Mednafen PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 (CD)/SuperGrafx Documentation

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# PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 (CD)/SuperGrafx Documentation

Last updated March 19, 2024
Valid as of 1.32.1

Table of Contents:

- Introduction
- Custom Palettes
- Default Key Assignments
- Advanced Usage
  - Accidental Soft Resets
  - Sprite Flickering
  - Obnoxious Sound Effects in CD Games
- Settings Reference

## Introduction

- Sub-instruction timing granularity(but greater than cycle granularity)
- All sprite sizes supported.
- 16-sprites per line limit emulated.
- Accurate HuC6280 flags emulation.
- Dot-clock emulation for more accurate aspect ratios.
- Support for Street Fighter 2's HuCard hardware.
- Support for Populous's backup RAM.
- 6-button pad emulation.
- Mouse emulation.
- Working CD+G playback.

## Custom Palettes

Global Filename: | Description:
--- | ---
pce.pal | PCE/TG16 9-bit GRB. If only 512 triplets are present, the remaining 512 greyscale colors will be calculated automatically. 512 or 1024 RGB triplets

## Default Key Assignments

Hotkeys
Key(s): | Action: | Setting Name:
--- | --- | ---
ALT + SHIFT + 1 | Activate in-game input configuration process for gamepad 1. | input_config1
ALT + SHIFT + 2 | Activate in-game input configuration process for gamepad 2. | input_config2
ALT + SHIFT + 3 | Activate in-game input configuration process for gamepad 3. | input_config3
ALT + SHIFT + 4 | Activate in-game input configuration process for gamepad 4. | input_config4
ALT + SHIFT + 5 | Activate in-game input configuration process for gamepad 5. | input_config5

Virtual Gamepad 1
Key: | Button:
--- | ---
Keypad 2 | II
Keypad 3 | I
Enter/Return | Run
Tab | Select
W | Up
S | Down
A | Left
D | Right

## Advanced Usage

### Accidental Soft Resets

To prevent soft resets due to accidentally hitting RUN and SEL at the same time, set pce.disable_softreset to 1. This will prevent the emulated PCE from seeing both of those buttons pressed at the same time. However, it is not guaranteed to work on all games, particularly ones with sloppily-coded gamepad polling routines.

### Sprite Flickering

Sprite flickering in shmups got you down? Tired of scenery having a critical existence failure in games that have complex multi-layer effects? Then the pce.nospritelimit setting is for you!
Changing this setting to a value of 1 will eliminate 99% of your flickering and existence failure woes. Side effects may include the superpower of seeing submarines through water(as in the first boss scene of "Bloody Wolf"), along with seeing other hidden elements and graphical glitches("Ninja Ryukenden" has at least one broken cutscene with this setting enabled).

Bloody Wolf (glitching example) | Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire (improvement example)
--- | ---
pce.nospritelimit 0 | pce.nospritelimit 1 | pce.nospritelimit 0 | pce.nospritelimit 1

### Obnoxious Sound Effects in CD Games

Many CD games have awesome music, but it is drowned out by excessively loud obnoxious sound effects. This can be partially remedied by altering the pce.cdpsgvolume and pce.adpcmvolume settings, try say a value of 50, but doing so may cause issues with cutscenes and PSG music-only sections.

## Settings Reference

Caution: Any settings that change emulation behavior as seen from the emulated game are shown with the setting name bolded in the table. One should be conscious of these settings if one has changed them from the default values when using network play or movies, as they can cause desychronizations if not set the same among hosts(or between the recording emulator and the playing emulator).

Setting: | Value Type: | Possible Values: | Default Value: | Description:
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
pce.adpcmextraprec | boolean | 0 1 | 0 | Output the full 12-bit ADPCM predictor. Enabling this option causes the MSM5205 ADPCM predictor to be outputted with full precision of 12-bits, rather than only outputting 10-bits of precision(as an actual MSM5205 does). Enable this option to reduce whining noise during ADPCM playback.
pce.adpcmvolume | integer | 0 through 200 | 100 | ADPCM volume. Setting this volume control too high may cause sample clipping.
pce.arcadecard | boolean | 0 1 | 1 | Enable Arcade Card emulation. Leaving this option enabled is recommended, unless you want to see special warning screens on ACD games, or you prefer the non-enhanced modes of ACD-enhanced SCD games. Additionally, you may want to disable it you you wish to use state rewinding with a SCD ACD-enhanced game on a slow CPU, as the extra 2MiB of RAM the Arcade Card offers is difficult to compress in real-time.
pce.cdbios | string |  | syscard3.pce | Path to the CD BIOS
pce.cddavolume | integer | 0 through 200 | 100 | CD-DA volume. Setting this volume control too high may cause sample clipping.
pce.cdpsgvolume | integer | 0 through 200 | 100 | PSG volume when playing a CD game. Setting this volume control too high may cause sample clipping.
pce.disable_bram_cd | boolean | 0 1 | 0 | Disable BRAM(saved game memory) for CD games. It is intended for viewing CD games' error screens that may be different from simple BRAM full and uninitialized BRAM error screens, though it can cause the game to crash outright.
pce.disable_bram_hucard | boolean | 0 1 | 0 | Disable BRAM(saved game memory) for HuCard games. It is intended for changing the behavior(passwords vs save games) of some HuCard games.
pce.disable_softreset | boolean | 0 1 | 0 | If set, when RUN+SEL are pressed simultaneously, disable both buttons temporarily.
pce.forcesgx | boolean | 0 1 | 0 | Force SuperGrafx emulation. Enabling this option is not necessary to run unrecognized PCE ROM images in SuperGrafx mode, and enabling it is discouraged; ROM images with a file extension of ".sgx" will automatically enable SuperGrafx emulation.
pce.gecdbios | string |  | gecard.pce | Path to the GE CD BIOS Games Express CD Card BIOS (Unlicensed)
pce.h_overscan | boolean | 0 1 | 0 | Show horizontal overscan area.
pce.input.multitap | boolean | 0 1 | 1 | Enable multitap(TurboTap) emulation.

pce.input.port1

enum

none
gamepad
mouse
tsushinkb

gamepad

Input device for Port 1

- none - none
- gamepad - Gamepad
- mouse - Mouse
- tsushinkb - Tsushin Keyboard
  Emulated keyboard key state is not updated unless input grabbing(by default, mapped to CTRL+SHIFT+Menu) is toggled on; refer to the main documentation for details.

pce.input.port2

enum

none
gamepad
mouse

gamepad

Input device for Port 2

- none - none
- gamepad - Gamepad
- mouse - Mouse

pce.input.port3

enum

none
gamepad
mouse

gamepad

Input device for Port 3

- none - none
- gamepad - Gamepad
- mouse - Mouse

pce.input.port4

enum

none
gamepad
mouse

gamepad

Input device for Port 4

- none - none
- gamepad - Gamepad
- mouse - Mouse

pce.input.port5

enum

none
gamepad
mouse

gamepad

Input device for Port 5

- none - none
- gamepad - Gamepad
- mouse - Mouse

pce.mouse_sensitivity | real | through | 0.50 | Emulated mouse sensitivity.
pce.nospritelimit | boolean | 0 1 | 0 | Remove 16-sprites-per-scanline hardware limit. Caution: Enabling this option may cause undesirable graphics glitching on some games(such as "Bloody Wolf").

pce.psgrevision

enum

huc6280
huc6280a
match

match

Select PSG revision.

Caution: HES playback will always use the "huc6280a" revision if this setting is set to "match", since HES playback is always done with SuperGrafx emulation enabled.

- huc6280 - HuC6280
  HuC6280 as found in the original PC Engine.
- huc6280a - HuC6280A
  HuC6280A as found in the SuperGrafx and CoreGrafx I. Provides proper channel amplitude centering. Many games will have less clicking with the HuC6280A, but it may cause clicking in a few games designed with the original HuC6280's sound characteristics in mind.
- match - Match emulation mode.
  Selects "huc6280" for non-SuperGrafx mode, and "huc6280a" for SuperGrafx(full) mode.

pce.resamp_quality | integer | 0 through 5 | 3 | Sound quality. Higher values correspond to better SNR and better preservation of higher frequencies("brightness"), at the cost of increased computational complexity and a negligible increase in latency. Higher values will also slightly increase the probability of sample clipping(relevant if Mednafen's volume control settings are set too high), due to increased (time-domain) ringing.
pce.resamp_rate_error | real | 0.0000001 through 0.0000350 | 0.0000009 | Sound output rate tolerance. Lower values correspond to better matching of the output rate of the resampler to the actual desired output rate, at the expense of increased RAM usage and poorer CPU cache utilization.
pce.slend | integer | 0 through 239 | 235 | Last rendered scanline.
pce.slstart | integer | 0 through 239 | 4 | First rendered scanline.

Setting: | Value Type: | Possible Values: | Default Value: | Description:
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---

pce.debugger.disfontsize

enum

5x7
6x9
6x12
6x13
9x18

5x7

Disassembly font size.

Note: Setting the font size to larger than the default may cause text overlap in the debugger.

- 5x7 - 5x7
- 6x9 - 6x9
- 6x12 - 6x12
- 6x13 - 6x13. CJK support.
- 9x18 - 9x18; CJK support.

pce.debugger.memcharenc | string |  | shift_jis | Character encoding for the debugger's memory editor.
pce.enable | boolean | 0 1 | 1 | Enable (automatic) usage of this module.
pce.forcemono | boolean | 0 1 | 0 | Force monophonic sound output.
pce.scanlines | integer | -100 through 100 | 0 | Enable scanlines with specified opacity. Opacity is specified in %; IE a value of "100" will give entirely black scanlines. Negative values are the same as positive values for non-interlaced video, but for interlaced video will cause the scanlines to be overlaid over the previous(if the "video.deinterlacer" setting is set to "weave", the default) field's lines.

pce.shader

enum

none
autoip
autoipsharper
scale2x
sabr
ipsharper
ipxnoty
ipynotx
ipxnotysharper
ipynotxsharper
goat

none

Enable specified OpenGL shader.

Obviously, this will only work with the OpenGL "video.driver" setting, and only on cards and OpenGL implementations that support shaders, otherwise you will get a black screen, or Mednafen may display an error message when starting up. When a shader is enabled, the "pce.videoip" setting is ignored.

- none - None/Disabled
- autoip - Auto Interpolation
  Will automatically interpolate on each axis if the corresponding effective scaling factor is not an integer.
- autoipsharper - Sharper Auto Interpolation
  Same as "autoip", but when interpolation is done, it is done in a manner that will reduce blurriness if possible.
- scale2x - Scale2x
- sabr - SABR v3.0
  GPU-intensive.
- ipsharper - Sharper bilinear interpolation.
- ipxnoty - Linear interpolation on X axis only.
- ipynotx - Linear interpolation on Y axis only.
- ipxnotysharper - Sharper version of "ipxnoty".
- ipynotxsharper - Sharper version of "ipynotx".
- goat - Simple approximation of a color TV CRT look.
  Intended for fullscreen modes with a vertical resolution of around 1000 to 1500 pixels. Doesn't simulate halation and electron beam energy distribution nuances.

pce.shader.goat.fprog | boolean | 0 1 | 0 | Force interlaced video to be treated as progressive. When disabled, the default, the "video.deinterlacer" setting is effectively ignored with respect to what appears on the screen, unless it's set to "blend" or "blend_rg". When enabled, it may be prudent to disable the scanlines effect controlled by the "pce.shader.goat.slen" setting, or else the scanline effect may look objectionable.
pce.shader.goat.hdiv | real | -2.00 through 2.00 | 0.50 | Constant RGB horizontal divergence.

pce.shader.goat.pat

enum

goatron
borg
slenderman

goatron

Mask pattern.

- goatron - Goatron
  Brightest.
- borg - Borg
  Darkest.
- slenderman - Slenderman
  Spookiest?

pce.shader.goat.slen | boolean | 0 1 | 1 | Enable scanlines effect.
pce.shader.goat.tp | real | 0.00 through 1.00 | 0.50 | Transparency of otherwise-opaque mask areas.
pce.shader.goat.vdiv | real | -2.00 through 2.00 | 0.50 | Constant RGB vertical divergence.

pce.special

enum

none
hq2x
hq3x
hq4x
scale2x
scale3x
scale4x
2xsai
super2xsai
supereagle
nn2x
nn3x
nn4x
nny2x
nny3x
nny4x

none

Enable specified special video scaler.

The destination rectangle is NOT altered by this setting, so if you have xscale and yscale set to "2", and try to use a 3x scaling filter like hq3x, the image is not going to look that great. The nearest-neighbor scalers are intended for use with bilinear interpolation enabled, for a sharper image, though the "autoipsharper" shader may provide better results.

- none - None/Disabled
- hq2x - hq2x
- hq3x - hq3x
- hq4x - hq4x
- scale2x - scale2x
- scale3x - scale3x
- scale4x - scale4x
- 2xsai - 2xSaI
- super2xsai - Super 2xSaI
- supereagle - Super Eagle
- nn2x - Nearest-neighbor 2x
- nn3x - Nearest-neighbor 3x
- nn4x - Nearest-neighbor 4x
- nny2x - Nearest-neighbor 2x, y axis only
- nny3x - Nearest-neighbor 3x, y axis only
- nny4x - Nearest-neighbor 4x, y axis only

pce.stretch

enum

0
full
aspect
aspect_int
aspect_mult2

aspect_mult2

Stretch to fill screen.

- 0 - Disabled
- full - Full
  Full-screen stretch, disregarding aspect ratio.
- aspect - Aspect Preserve
  Full-screen stretch as far as the aspect ratio(in this sense, the equivalent xscalefs == yscalefs) can be maintained.
- aspect_int - Aspect Preserve + Integer Scale
  Full-screen stretch, same as "aspect" except that the equivalent xscalefs and yscalefs are rounded down to the nearest integer.
- aspect_mult2 - Aspect Preserve + Integer Multiple-of-2 Scale
  Full-screen stretch, same as "aspect_int", but rounds down to the nearest multiple of 2.

pce.tblur | boolean | 0 1 | 0 | Enable video temporal blur(50/50 previous/current frame by default).
pce.tblur.accum | boolean | 0 1 | 0 | Accumulate color data rather than discarding it.
pce.tblur.accum.amount | real | 0 through 100 | 50 | Blur amount in accumulation mode, specified in percentage of accumulation buffer to mix with the current frame.

pce.videoip

enum

0
1
x
y

1

Enable (bi)linear interpolation.

- 0 - Disabled
- 1 - Bilinear
- x - Linear (X)
  Interpolation only on the X axis.
- y - Linear (Y)
  Interpolation only on the Y axis.

pce.xres | integer | 0 through 65536 | 0 | Full-screen horizontal resolution. A value of "0" will cause the current desktop horizontal resolution to be used.
pce.xscale | real | 0.01 through 256 | 3.000000 | Scaling factor for the X axis in windowed mode.
pce.xscalefs | real | 0.01 through 256 | 1.000000 | Scaling factor for the X axis in fullscreen mode. For this setting to have any effect, the "pce.stretch" setting must be set to "0".
pce.yres | integer | 0 through 65536 | 0 | Full-screen vertical resolution. A value of "0" will cause the current desktop vertical resolution to be used.
pce.yscale | real | 0.01 through 256 | 3.000000 | Scaling factor for the Y axis in windowed mode.
pce.yscalefs | real | 0.01 through 256 | 1.000000 | Scaling factor for the Y axis in fullscreen mode. For this setting to have any effect, the "pce.stretch" setting must be set to "0".