PS2Emu :: Emulation Gaming & Development News

Snes Station FAQ

(old and maybe out of date but still a good read)
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General Questions

What is SNES-Station?

SNES-Station is a Super Nintendo/Super Famicom emulator for the Playstation 2. For the extreme newbs, that means you can play your Super Nintendo games on your PS2 by using ROMs placed on the disc along with SNES-Station.

Where can I get SNES-Station?

You can find it at the official site or our mirror.

What do I need to use SNES-Station?

1. A Playstation 2 Console, any version or region.
2. A CD-Burner.
3. A Blank CD.
4. Super Nintendo ROMs [Please don't ask where to find]
5. A method of running CD-R's on your PS2. Either...

Gameshark2/Action Replay2/Region-X/Other Swappable Disc and a knife swap type tool

Gameshark2/Action Replay2/Region-X/Other Swappable Disc and a mod chip which requires disc swapping [Like Neo 2.2 or a No-solder mod]

A No-CD-Swap mod chip [Like Neo 4.x, Magic Chip 2, or Messiah]

So wait, I DON'T need a modchip to use SNES-Station??

No, just like all the other PS2 emulators it doesn't require a modchip, however it's highly recommended.

If you don't have a modchip you'll need to use the 'Knife/Card-Swap Method' along with a CD that is swappable such as the GameShark 2. For instructions on this method, check out Guichi's Knife/Card-Swap Tutorial.

Where can I find screenshots of SNES-Station?

On our SNES-Station page, here.

Does SNES-Station run full speed? On your page it says 99%..

No, technically its not completely full speed, but it runs fast enough that you won't even notice most of the time. Usually I notice around 30-60fps, but i've seen it drop as low as ~20fps in some games. With sound off, its pretty much perfect full speed.

Does it work on all regions of PS2?

It should work on every PS2 except early Japanese SCPH10000 models, which most homebrew PS2 software won't run on.

Can I burn it to a DVD-R?

No, not at this time.

Ok, I wanna try this out! How do I burn it?

There are two excellent tutorials out there for burning SNES-Station -

If you have a no-swap mod that doesn't need a Gameshark/AR2 to boot, use Bgnome's tutorial.

If you use the knife-swap method or have a mod that requires swapping a Gameshark (like the Neo2.2), check out Guichi's Tutorial, which goes into more detail for this method.

How do I burn it using a Mac?

Some people have successfully reported burning SNES-Station using a Mac. ElkayPS2 posted: "I run Virtual pc with win98SE and used the cdgen method, then burnt the .bin file under diskimage format with Toast 5.0.2 back on the mac OS. (discard the .cue as usual). Works like a charm"

Can the roms be zipped?

No, roms must not be zipped.

What SNES ROM file extensions does SNES-Station support?

SNES-Station currently supports .SMC .SFC .SWC .FIG and .058 ROM formats.

I have a game that's not running as fast as i'd like, can I speed it up?

Yes, by changing the sound settings. For the fastest speed, turning sound completely off will do wonders. You can also change the frequency to something lower like 12Khz, which will gain some speed - this will lower the audio quality though. Also, changing the output to Mono instead of Stereo will speed it up as well.

I thought this had sound? WTF?

It does. It's disabled by default though. Go to the options menu in the ROM screen and turn it on.

How do I get back to the menu from a game??

You didn't read the manual, did you Press the L3 and R3 buttons at the same time. Thats the two analog sticks.

Does SNES-Station support regular saving or state-saving?

SNES-Station supports regular SRAM saving, but you must exit the ROM back to the main SNES-Station menu before the SRAM is saved to your PS2 memory card. State-saving is not yet supported.


Troubleshooting Questions

Snes-Station looks like it's going to load, but then it just goes to a black screen and sits there..

- First, before you try another burn make SURE that you don't have any DVD controllers or non-standard gamepads plugged into your PS2. This includes old digial PSone gamepads that don't have the analog sticks.

- If you're using No-Mod, you CANNOT use a disc over 650mb/74mins and fill it. It won't work, so don't even try filling up that 700MB CD.

- If you use a GS2/AR2 swap method, check Guichi's TOC Size Limit and make sure your image size is under the maximum size limit for the swap disc you use.

- The image outputted by CDGen MUST be burned in Mode 2! If you're burning with CDRWIN it will do it automatically, but in some programs (like Nero) you must manually change the settings to Mode 2. [Contributed by ShakeyJake]

- Double check Bgnome's Tutorial and make sure you did everything exactly like it said. Make sure you're following the right tutorial for your method of booting.

- Read Guichi's CD-Gen/CDRWIN Tutorial, it gives very detailed steps on burning.

It looked like it was loading fine, but it froze after the intro/disclaimer screen?

First, make SURE you put your SNES roms into the directory /ROMS and not anywhere else.

Second, if you are sure you have them in the right directory, make sure you have at least 20 or so ROMs on the CD. There is a bug in version Public Beta 1 of SNES-Station which freezes after the disclaimer screen if you don't have enough roms on the disc.

Snes Station loads fine, gets to the game selection menu and everything, I go down to the 40th item on the menu, and it completely freezes, although the background music keeps going...

Sounds like you've got the buggy version - Hiryu quickly released a new version about 3 hours after the original release that fixes this problem. If you downloaded it within hours of the original announced release you may want to download it again. (The current version on CV is the fixed ver too)

How come all my ROM names got cut off in the ROM selection menu?

This is a limitation of CDGen v2. Any rom file names over 36 characters will be truncated. Perhaps a future version of CDGen will fix this, but for now keep your filenames short

Why do some of my roms flicker up and down the screen like the vertical scroll is off?

SNES-Station Beta 1 doesn't have region detection yet, so you can only play ROMs which are made for your region's TV. For example, people in the US with NTSC tv's won't be able to play PAL roms. Likewise, people in europe with PAL tv's won't be able to play US or Japanese NTSC roms.

Why doesn't it ever remember my saved games??

Before turning your PS2 off, you MUST exit the ROM back to the SNES-Station main menu for it to be saved to your memory card.