SuperSnes9x

SuperSnes9x

SuperSnes9x - Portable Super Nintendo Entertainment System (TM) emulator

This is the un-official source code fork for the Snes9x project.

Please check our Wiki or the official Wiki for additional information.

SuperSnes9x Features:

• Super FX 3 (FX3) support for the 2026 LRG releases, with cycle-accurate GSU timing
• LRG SNES rumble dongle support (Ultimate Doom FX3, RT.SFC)
• Supports GameBoy, GameBoy Color, Super Game Boy, Super Game Boy 2, Super Game Boy Color (experimental)
• libretro core for SNES / SGB / GB / GBC
• Voicer-kun peripheral emulation (plays its audio CDs from cue/bin images, infrared transmitter/receiver)
• Super Famicom Box (hotel version, with live English OSD translations)
• Nintendo SuperDisc
• Nintendo Super System
• Event carts - PowerFest '94, Nintendo Campus Challenge '92
• Kaillera Server/Client
• RetroAchievements (without Hardcore)
• Wide-SNES - Supports the widescreen SMW ROM hack by Vitor Vilela
• PPU Sprite/Tile/Tiles viewers (SNES, GB, GBC, SGB)
• Audio waveform viewer (Logic-style per-channel tracks, solo/mute, level meters)
• Enhanced Cheat Search / Cheat Editor (SNES, GB — incl. GB cheats in SGB BIOS mode)
• Multi-Bind-Controller support
• Run-Ahead (Input lag reduction)
• Lua scripting - SuperSnes9x API, Editor & Debugger
• Color Correction Support / Native CRT Colors
• Barcodes - Barcode Battler II, Barcode Boy, Barcode Taisen Bardigun
• SDL Support
• Multi-Language Pack
• 100% Acid Tests support for gbc/gb/sgb (Emulator shootout)

SuperSnes9x libretro core

The SuperSnes9x libretro core (supersnes9x_libretro.so — SNES / SFC / SGB / GB / GBC in one core) is built from this repository. Prebuilt cores for Windows, Linux, macOS and Android are in the nightly builds. To build the portable Linux core locally with Docker:

cd libretro/linux
./build-portable.sh x86_64        # output: libretro/linux/dist/x86_64/

Then copy supersnes9x_libretro.so together with libretro/supersnes9x_libretro.info into your RetroArch cores directory (e.g. ~/.config/retroarch/cores/). For authentic Super Game Boy mode, place the SGB BIOS ROMs (SGB1.sfc / SGB2.sfc) in RetroArch's system directory — without them, GB content runs on the built-in BIOS-less core.

For the original Game Boy / Game Boy Color power-on animation (the Nintendo logo scrolling down, then the boot chime), drop a boot ROM in the same place: dmg_boot.bin (256 bytes) for Game Boy and cgb_boot.bin (2304 bytes) for Game Boy Color. The desktop builds also look next to the ROM and in the configured BIOS directory — note that a relative BIOS directory in the config resolves against the working directory the emulator was launched from, so an absolute path is safer. None is bundled — with no matching file present, carts start immediately exactly as before.

Emulation → BIOS then lists it alongside the Super Game Boy entries: No BIOS, Game Boy BIOS (or Game Boy Color BIOS, matching the loaded cart), SGB1, SGB2. Entries whose BIOS file is missing are greyed out, and the checked entry is whatever is actually running. With both an SGB BIOS and a GB boot ROM installed, SGB mode stays the default; picking the Game Boy entry runs the cart on its own console instead, and picking an SGB entry hands it back.

Or you can build all versions: appimage, linux, android (requires docker).

cd libretro
./build-all.sh

macOS

The Qt GUI and the libretro core both build on macOS, self-signed so they run without a paid Apple Developer account:

# Qt GUI -> qt/build-macos/super-snes9x-qt.app
cmake -S qt -B qt/build-macos -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
      -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="$(brew --prefix qt)"
cmake --build qt/build-macos -j"$(sysctl -n hw.ncpu)"
qt/scripts/makeapp-macos.sh

# libretro core -> libretro/macos/dist/ (universal x86_64 + arm64)
libretro/macos/build-macos.sh

Or build both at once with cd libretro && ./build-all.sh --osx. That flag selects the macOS artifacts instead of the Linux and Android ones — the Linux AppImages are native builds and the macOS ones need Xcode, so a single host can't produce both.

The macOS GUI uses the Qt Software or OpenGL display driver; Vulkan is not available on the platform. Because the builds are ad-hoc signed rather than notarized, a copy that arrives over the network needs its quarantine flag cleared: xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine <path>.

See qt/docs/README-macos.md for details.

Nightly builds

Every night that master has new commits, GitHub Actions builds everything below and publishes it as the rolling nightly pre-release. The links always point at the newest nightly. These are untested snapshots and may be broken. For stable builds use the latest release.

Platform	GUI	libretro core
Windows 64-bit	super-snes9x (x64)	core (x64)
Windows 32-bit	super-snes9x (x86)	core (x86)
Linux x86_64	Qt AppImage · GTK AppImage	core (x86_64)
Linux x86	Qt AppImage · GTK AppImage	core (x86)
macOS	Qt app (universal x86_64 + arm64)	core (universal x86_64 + arm64)
Android	—	arm64-v8a · armeabi-v7a

Windows: unzip and run. Linux: chmod +x the AppImage. macOS: the app is self-signed, so after copying it run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine super-snes9x-qt.app. Cores: unzip the core and its .info file into RetroArch's cores directory.