Mednafen

PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 (CD)/SuperGrafx Documentation

Last updated January 2, 2024
Valid as of 1.32.0-UNSTABLE

Table of Contents:

Introduction


Custom Palettes

Global Filename:Description:
pce.palPCE/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 + 1Activate in-game input configuration process for gamepad 1.input_config1
ALT + SHIFT + 2Activate in-game input configuration process for gamepad 2.input_config2
ALT + SHIFT + 3Activate in-game input configuration process for gamepad 3.input_config3
ALT + SHIFT + 4Activate in-game input configuration process for gamepad 4.input_config4
ALT + SHIFT + 5Activate in-game input configuration process for gamepad 5.input_config5

Virtual Gamepad 1
Key:Button:
Keypad 2II
Keypad 3I
Enter/ReturnRun
TabSelect
WUp
SDown
ALeft
DRight


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 0pce.nospritelimit 1pce.nospritelimit 0pce.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.adpcmextraprecboolean0
1
0Output 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.adpcmvolumeinteger0 through 200100ADPCM volume.

Setting this volume control too high may cause sample clipping.

 
pce.arcadecardboolean0
1
1Enable 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.cdbiosstring syscard3.pcePath to the CD BIOS
 
pce.cddavolumeinteger0 through 200100CD-DA volume.

Setting this volume control too high may cause sample clipping.

 
pce.cdpsgvolumeinteger0 through 200100PSG volume when playing a CD game.

Setting this volume control too high may cause sample clipping.

 
pce.disable_bram_cdboolean0
1
0Disable 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_hucardboolean0
1
0Disable BRAM(saved game memory) for HuCard games.

It is intended for changing the behavior(passwords vs save games) of some HuCard games.

 
pce.disable_softresetboolean0
1
0If set, when RUN+SEL are pressed simultaneously, disable both buttons temporarily.
 
pce.forcesgxboolean0
1
0Force 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.gecdbiosstring gecard.pcePath to the GE CD BIOS

Games Express CD Card BIOS (Unlicensed)

 
pce.h_overscanboolean0
1
0Show horizontal overscan area.
 
pce.input.multitapboolean0
1
1Enable multitap(TurboTap) emulation.
 
pce.input.port1enumnone
gamepad
mouse
tsushinkb
gamepadInput 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.port2enumnone
gamepad
mouse
gamepadInput device for Port 2
  • none - none

  • gamepad - Gamepad

  • mouse - Mouse
 
pce.input.port3enumnone
gamepad
mouse
gamepadInput device for Port 3
  • none - none

  • gamepad - Gamepad

  • mouse - Mouse
 
pce.input.port4enumnone
gamepad
mouse
gamepadInput device for Port 4
  • none - none

  • gamepad - Gamepad

  • mouse - Mouse
 
pce.input.port5enumnone
gamepad
mouse
gamepadInput device for Port 5
  • none - none

  • gamepad - Gamepad

  • mouse - Mouse
 
pce.mouse_sensitivityreal through 0.50Emulated mouse sensitivity.
 
pce.nospritelimitboolean0
1
0Remove 16-sprites-per-scanline hardware limit.

Caution: Enabling this option may cause undesirable graphics glitching on some games(such as "Bloody Wolf").

 
pce.psgrevisionenumhuc6280
huc6280a
match
matchSelect 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_qualityinteger0 through 53Sound 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_errorreal0.0000001 through 0.00003500.0000009Sound 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.slendinteger0 through 239235Last rendered scanline.
 
pce.slstartinteger0 through 2394First rendered scanline.
 

Setting:Value Type:Possible Values:Default Value:Description:
pce.debugger.disfontsizeenum5x7
6x9
6x12
6x13
9x18
5x7Disassembly 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.memcharencstring shift_jisCharacter encoding for the debugger's memory editor.
 
pce.enableboolean0
1
1Enable (automatic) usage of this module.
 
pce.forcemonoboolean0
1
0Force monophonic sound output.
 
pce.scanlinesinteger-100 through 1000Enable 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.shaderenumnone
autoip
autoipsharper
scale2x
sabr
ipsharper
ipxnoty
ipynotx
ipxnotysharper
ipynotxsharper
goat
noneEnable 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.fprogboolean0
1
0Force 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.hdivreal-2.00 through 2.000.50Constant RGB horizontal divergence.
 
pce.shader.goat.patenumgoatron
borg
slenderman
goatronMask pattern.
  • goatron - Goatron
    Brightest.

  • borg - Borg
    Darkest.

  • slenderman - Slenderman
    Spookiest?
 
pce.shader.goat.slenboolean0
1
1Enable scanlines effect.
 
pce.shader.goat.tpreal0.00 through 1.000.50Transparency of otherwise-opaque mask areas.
 
pce.shader.goat.vdivreal-2.00 through 2.000.50Constant RGB vertical divergence.
 
pce.specialenumnone
hq2x
hq3x
hq4x
scale2x
scale3x
scale4x
2xsai
super2xsai
supereagle
nn2x
nn3x
nn4x
nny2x
nny3x
nny4x
noneEnable 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.stretchenum0
full
aspect
aspect_int
aspect_mult2
aspect_mult2Stretch 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.tblurboolean0
1
0Enable video temporal blur(50/50 previous/current frame by default).
 
pce.tblur.accumboolean0
1
0Accumulate color data rather than discarding it.
 
pce.tblur.accum.amountreal0 through 10050Blur amount in accumulation mode, specified in percentage of accumulation buffer to mix with the current frame.
 
pce.videoipenum0
1
x
y
1Enable (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.xresinteger0 through 655360Full-screen horizontal resolution.

A value of "0" will cause the current desktop horizontal resolution to be used.

 
pce.xscalereal0.01 through 2563.000000Scaling factor for the X axis in windowed mode.
 
pce.xscalefsreal0.01 through 2561.000000Scaling 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.yresinteger0 through 655360Full-screen vertical resolution.

A value of "0" will cause the current desktop vertical resolution to be used.

 
pce.yscalereal0.01 through 2563.000000Scaling factor for the Y axis in windowed mode.
 
pce.yscalefsreal0.01 through 2561.000000Scaling factor for the Y axis in fullscreen mode.

For this setting to have any effect, the "pce.stretch" setting must be set to "0".