Alphanes NES Emulator

Alphanes is a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) emulator written in Go. It aims to emulate the NES hardware, allowing users to play classic NES games on modern computers.

This project was originally developed by Jonathan da Silva Santos between 2014-2015.

Screenshots

Features

Alphanes includes implementations for several key NES components:

• CPU (Ricoh 2A03): Full 6502-based processor emulation with NTSC timing (1.789773 MHz)
• PPU (Picture Processing Unit): Accurate scanline-based rendering with background and sprite support
• APU (Audio Processing Unit): Implementation of all sound channels (Pulse, Triangle, Noise, DMC)
• Mappers: Support for popular mappers (NROM, MMC1, UNROM, MMC3)
• Input: Keyboard controls for standard NES inputs

Building and Running

Prerequisites

1. Go Compiler: Ensure you have a recent version of Go installed (https://golang.org/doc/install)
2. SDL2 Development Libraries:
   • Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev
   • macOS (Homebrew): brew install sdl2
   • Windows (MSYS2/MinGW): Use pacman to install the mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL2 package
3. PortAudio Development Libraries:
   • Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt-get install portaudio19-dev
   • macOS (Homebrew): brew install portaudio
   • Windows (MSYS2/MinGW): Use pacman to install the mingw-w64-x86_64-portaudio package

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/jonathandasilvasantos/2014-alphanes-nintendo-emulator
   cd ./2014-alphanes-nintendo-emulator

2. Clone dependencies:

   sh clone_dependencies.sh

3. Set up the Go environment:

   source setup.sh

   This disables GO modules and sets the GOPATH to the current directory.

4. Build the emulator:

   cd ./src/zerojnt/alphanes/
   go build

Running

To play a game, simply run:

./alphanes path/to/your/rom.nes

Optional debugging features:

# For CPU state comparison
./alphanes nestest.nes nestest.log

# For PPU dump analysis
./alphanes your_game.nes your_game_dump.ppu

Controls

NES Button	Keyboard
A	Z
B	X
Select	Space
Start	Return (Enter)
Up	Up Arrow
Down	Down Arrow
Left	Left Arrow
Right	Right Arrow
Quit	Escape

Current Status & Limitations

• Support for multiple mappers, but some edge cases may not be fully implemented
• Audio emulation includes all channels but may have accuracy limitations
• Controller support limited to keyboard input for Player 1
• Performance optimized for most games but complex titles may run slower

License

Alphanes is free software, distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. See the LICENSE file for more details.

Author

Jonathan da Silva Santos (Original Author, 2014-2015)