I hope the music creation tools will be good.

I don't know why people aren't talking about this. Maybe the word just isn't out yet.

Having a backwards compatible SNES was a dream for kids in the 90s. It might have taken about 30 years but a developer on GitHub called Myself086 has now made this possible. No console mods or parasite peripherals required. It is a program that creates a SNES rom that works on the original, unmodified hardware. You only need a basic flash cart (e.g. Everdrive) to play it on a real SNES.

Myself086 released Project Nested v1.1 around three weeks ago and it is still a work in progress. The list of compatible games will grow when further NES mappers are supported. The good news is that Super Mario Brothers (SMB1), Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong and various other games are compatible and run very well.

Use the link below to download Project Nested and see the compatibility list (the list is on a downloadable/viewable spreadsheet):

https://github.com/Myself086/Project-Nested

I'm guessing they didn't have the understanding of JIT and AOT emulation back then. The Super Game Boy had GB hardware inside the cartridge, so that's how they made that work. It wasn't a 'parasite' peripheral though because it used the SNES hardware too and displayed graphics through the console.

You can buy adapters to play cartridges for other formats on the SNES but these things use the console for nothing more than a power source and controller inputs. They have their own AV cables running from the adapter instead of the actual console. The Retro Port adapter uses the SNES like this to play NES games. There are Mega Drive/Genesis and Game Boy Advance adapters that work in the same way. There are cheaper methods of playing other formats on a TV using a SNES controller though (which is all these things are really doing).

I'm wondering if there is anything out there that makes it possible to play other systems on a Super Nintendo? If not, are there any recreations of games from other systems that can play on the SNES? Or other good homebrew games? Any suggestions are welcome. I'm looking for things like:

- Emulator programs to make games for other systems work on the SNES, if there are any

- Master System games remade for the SNES or NES (that were not also NES releases)

- Games for other systems (e.g. Commodore 64, Game boy Color) remade for SNES/NES)

- Unreleased SNES/SFC games (like Starfox 2 that was eventually included in the SNES Classic Mini)

- Homebrew games (complete games, demos or work in progress projects)

- Homebrew clones (like the SNES clone of Flappy Bird called Creepy Bird)

- New translations of Japanese SFC games

For anyone else interested in such things, I would recommend tracking down the games below:

- New Super Mario Land (a homebrew SNES remake of Super Mario Land for the Game Boy with impressive DS style sprites).

- Classic Kong (a homebrew remake of Donkey Kong with with improved 16 bit graphics)

- Tin Head (a previously unreleased SNES version of the Sega Genesis platformer)


New Super Mario Land (SNES homebrew game)

Hard question but an important one. I like the opening bass on the midi version. It has more impact. It's a very good midi representation of the Christmas hit Wonder Christmas Time but I prefer the original. Also, when I say 'I prefer the original' what I really mean is 'I appreciate it for being a catchy melody, the iconic 80's synths and Paul McCartney but actually, I can't stand Christmas pop music because it has all been heavily overplayed'.

I've hit the same issue of slower gameplay when playing the Mario World hacks on PAL hardware. I can see I'm not the first person asking the same question (it was also asked here in 2016: https://www.smwcentral.net/?p=viewthread&t=87343). It will always be an issue for people in PAL regions wanting to play hacks on real hardware and means a lot of people won't get to enjoy Mario hacks 'properly' this way unless there's some kind of fix.

So, the PAL version of SMW has the game speed cranked up to accommodate for the game slowdown. Audio plays at the same tempo when playing an NTSC version on PAL (I tested) which causes certain audio to be out of sync. The most noticeable gameplay difference is that Mario plays slower, takes longer to get to full speed when running. The sluggishness of everything else (enemies etc.) isn't so noticeable. Hacks are playable and still enjoyable.

As a non-programming layman, my solution for someone that wants to 'fix' the biggest PAL problem would be to make a patch for Mario (the character) to play at his faster PAL speed. Sure, it means that enemies etc. will still move more slowly. I'm guessing fixing all that too would mean patching every other moving item and enemy which may not be possible, except maybe for vanilla hacks that don't change any values of how items and enemies behave.

I'd be interested to see what people's thoughts are of my 'speed up Mario only' suggestion. If Mario's speed values usually appear at the same place in the code in most/all hacks then it creates a better experience, although an otherwise slightly slower and easier game.

There has been two updates of this emulator. Myself086 released the latest version two weeks ago. Super Mario Bros. 1, Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong and various other games can now be played on real SNES hardware, along with a list of others! I'd recommend Seicross (futuristic racing game, kind of like Excitebike) for anyone that hasn't played that.

I'm a big fan of this project. It's still a work in progress but the others so far is pretty amazing.

Everything you need (except NES roms) is in the link below. I advise following the compatibility list spreadsheet. It shows the level of compatibility, has instructions on the settings needed and the text to include in the patch setting (Field E) for the few games that need it. It then outputs a working .smc file

https://github.com/Myself086/Project-Nested

Where is the question coming from? From a serious hacking perspective, I can see the potential for converting the Wonderful Christmas Time into a Christmas themed Mario hack. With a little more swing to it, it could be the greatest Mario Christmas game music of all time. Koji Kondo (the Mario and Zelda composer) uses swing time in creating Mario music to give it the old-timey, cheerful feel. I've always thought this tune would convert well to Mario music... https://youtu.be/KPfX-VgzUrw

Good thinking 🙂 And good luck getting this working as an SPC file for that

I'm not butchering my 30 year old SNES haha. But I know what you mean. People in PAL regions need a console that will play NTSC games at the correct speed or just use an emulator. The old method for playing NTSC import games was to use a Universal Adapter cartridge on a PAL console (which I do) but it doesn't fix the speed issue. I think it's time to get on Ebay and buy a Super Famicom console.

As for the differences between the USA/Japanese version of Super Mario World compared to the PAL release, there must be speed differences which were altered in the code to make it play correctly. Most SNES games were modified before their PAL release. That was a reason for the long delay before they arrived here and why there was a market for import games and adapter cartridges. The NES days was another story though. Some games were modified for PAL but usually not. We were just playing games more slowly and had no reason to know there was any difference back then haha.

Edit: I've just ordered a Super Famicom and a compatible power supply to use in the UK. Solved lol

Can anyone point me to where I can find this castle theme SPC file please? It starts at 15:35 in the video below. It's the SMW castle theme with elements of Monstrous Turtles by Zircon in there.

https://youtu.be/3iaA_t354x4

I've searched through the music section here and haven't found it.

Btw, both the original Monstrous Turtles tune and Gamma V's Mario Is Missing are brilliant in my opinion. Just saying

I want to contribute music. I've learned how to use AddmusicK (I added a tune with custom samples into Mario World, so I can now test things in the game and on real hardware). My intention is to write fun, swing Koji Kondo style Mario tunes like this:

https://youtu.be/3p0RxexArgg
Note: This is just a demo I wrote as a starting point and isn't an SPC file.

I come from a background of making music in DAW programs. I've never really used MIDI and I'm not a programmer. It's early days and I'm finding the transition of using SNES GSS to be a steep learning curve. I'm intending to persevere in making SNES music though.

Any pointers for someone with my background would be appreciated. Also, any answers to questions below will probably save a lot of time figuring things out:

1. Is using a SNES tracker the easiest way of making music that works in real hardware? It would be nice to have something with a piano roll but I don't think there's anything that does that. Is creating a MIDI file and dropping it into SNES GSS the best workaround or that? 

2. Is it possible to offset notes to get the bouncy, swing timing without cranking up the tempo? The demo above runs at 440bpm to achieve that (everything is 4x spaced out because it should only really be 110bpm) but my concern is that this isn't the right approach. I'm not sure if that means it's using 4x more more memory for sound placements as an SPC file.

I'm rebuilding the track in the same way in SNES GSS with the speed at 05, which comes out around 120bpm (to my ears, I've not tested it). If keeping the speed at 05 is the correct way to do this, is there any way of changing this? The speed at 06 reduces the tempo too much

3. Are there any channels to avoid in Mario World so that it doesn't clash with game sound effects?

4. Is it possible to put the addition 'riding yoshi' beat into the track? I'm guessing AddMusicK removes that functionality.

5. Is there any benefit to using SNES Tracker over SNES GSS? I chose SNES GSS because it's bigger and cleaner to look at. I'm not sure how other features compare but the WAV to BRR functionality in SNES GSS looks useful.

Thanks for the pointers, brickblock369. I think I probably need to dig further into AddMusicK with some experimentation. My thinking was 'if you can use AddMusicK to add someone else's tune that uses extra samples in Mario World then this will also work for my own music if I create an SPC file in a SNES tracker'. I knew there would be extra bits to understand and parameters to work within for this to be functional Mario World music though.

It's good to know that Yoshi drums are a possibility... only your answer about avoiding channels 7 and 8 mean that there's fewer channels to work with than I thought. I'll have a play with using harmonised notes as individual samples as a possible workaround. My demo track uses three channels just for piano, which is half of the available channels. My workaround idea will increase the amount of samples playing on the piano channel though and might not be a suitable solution within the memory limitations.

Yeah, that's what I mean. Contributing new tunes for this community to use. I enjoy playing hacks and SMW is one of my all time favourite games. My strength is music but this is a very different challenge to creating things in Ableton.

I want to make original music that fits with the signature sound of Mario platformers. SMW, SMAS and the New SMB games all have that from Koji Kondo. It seems there aren't so many people doing that in hacks that I play and what I see on YouTube. That said, I've heard some great SNES versions of Mario tunes from later games. I guess people here writing original music usually prefer to go in other directions rather than recreating the feel of the old Mario music. There's nothing wrong with that but my favourite hacks are those that feel like a legit sequel to SMW.