UberNES - README.txt

====================
Contents
====================
Section 0 - For upgrading users
Section 1 - Introduction
Section 2 - Resources
Section 3 - Getting Started
Section 4 - NES Stats
Section 5 - NES Box Art
Section 6 - Competing for High Scores (NEW)
Section 7 - FAQ
Section 8 - Credits / Thanks
Section 9 - Revision History
====================




====================================================
 Section 0 - Upgrading users, important notes
====================================================

 A quick note for users who have a previous version of UberNES installed: To
make the transition from version to version as easy as possible, you can
simply copy your old "UberNes.cfg" file and place it in the same directory
as the new UberNES executable.  This is highly recommended!

 If you don't feel like doing that, at least be sure to use your old NES
Database file(s) so that your stats are maintained.




====================================================
 Section 1 - Introduction
====================================================

 UberNES is a NES emulator for Windows written by M \ K Productions.  The goal of 
UberNES is to provide good emulation speed and accuracy, and unique special
features.  In other words, the goal of UberNES is to bring new ideas to the "field"
of emulators.

 Using UberNES is pretty straightforward since it's a GUI program with lots of text
for each feature.  Nonetheless, this document will provide more in-depth information
about several key steps, especially those steps a new user would have to complete 
before using UberNES.

 UberNES is freeware and is not to be distributed with any commercial games.

 If you have any requests, suggestions, bug reports, etc, please send them to
"mkprodsemail@yahoo.com".







====================================================
 Section 2 - Resources
====================================================

 - M \ K Productions
	Website: 	  http://members.aol.com/mkwebsite
 	UberNES page:	  http://members.aol.com/mkwebsite/ubernes.html
	email:		  mkprodsemail@yahoo.com

 - NES Box Art
	M \ K Box Art Collection:    (HIGHLY recommended!)
			  http://members.aol.com/mkwebsite/nesboxart.html		

	The Warp Zone:	  http://www.planetnintendo.com/thewarpzone/boxart.html
	NES World:	  http://www.nesworld.com/boxart.htm

 - Emulation
	Zophar's Domain:  http://www.zophar.net







====================================================
 Section 3 - Getting Started
====================================================
               
----------------------------------------------
        Creating a NES Database
----------------------------------------------
 - When UberNES is first executed on a machine, it will ask you if you want to create
   a NES Database
 	- If you select "Yes", a database creator dialog will be shown. 
	  (or you can click "NES Database...Create New" from the menu sometime later)
	- Click the "Choose ROM Directory" button and select the folder that contains
          your .NES files
	- Click "Create Database" to build your database
 - When your database is built, UberNES will ask you if you want to load it. 
	- Click "Yes" and load the database
	  (or you can click "NES Database...Load" from the menu sometime later)
 - You should now see the NES Database Browser loaded with all of your games
 - Highlight a game from the list and double-click or press Enter to emulate it 


----------------------------------------------
	Configuring a NES Database
----------------------------------------------
 *** NOTE: Effective in UberNES version 2 revision 1, you can basically ignore this 
           section and go down to section 5! ***
        

 - You will notice that UberNES can display box art images for games in your database
	- You will probably only see the default image at first
	- You must download your box art images from the internet or somehow get them
          on your machine (see Section 5!)
 - To link your box art images to your NES Database, you must specify the directory 
   where your box art files are stored
	- Click "Tools...Options" from the main menu and click the "Directories" tab.
 	- Browse for your box art directory
         (or, you can select your box art directory frlom the DB Configuration tool)
 - Now that you've set your box art location, you can link your games to your images
	- If you're lucky and your NES files have the same name as your images then
          they will be linked automatically (e.g. "smario.nes" and "smario.jpg")
	- Otherwise, you can use the DB Configuration utility to link your images by
          click "NES Database...Configure" from the menu
 - Using the DB Configuration utility
	- First, select the game from the "NES Files" list that you want to link to a
          box art image
		- You will see the current box art for the game
		- UberNES will display the most similar files in the "Top Box Art
                  Matches"
	- Choose an image from the "Top Box Art Matches" that matches the NES game
	- Click "Accept Box Art Link" to link the image to the NES file	
		- Now, when you select that game in the database browser, it will
        	  show the selected box art
	- If you accidentally link a NES file to the wrong box art, you can restore 
          its default link by clicking "Restore Default Link"
	- You can remove all NES files that already have box art links by clicking 
	  the "Remove Linked NES Files" button.


----------------------------------------------
	Setting your Input Mappings
----------------------------------------------
 - Before you start playing games, you might want to define what PC device(s) you are
   going to use to play them with.
 - Click "Tools...Options" from the menu and select the "Input" tab.
 - Instructions are provided on this dialog for setting up your mappings.







====================================================
 Section 4 - NES Stats
====================================================

 - After you use UberNES, you might notice that it maintains some basic statistical 
   information about your gameplay habits (just how long and how many times; nothing
   nefarious).
 - You can view an in-depth report about your game playing stats by clicking 
   "Nes Database...View Stats" from the main menu
 - You can view the gameplay stats of UberNES users across the world by visiting the
   Worldwide Nintendo Hall-of-Fame
 - But first, you need to connect to the Internet NES Database	
	- Click "Internet Database...Connect" from the menu
	- To download the Worldwide Nintendo Hall-of-Fame, click the "Download
     	  Worldwide Stats" button.
	- Be sure you upload your stats, too.  Uploading is completely anonymous and
	  makes the Hall of Fame more indicative of the most popular games.
	- You are encouraged to submit a name/alias and location - if you play enough
	  games your name will be included in the Hall of Fame for UberNES Players.
 - To view the Worldwide Nintendo Hall-of-Fame, click "Internet Database...Hall of Fame"
   from the menu
	




====================================================
 Section 5 - NES Box Art
====================================================

 If you want to use the Box Art feature (and it's a nice feature to use!), then you can
quickly and easily import nearly 300 NES Box Art images by downloading the M \ K NES
Box Art collection at:

                    http://members.aol.com/mkwebsite/nesboxart.html

 This collection was created especially for UberNES users, so you only need to follow
a few simple steps to get UberNES to display all of these images.  These steps are
to first download the files, then tell UberNES where you downloaded the files to, and
finally to restore all of the default box art links.  Here are precise instructions:
 
 1) Download all 3 files from  http://members.aol.com/mkwebsite/nesboxart.html
 2) Unzip these 3 files into the same directory
 3) In UberNES, click "NES Database...Configure"
 4) Select your box art directory by clicking "Browse" button near the bottom right
    corner
 5) Click the "Restore All Default Links" button and choose "Yes" when the message box
    prompts you.

 That's all!





====================================================
 Section 6 - Competing for High Scores
====================================================

 UberNES has been programmed to track the high scores for many of the most popular NES
games - a mixture of classic old-school arcade conversions and NES classics are 
supported.  This is the basic rundown how it works:  

1) Select a High-Score-enabled game (these games will have a "red cartrdige" icon in 
   the NES browser)

2) Play the game and try to get the high score - UberNES will track and remember your 
   high scores for later play sessions.

3) Upload your stats (click Internet Database...Connect from the menu) and your scores
   will be added to the Internet NES Database (not instantly, but typically within 
   hours.)

4) Download the Internet NES stats - UberNES will now be able to display the top scores
   for each game in the NES Hall of Fame (click Internet Database...Hall of Fame from 
   the menu, then select the "High Scores tab)

5) If you scored high enough, your name/location will be displayed in the hall of fame.

6) When you play high score enabled games, UberNES will set the "in-game" high score to
   match the worldwide high score - it's just like a worldwide, virtual NES that
   everyone plays and never gets powered off/reset.

 Now that you know the basic idea, there are some finer aspects of the feature that may
be helpful to know:

1) Frequently, UberNES users will play some games, then decide to download some of the
   high score games that they do not currently have - if you find yourself doing this,
   be sure to UPDATE your NES Database instead of creating a new one!  (Click 
   "NES Database...Update" from the main menu.)  
   
   The reason for this is your scores are bound to your NES database - when you create
   a new one and upload your new stats, you are no longer sending your stats from your 
   old database.  Updating a database transfers your stats.  Plus, updating a database 
   is easier that creating a new one, because you typically don't need to specify a
   directory.

2) No cheating!  If you load a state, use debugging commands, use Game Genie codes, etc,
   your score will be ignored.  You will have to power off, turn all cheats/game 
   modifiers off, and start a new play session before you will earn a valid score.

   Additionally, if you access the password entry screen in Metal Storm your score will
   not be counted, as this would allow for cheating.

3) If you would rather not compete against the worldwide high scores, you can have 
   UberNES set the "in-game" high score as your own, local high score.  This option
   can be changed by clicking "Tools...Options" and looking under the the "Emulation"
   tab.

4) In most cases, UberNES tracks only the 1-player score.

 Here is the complete list and description of games that are High-Score enabled:

 - Arkanoid
 - Balloon Fight
 - Boulder Dash
 - Bubble Bobble
 - Burgertime
 - Castlevania
 - Defender 2
 - Donkey Kong
 - Galaga
 - Ghosts and Goblins
 - Gradius
 - Ice Climber
 - Kung Fu
 - Mario Bros.
 - Metal Storm
 - Pac-Man
 - Pinball
 - Popeye
 - R.C. Pro-Am
 - Rush N Attack
 - Snow Bros.
 - Super Mario Bros.
 - Super Sprint
 - Tetris (Tengen version)
 - Wrecking Crew


If you find that your copy of the game isn't showing up with a "red cartridge" icon,
you may need to download the US version of the game.





====================================================
 Section 7 - FAQ
====================================================

Q) Are Game Genie codes supported?
A) Starting in version 2 rev 2, yes.  In the NES browser window, there is now a "Cheat 
   Codes" tab in the Details pane.  Click it to add, edit, and delete codes for the
   selected game.

Q) Entering Game Genie codes is a pain - is there a better way to use cheat codes?
A) Yes - from the main menu click NES Database...Cheats...Load From Internet to
   bring up a dialog that lets you download thousands of codes from our online database.
   This should be a good start.

Q) How can I make UberNES run faster?
A) By default, UberNES renders to a GDI device.  This is slower than rendering to a
   DirectX device, and you can change this in the video options tab.  Also, using Game 
   Genie codes can slow down the emulation slightly.

Q) How do I compete for high scores?
Q) My high scores are not being counted - what's going on?
A) Please read Section 6 - "Competing for High Scores"
   
Q) Is there an easy way to import a large amount of NES box art images and use them
   effortlessly in UberNES?
A) Glad you asked!  Check out our box art collection at:

                    http://members.aol.com/mkwebsite/nesboxart.html

   A large collection of box art images have been gathered and zipped into 1 big archive 
   split across 3 files.  If you want UberNES to display box art images, but don't want
   to spend an afternoon searching around the internet image-by-image, then check out 
   our collection.  See section 5 (right above this) for more information.

Q) What's the deal with the joypad acceleration feature?
A) The joypad acceleration allows you to perform common UberNES tasks using a joypad /
   gamepad instead of a keyboard and mouse.  The idea is to let you sit back with your 
   controller, browse through your database and select games, and play games all
   entirely with your joypad.  This feature is for lazy bastards like us who don't 
   like switching back and forth from joypad to mouse/keyboard everytime we change 
   games.

   Click the "Acceleration" options tab to learn more and configure your joypad 
   acceleration.

Q) Are there any undocumented features that might be useful to know?
A) Yes, you can select the sorting categories in the browser window not only from the
   main menu but also by right-clicking on the respective column's header.  That is,
   you can sort games in the game list by time played, publisher, release date, etc.
   Right click on the column headers to select the categories and left-click on the 
   header to sort.

Q) How come the NES display is blurry in 2x or 3x windowed mode?
A) DirectX may or may not automatically anti-alias surfaces as they are scaled and
   blitted to the screen.  As far as we know, there is no way to disable this feature,
   so we added an option to render the NES display using Windows GDI instead.  This 
   will eliminate the blurriness but will be slower, so user beware.  You can also 
   turn on a "scanline" effect when using GDI at higher resolutions.

Q) What file types does UberNES support?
A) UberNES currently supports .NES and .ZIP files, with the usual restriction that a
   .ZIP file should contain only one .NES file.  UNIF support may or may not be
   forthcoming.

Q) How come some of my NES files aren't recognized in the database browser?
A) UberNES should recognize every North American, Japanese, and European game.  UberNES
   does not recognize any pirate games.

Q) Why do many games have "N/A" as the box description?
A) This is because the UberNES database does not have the description for the selected
   game.  Collecting box descriptions is a tedious process, and we focused our efforts
   on the more popular games, leaving many games without box descriptions.  It is very
   likely that more box descriptions will be added in future versions of UberNES.

Q) What mappers are supported by UberNES?
A) 0,1,2,3,4,6,7,9,10,11,16,18,19,21,22,23,24,25,32,33,34,64,65,66,69,71,
   75,78,79,228,232  (31 total)

Q) Why aren't more features included?
A) Because we don't have enough time to implement them.  Making UberNES is a lot of 
   work, especially since it's just a hobby, so we implemented what we think are
   the most important features.






====================================================
 Section 8 - Credits / Thanks
====================================================

------------
 Credits
------------
 M \ K Productions - Programming, design, images, everything

------------
 Thanks
------------
 #winprog / winprog.org - For providing lots of helpful information about Windows API
                          programming in C.

 Brad Taylor		- For writing great APU documents, not to mention PPU docs.
 blaarg			- For additional APU information
 Quietust		- For miscellaneuous emulation help
 Jeremy Chadwick	- For his ubiquitous NESTech document
 Memblers/nesdev	- For being a fantastic source of NES information
 Martin			- Author of Nessie, for helping debug a problem
 \Firebug\		- For mapper document
 Shoonay		- For testing beta versions of UberNES and providing helpful 
                          feedback

 Gilles Volant		- For zLib/unzip routines
 Mark Adler		- For zLib/.ZIP routines

 Mike Malarky		- For supplying lots of information from his NES database
 Martin Frej		- For supplying NES CRC information









====================================================
 Section 9 - Revision History
====================================================

Version 2 rev 3 (02-05-2005)

	- Added High Score trackers for 12 new games.  You can now compete for the 
          worldwide high score in the following games:
		- Castlevania
		- Super Mario Bros.
		- RC Pro-Am
		- Balloon Fight
		- Arkanoid
		- Burger Time
		- MetalStorm
		- Boulder Dash
		- Super Sprint
		- Defender 2
		- Bubble Bobble
		- Wrecking Crew

	- Expanded High Score feature to display top 10 scores and players for each
          game, rather than just the top overall score.

	- Modified Internet NES Stats structure; stats are now compressed and take less
          time to download

	- Added support for 512k MMC1 games, Dragon Warrior 3 and 4 are now playable.

	- Added more Game Genie codes to online code database

	- Added more box descriptions to NES database


Version 2 rev 2 (01-08-2005)

	- Added High Score Tracking for competitive game playing worldwide:
		- When you play a classic game like Donkey Kong or Pac-Man, UberNES will
		  now track your high scores
		- Upload your high scores to the UberNES Internet Database to compete
                  for the worldwide high score.
		- Download the worldwide NES stats and see the best scores for each
                  game.  If you have the top score, your name will be displayed in
                  the hall of fame.
		- UberNES will automatically set the world wide high score when you play
                  supported games - it's like a single, worldwide NES that never
                  gets turned off or reset.
		- 13 games are currently supported, including Donkey Kong, Pac-Man,
                  Galaga, Tetris, Ghosts N' Goblins, Mario Bros, Gradius, and more.

	- Added exhaustive Game Genie code support:
                - No more wasting time entering codes by hand - you can quickly and 
                  easily import thousands of Game Genie codes from our unique online
                  code database - all in 2 clicks from within UberNES.
		- Adding, editing, and deleting codes is seamlessly integrated into
                  the NES browser.

	- Improved NES Hall of Fame layout; looks much nicer and displays
          more games, publishers, etc

	- Added option to load NES palette from file

	- Added more box descriptions to NES database



Version 2 rev 1 (10-02-2004)
		
	- Added support for following iNES mappers:
		- 75 (Jaleco/Konami VRC1)
		- 79 (Nina-3 AVE)
		- 228 (Action 52)
		- 232 (Quattro Games)

	- Fixed minor errors in APU square, noise channel emulation.

	- Added support for GDI display to eliminate the automatic anti-aliasing /
          blurring that DirectX sometimes does in higher-resolution windowed modes.

	- Added support for scanline display for higher-resolution GDI windows

	- Added joypad GUI acceleration: you can perform the most important UberNES 
          functions with extra buttons on your joypad.  Using your joypad, you can
          now browse and select games to play in the NES Browser, load and save NES
          states, power off the NES emulation, and more - you no longer have to use
          a keyboard and mouse to use UberNES.  (Click the "Acceleration" options 
          tab for more)

	- Added "Game Notes" section to NES Browser; you can now write down passwords,
	  hints, and any other notes you want for each game in your database.
	
	- Redesigned NES Browser layout; it now displays more information and looks
	  much better.

	- Added more box descriptions to NES database

	- In conjunction with this release, we have created a NES Box Art Collection
	  that can be easily downloaded and used with UberNES, providing the user with
          nearly 300 NES Box Art images.  To learn more and download this collection, 
	  visit:
                   http://members.aol.com/mkwebsite/nesboxart.html



Version 2 (06-26-2004)

	- Fixed CPU and various mapper bugs that make many more games
	  playable/completely playable, most notably Dragon Warrior, Zelda 2, and
	  Super Mario Bros. 3

	- Improved sound emulation quality; now it is much more clear-sounding

	- Added PAL emulation support

	- Added support for following iNES mappers:
		- 16 (Bandai)
		- 18 (Jaleco SS8806)
		- 19 (Namcot 106, partial)
		- 24 (Konami VRC6)
		- 32 (Irem G-101)
		- 33 (Taito TC0190)
		- 34 (Nina-1)
		- 64 (Tengen RAMBO-1, partial)
		- 65 (Irem H-3001)
		- 69 (Sunsoft FME-7)
		- 71 (Camerica)
		- 78 (Irem 74HC161/32)

	- Added Konami VRC6 expansion sound chip emulation

	- Added Top 10 players category to hall of fame - you can now submit your
          name when you upload your stats and see if you make the hall of fame for 
          top UberNES players

	- Many/all Japanese and European games are now recognized by the internal
          database

	- Added more box descriptions and made various improvements to internal 
          database

	- GUI is now more extensively multi-threaded for better responsiveness
	


Version 1 rev 2 (04-14-2004)

	- Added load/save state feature

	- Added graphical state browser for easy loading/saving

	- Added .ZIP support

	- Database contents can now be sorted by world statistics

	- Fixed minor sprite bug



Version 1 rev 1 (04-03-2004)

	- Improved sound, especially DMC and triangle channels

	- Improved emulation accuracy

	- Added support for following iNES mappers:
		- 10 (MMC4)
		- 11 (Color Dreams)
		- 21 (Konami VRC4)
		- 22 (Konami VRC2 Type A)
		- 23 (Konami VRC2 Type B)
		- 66 (GNROM)



Version 1 (03-25-2004)

	- Initial release


END