A NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) emulator for RP2040 based microcontrollers with SD card and menu support. Uses HDMI for display.
Supports two controllers for two player games. See "about two player games" below for specifics and limitations
The emulator used is Infones by Jay Kumogata which was ported to the Raspberry Pi Pico by Shuichi Takano with changes done by me to accomodate the SD card menu.
In stead of flashing a NES rom to the Pico using picotool, you create a FAT32 formatted SD card and copy your NES roms on to it. It is possible to organize your roms into different folders. Then insert the SD Card into the card slot. Needless to say you must own all the roms you put on the card.
A menu is added to the emulator, which reads the roms from the SD card and shows them on screen for the user to select, flash and play.
See also the Adafruit guide although it is somewhat outdated now. (No two player)
There is also an emulator port for the Sega Master System/Sega Game Gear. You can find it here https://github.com/fhoedemakers/pico-smsplus
Click on image below to see a demo video.
You can use it with these RP2040 boards and configurations:
Raspberry Pi Pico. Requires one of these addons:
For use with a USB gamecontroller or a legacy NES controller. (No soldering requirerd)
Adafruit Feather RP2040 with DVI (HDMI) Output Port. For use with a USB gamecontroller or a legacy NES controller, or even a WII classic controller. Requires these addons:
Waveshare RP2040-PiZero Development Board
For use with a USB gamecontroller or a legacy NES controller. (No soldering requirerd)
See below to see how to setup your specific configuration.
Depending on the hardware configuration, the emulator supports these gamecontrollers:
When using Legacy Controllers, you can choose between:
NES Controller. (Second controller port and controller is optional and only needed if you want to play two player games)
SNES Controller (PCB only, connects to controller port 1)
WII-Classic controller
The emulator supports two player games using two NES controllers or an USB gamecontroller and a NES controller connected to controller port of player 2. The USB controller is always player 1.
[!NOTE] You cannot use two USB controllers for two player mode. At the moment only one USB controller is recognized by the driver. The second controller must be a NES controller. In this config the NES controller port must be wired up to the GPIO pins of player 2. See configurations below.
Repeatedly flashing your Pico will eventually wear out the flash memory.
The emulator overclocks the Pico in order to get the emulator working fast enough. Overclocking can reduce the Pico's lifespan.
Use this software at your own risk! I will not be responsible in any way for any damage to your Pico and/or connected peripherals caused by using this software.
I also do not take responsability in any way when damage is caused to the Pico or display due to incorrect wiring or voltages.
Click on the link below for your specific board configuration:
Port 1 | Port 2 (optional) | Note | |
---|---|---|---|
GND | GND (- on board) | ||
VCC (Power) | Connect to 3V3 | ||
NES Clock | GPIO14 | GPIO1 | |
NES LATCH | GPIO16 | GPIO20 | |
NES Data | GPIO15 | GPIO21 |
[!NOTE] Soldering is required. There is only one 3v3 pin header on the board, the other 3V3 must be soldered directly onto pin 36 (3V3 OUT) of the Pico. For GND there are two pin headers available on the board. Clock Data and Latch for controller one must be soldered directly onto the Pico. The Clock, Data and Latch for the second controller can be soldered on the available pin headers on the board, no need to solder them directly onto the Pico.
USB controller is player 1, NES controller is player two and must be wired to controller port 2.
(You can also connect an USB controller and a NES controller to port 2)
Controller Port 1 pins must be soldered directly onto the Pico
Controller Port 2 pins can be soldered to the available headers of the Pimoroni DV.
TODO
See https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/microcontrollers/images/pico-pinout.svg for the pinout schema of the Raspberry Pi Pico.
Use the breadboard to connect all together:
Breakout | GPIO | Note |
---|---|---|
CS | GPIO5 | |
CLK (SCK) | GPIO2 | |
DI (MOSI) | GPIO3 | |
DO (MISO) | GPIO4 | |
3V | Pin 36 (3v3 OUT) | |
GND | Ground on breadboard (-) |
Breakout | GPIO | Note |
---|---|---|
D0+ | GPIO12 | |
D0- | GPIO13 | |
CK+ | GPIO14 | |
CK- | GPIO15 | |
D2+ | GPIO16 | |
D2- | GPIO17 | |
D1+ | GPIO18 | |
D1- | GPIO19 | |
5 (*) | VBUS | Pin 40 (5volt) |
GND (3x) | Ground on breadboard (-) |
(*) This is the via on the side of the board marked 5. (next to via D and C).
Port1 | Port 2 (optional) | Note | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
GND | Ground on breadboard (-) | |||
VCC (Power) | (3v3 OUT) | |||
NES Clock | GPIO6 | GPIO9 | ||
NES LATCH | GPIO8 | GPIO11 | ||
NES Data | GPIO7 | GPIO10 |
See image below.
[!NOTE] The Shotky Diode (VSYS - Pin 39 to breadboard + column) and the wire on breadboard left (+) to right (+) are not necessary, but recommended when powering the Pico from a Raspberry Pi. See Chapter 4.6 - Powering the Board of the Raspberry Pi Pico Getting Started guide
USB controller and NES controller ar both player 1
(You can also connect an USB controller and a NES controller to port 2)
[!NOTE] The device on the left is a Pico Debug probe used for debugging. This is optional
When using a USB gamecontroller this is needed:
When using legacy controllers, this is needed:
See: https://learn.adafruit.com/assets/119662 for the Feather pin scheme.
Use the breadboard to connect all together:
Breakout | GPIO | |
---|---|---|
CS | GPIO10 | |
CLK (SCK) | GPIO14 | |
DI (MOSI) | GPIO15 | |
DO (MISO) | GPIO8 | |
3V | + column on breadboard connected to feather 3.3V pin | |
GND | - column on breadboard connected to feather ground pin |
Connect the nunchuck breakout adapter to the Feather DVI using the STEMMA QT cable.
Port 1 | Port 2 (optional) | Note | |
---|---|---|---|
GND | - column on breadboard connected to feather ground pin | ||
VCC (Power) | + column on breadboard connected to feather 3.3V pin | ||
NES Clock | GPIO5 | GPIO26 | |
NES LATCH | GPIO9 | GPIO27 | |
NES Data | GPIO6 | GPIO28 |
USB, NES and WII-Classic are player 1
(You can also connect an USB controller and a NES controller to port 2)
[!NOTE] When using an USB controller, connect the controller and the power adapter to the Y cable. Connect the Y-cable to the port on the board labelled USB. I do not recommend powering the board via the PIO-USB port. This caused some weird behaviour.
When using a original NES controller you need:
For two player games you need an extra NES controller port, controller and wire
Port 1 | Port 2 (Optional) | Note | |
---|---|---|---|
GND | Any ground pin | ||
VCC (Power) | 5Volt pin | ||
NES Clock | GPIO5 | GPIO10 | |
NES LATCH | GPIO9 | GPIO11 | |
NES Data | GPIO6 | GPIO12 |
[!NOTE] Contrary to other configurations where VCC is connected to 3Volt, VCC should be connected to a 5Volt pin. Otherwise the NES controller could possibly not work.
Note: When the emulator won't start and the screen shows "No signal", press the run button once again. The emulator will now boot.
USB and NES are player 1
(You can also connect an USB controller and a NES controller to port 2)
Note: Soldering skills are required.
Create your own little Pico Based NES console and play with an orginal (S)NES controller. The PCB design files can be found in the assets/pcb folder. Several Companies can make these PCBs for you.
[!NOTE] The pcb is not designed for a second NES controller port for player 2, but the second port can be added without much hassle. You need to solder the gpio pins directly on to the Pico.
I personally recommend PCBWay. The boards i ordered from them are of excellent quality.
Simply upload the design files packed as a zip archive when ordering. A zip file containing the design files can be found on the releases page.
Other materials needed:
For two player setup you need an extra NES controller port. You must solder the GPIO connections directly onto the pico.
Port 2 (Optional) | Note | |
---|---|---|
GND | ground via on PCB | |
VCC (Power) | VCC via on PCB | |
NES Clock | GPIO9 | |
NES LATCH | GPIO11 | |
NES Data | GPIO10 |
Flash the Pico with piconesPlusAdaFruitDVISD.uf2 from the releases page.
NES, SNES and USB controller are alle player 1
(You can also connect an USB controller and a NES controller to port 2)
clock, data and latch soldered directly on the Pico. Ground and vcc soldered on the pcb.
DynaMight1124 designed a NES-like case you can 3d-print as enclosure for this pcb. This enclosure is suitable for one NES controller port. Click here for the design. Please contact the creator on his thingiverse page if you have any questions about this case.
Gamepad buttons:
Gamepad buttons:
For games which support it, saves will be stored in the /SAVES folder of the SD card. Caution: the save ram will only be saved back to the SD card when quitting the game via (START + SELECT)
The emulator works with the Pico W, but without the onboard blinking led. In order for the led to work on the Pico W, the cyw43 driver needs to be initialised. This causes the emulator to stop with an out of memory panic.
Using a USB gamecontroller introduces some latency. The legacy controllers ((S)NES, WII-classic) have less latency.
Best is to use the included build script buildAll.sh. You can then copy the correct .uf2 to your Pico via the bootsel option. The script builds three .uf2 files and puts them in the releases folder.
git clone https://github.com/fhoedemakers/pico-infonesPlus.git
cd pico-infonesPlus
git submodule update --init
chmod +x build*.sh
./buildAll.sh
When using Visual Studio code, choose the Release or the RelWithDebuginfo build variant.
InfoNes is programmed by Jay Kumogata and ported to the Raspberry Pi Pico by Shuichi Takano.
I contributed by adding SD card and menu support. For this reasons I made code changes to the emulator for accommodating the menu and SD card.
PCB design by @johnedgarpark.
NES gamepad support contributed by PaintYourDragon & Adafruit. If using Pimoroni Pico DV Demo Base: NES controller clock, data and latch go to GPIO pins 14, 15 and 16, respectively. If Adafruit DVI Breakout build, it's GPIO pins 6, 7, 8 instead. FeatherDVI Gamepad should be powered from 3.3V when connected to Pico GPIO, not 5V as usual...seems to work OK regardless.
WII-Classic controller support by PaintYourDragon & Adafruit.
Adafruit Feather DVI - RP2040 support by PaintYourDragon & Adafruit.
There is also a version available for the Pimoroni PicoSystem handheld.