROM tool has stopped working" popup and can't proceed?

I've installed the requested 4.0 Framework as it wouldn't start at all without it and now have this issue. Any ideas? Robin64 Robin64
 

lo zaffo

Member
I've just ordered a second unit for modding and adding some megadrive games, thinking about Sonic and some shooters, my question is: hakchi2 or hakchi CE ? Any pro cons? Does it make sense?
 
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