CATSFC version 1.16, 2013-01-08
A Super Nintendo emulator for the Supercard DSTWO.
Based on:
- Snes9x 1.43, by the Snes9x team (with research by the ZSNES folks, anomie, zsKnight, etc.)
- NDSSFC 1.06, by the Supercard team (porting to the MIPS processor)
- BAGSFC, by BassAceGold (improving over NDSSFC)
- CATSFC, by ShadauxCat (improving over BAGSFC)
Compiling
(If you downloaded the plugin ready-made, you can safely skip this section.
In this case, go to # Installing
.)
Compiling CATSFC is best done on Linux. Make sure you have access to a Linux system to perform these steps.
The DS2 SDK
To compile CATSFC, you need to have the Supercard team's DS2 SDK.
The Makefile expects it at /opt/ds2sdk
, but you can move it anywhere,
provided that you update the Makefile's DS2SDKPATH
variable to point to it.
For best results, download version 0.13 of the DS2 SDK, which will have the
MIPS compiler (gcc
), extract it to /opt/ds2sdk
, follow the instructions,
then download version 1.2 of the DS2 SDK and extract its files into
opt/ds2sdk
, overwriting version 0.13.
The MIPS compiler (gcc
)
You also need the MIPS compiler from the DS2 SDK.
The Makefile expects it at /opt/mipsel-4.1.2-nopic
, but you can move it
anywhere, provided that you update the Makefile's CROSS
variable to point to
it.
Making the plugin
To make the plugin, catsfc.plg
, use the cd
command to change to the
directory containing your copy of the CATSFC source, then type
make clean; make
. catsfc.plg
should appear in the same directory.
Installing
To install the plugin to your storage card after compiling it, copy
catsfc.plg
, catsfc.ini
and catsfc.bmp
to the card's _dstwoplug
directory. Then, copy the source directory's CATSFC subdirectory to the
root of the card.
Cheats
The format accepted by the "Load a cheat file" function is equivalent to the old format used in Mightymo's BSNES Cheat Code Pack.
- Download the BSNES Cheat Code Pack at http://www.mightymo.net/downloads.html. It will be a zip archive.
- Open the zip file, with WinZip, WinRAR or the built-in zip extension in the operating system on your computer.
- In the zip file, open the folder called BSNES Cheat Code Pack, then the one called BSNES v0.51-0.74 Cheat Code Pack.
- Open your microSD card's CATSFC folder, then descend into gamecht.
- Drag the cheat code files from the zip archive to the card's gamecht folder.
- In the card's gamecht directory, create two folders. Name the first one a-m and the second one n-z. Drag the cheat files from the games whose name starts with A to M into a-m and the rest into n-z.
This is because the directory display does not handle more than 512 files.
To add cheats to the menu in a game, first load the game, then use the Cheats menu's "Load a cheat file" option. The option can be touched using the Touch Screen, but does not activate the menu. So press A.
Frame skipping
In the Video & audio menu, the Frame skipping option allows you to select a number of frames to skip between rendered frames.
- Setting this to 0 will show every single frame, but this will slow down the game considerably, as the DSTWO would only have enough processing power to emulate and render a few frames per second. It has enough power to emulate all frames and render some, though.
- Setting this to 10 will skip 10 frames and render one, but this will severely desynchronise the audio. You will also find yourself unable to perform actions during the correct frame with the controller.
- Setting this to - (Keep up with the game) will make the emulator try to render the game at its correct speed, dropping frames as needed (up to 8).
It is recommended to start with frame skipping 4 (Show 1 frame every 5) and go to 3 or 2 if the game doesn't run with major slowdowns with them. If you don't like the slowdowns, return to frame skipping 4 or -.
The font
The font used by CATSFC is now similar to the Pictochat font. To modify it,
see source/font/README.txt
.
Translations
Translations for CATSFC may be submitted to the author(s) under many forms, one of which is the Github pull request. To complete a translation, you will need to do the following:
- Open
CATSFC/system/language.msg
. - Copy what's between
STARTENGLISH
andENDENGLISH
and paste it at the end of the file. - Change the tags. For example, if you want to translate to German, the tags
will become
STARTGERMAN
andENDGERMAN
. - Translate each of the messages, using the lines starting with
#MSG_
as a guide to the context in which the messages will be used. - Edit
source/nds/message.h
. Findenum LANGUAGE
and add the name of your language there. For the example of German, you would add this at the end of the list:, GERMAN
- Still in
source/nds/message.h
, just belowenum LANGUAGE
, you will findextern char* lang[
some number]
. Add 1 to that number. - Edit
source/nds/gui.c
. Findchar *lang[
some number] =
. Add the name of your language, in the language itself. For the example of German, you would add this at the end of the list:, "Deutsch"
- Still in
source/nds/gui.c
, findchar* language_options[]
, which is below the language names. Add an entry similar to the others, with the last number plus 1. For example, if the last entry is, (char *) &lang[2]
, yours would be, (char *) &lang[3]
. - Still in
source/nds/gui.c
, findcase CHINESE_SIMPLIFIED
. Copy the lines starting at thecase
and ending withbreak
, inclusively. Paste them before the}
. Change the language name and tags. For the example of German, you would use:case GERMAN: strcpy(start, "STARTGERMAN"); strcpy(end, "ENDGERMAN"); break;
Compile again, copy the plugin and your new language.msg
to your card
under CATSFC/system
, and you can now select your new language in CATSFC!