Analogue Super NT Reference Manual
Analogue Super NT Reference Manual
Reference Manual
A reimagining of perhaps the greatest video game Contents of your Super Nt Package
system of all time. Engineered with an FPGA.
No emulation. 1080p. Zero lag. Total accuracy. —— Analogue Super Nt
The Super Nt is not a plug n’ play toy. It is the
definitive way to explore Nintendo’s 16-bit era. —— Super Turrican Director’s Cut (digital)
Compatible with the 2,200+ SNES and Super
Famicom game cartridge library. Explore and re-live —— Super Turrican 2 (digital)
the greatest video game system of all time with
no compromises. —— HDMI cable
—— USB cable
HDMI Output
Micro USB
Power Input
Cartridge Slot
SD Card Slot
L R
Pairing Button
1. Plug your micro-USB cable into your Before playing your Super Nt, make sure to update
USB power supply to the latest firmware at support.analogue.co.
You will need a FAT16 or FAT32 formatted SD card
2. Plug your micro-USB cable into the to update the firmware.
Super Nt
In order to update the firmware, copy the latest
3. Plug your USB power supply into firmware update file at support.analogue.co (with
a working AC Outlet a .bin extension) to the root directory of your SD
card. Make sure no other firmware files are in the
4. Plug one end of your HDMI cable
root directory. Insert your SD card into the SD card
into your Super Nt
slot on your Super Nt and turn the power on.
5. Plug the other end of your HDMI The firmware update process will start
cable into your TV/Monitor/Capture automatically and takes approximately three
Device minutes to complete. During that time the power
LED will flicker red at the screen will be blank.
6. Plug in SNES-compatible controllers When the process is complete the LED will show
into Controller Port 1 (and 2 if you a steady color and you will see the Animated Super
wish)* Nt Startup logo. Do not power off the Super Nt
while the firmware is updating. If the power goes
7. Insert a cartridge into the cartridge off for any reason, Don’t Panic! The system may not
slot (optional) display anything but it will look for a firmware file
to flash to once the power is restored. You cannot
8. Push the Power Button brick your Super Nt with a failed firmware update.
Notes on Power
Tools
Allows you to enter Game Genie-style cheat codes.
Factory Default Settings for each option are highlighted. If the option is not
highlighted, then it is not enabled with the Factory Default Settings. If there
is a range given to a particular option, then the default value for that range is
highlighted after the range limits are given.
Resolution
If you are outputting your Super Nt to a 1080p or You can use the sliders to crop each edge of the
4K native display, you should use the 5x vertical screen by up to 32 pixels.
scale to fill up as much of the screen as possible.
You should be able to see all essential information Cropping on the SNES is less crucial than it was on
in most games and should not need to adjust the NES. The NES always output 256x240 while the
the vertical position often. A 5x scale gives you vast majority of SNES games only output 256x224.
essentially a 256x216 unscaled resolution, so you Most CRT displays in the SNES area could come
can use the horizontal and vertical positions to pretty close to displaying the full 256x224, but you
adjust the graphics if any vital details are lost. can use this option to try to replicate the cropping
characteristics of a particular CRT. Note that many
If you want perfectly square pixels, choose a CRTs had curved bezels and tended to crop more
5x horizontal scale. If you want the “ideal” pixel pixels at the corners of the bezel than in the middle.
aspect ratio, choose the 8:7 option, preferably with
horizontal interpolation enabled. 8:7 is arguably Graphical glitches and junk tiles that could be seen
the intended aspect ratio for Nintendo games like with cropped NES video will rarely be present in
Super Metroid and Super Mario All-Stars, which SNES games. NES games also had oddly colored
have circular objects which look like circles with tiles on the horizontal edges of some games, but
the 8:7. Not all developers took the 8:7 ideal aspect the SNES hardware is fast enough that glitches
ratio into consideration and circular objects in are not present on the left and right edges of
games like Chrono Trigger and Mortal Kombat 2 the screen either.
may look a little squashed. In that case, you would
be better off choosing the 4:3 for 16:9 or the 6x Scalers
option.
Several scalers are available if you wish to
The Super Nt works with the Super Game Boy apply them. “No scaler” uses nearest-neighbor
and Super Game Boy 2, which send the Game Boy’s interpolation where the color of a pixel is repeated
video output through to SNES PPU. The proper horizontally and vertically as often as is necessary
pixel aspect ratio of the Game Boy, the pixels are to get to the desired scaled resolution. This results
truly square, giving a 160x144 resolution image in the sharpest, “pixel purist” graphics.
slightly wider than tall. On original hardware and
a CRT, the image would be stretched somewhat The HQ2x, HQ3x and HQ4x scalers interpolate a
and this stretch will be seen with the Super Nt pixel based on the surrounding pixels. The result
unless you are using a 5x/5x horizontal/vertical is generally a smoother image. The 2x, 3x and 4x
setting for 1080p, a 3x/3x for 720p and a 2x/2x refer to blocks of pixels, and the larger the block,
for 480p. Disable all interpolation for the sharpest the fewer colors will be used. Scale 2x and Scale 3x
image. use a somewhat different algorithm but produce a
similar result. X-Ray uses a simple algorithm to give
Screen Size inverted black and white graphics.
In the simplified Screen Size setting, height settings Using scalers may shift the image slightly, alter the
are given only for 1080p modes. Horizontal and colors considerably and will cause a little extra lag
Vertical Interpolation is enabled. due to the processing of the image required.
Scalers (cont.)
Extra Features
It can also eliminate shimmer in scrolling
backgrounds on LCD displays. If you are using an The 64 Sprite Tiles option allows the Super Nt to
integer horizontal or vertical scale, you should not display 64 sprites per line instead of the 32 that the
need to use these options. If you are using a true SNES can canonically display. This should reduce
integer horizontal or vertical scale, you should not flicker in games displaying a large number moving
need to use these options. objects on the screen at a time. Games which have
been noted to take advantage of the extra tiles
When the Disable Horizontal or Vertical include Super Fire Pro Wrestling – Queen’s Special
Interpolation box is checked, that means the and MegaMan X3. Some games will show glitches
interpolation is NOT being applied to the with the setting on, however. Final Fantasy III will
video. You can set each form of interpolation show characters walk over the battle screen menus
independently. instead of under the menus as seen when Terra has
the flashback early in the game to her enslavement
Scanlines under the Empire.
The Super Nt can generate artifical scanlines to The Mode 5 & 6 Interlace Disable eliminates
reproduce the scanning beam structure of a CRT. combing artifacts in a few games that use an
Normal Scanlines dims pixels by the same amount interlaced mode. It does not work with all games
regardless of the pixel’s color. Hybrid Scanlines that use interlacing. It will work with Ranma 1/2:
targets more realistic scanlines by adjusting for Chounai Gekitou Hen and Chrono Trigger during
gamma when dimming a pixel’s color. With hybrid a particular sequence.
scanlines, darker objects have thicker scanlines
than lighter objects. The Pseudo-Hires Blending can be used in two
games, Jurassic Park and Kirby’s Dream Land 3 that
The Scanline Depth slider can be set from 0-255 use pseudo high res graphics and color math to
and uses a default of 120. produce transparent background tiles. Through an
RGB or S-Video connection from an original SNES,
In the opinion of many people, the thickness of these tiles will have alternating vertical stripes.
the scanlines produced in 720p modes is the ideal But through composite these tiles will look
thickness. This dims every third line. Scanlines in transparent. The Blending option gives you back
1080p modes dim every fourth (4x-4.5x) or fifth (5x) the intended transparent look to tiles you could
line. Some people view this as making the lines have only experienced on a CRT.
too thin. Scalines in 480p mode dim every second
line. Some view these scanlines as too thick. CRTs
varied in their scanline thickness, with higher quality
displays tending to produce more pronounced
scanlines.
The buffering modes on the Super Nt address Limiting RGB Range adjusts the color output range
the issue that the SNES’s native refresh rate is to accommodate those displays which do not
60.09881fps for NTSC consoles and 50.00697fps handle 24-bit RGB natively. Many LCDs as found on
for PAL consoles. Modern displays and HDMI TVs do not show a full range of RGB for each of the
interfaces expect either 60fps, 59.94fps or 50fps three primaries, red, green and blue. Each primary
and are generally not tolerant of refresh rates that color is represented by an 8-bit value, giving 256
vary from that specification. Super Nt has three levels of color for each primary. Full RGB displays
modes that deal with the frame rate differential in accept values of 0-255 for each color primary.
different ways. Limited RGB displays only accept values of 16-235,
with values below 15 being designated as black and
Fully Buffered Mode option buffers full frames to values above 235 being designated as white. The
achieve a 60.0988 frame rate using only 60fps. identical RGB value will not produce the same color
This is mode avoids tearing at the cost of latency. in limited RGB versus full RGB because limited RGB
The Super Nt must render at least 1 frame ahead tries to cover the same color space as full RGB but
of the game’s internal rendering to stay ahead. has fewer values to cover the range.
Zero Delay Mode slows the SNES down to achieve You should use Full RGB if your display supports
a true 60fps frame rate, a speed difference of 0.16% it. If you turn on the Limited RGB Option and see
There is no latency penalty with this method but black turn to dark gray, then you should not use
this method causes the Super Nt to fall 1 second this option. If the black stays black, then keep this
every 10 minutes behind an original SNES running option on.
the same software.
The Lock Gamma Sliders Together option disables
Single Buffer mode is something of a compromise your ability to set the gamma for Red, Green and
between the two methods described above. Blue independently.
Like the Full Buffer option, the original frame rate
is being generated within the Super Nt. Unlike Red, Green & Blue sliders can be set from 1.00
the Full Buffer, only a portion of the next frame is to 1.99 in .01 increments.
being pre-rendered, giving latency of no more than
1 frame depending on when the player activates an Advanced Mode
input. The drawback is a recurring retrace line that
is visible once per every several seconds. Enabling this option adds the Cropping, Extra
Features, Buffer Mode and Color options to the
Video Submenu and turns the simplified Screen
Size options into the Width & Height options.
Font – Changes the menu font, Alternate Font uses Startup Options
a thicker, standard 8x8 font instead of the default
font Boot Sequence Delay – This slider can go from 1-10
and determines how much of a delay will be used
Menu Bounce – The menus will drop down instead before the screen will be activated. Some LCDs
of instantly appearing cannot handle information immediately available
from the HDMI interface, so if you are not getting
Dim Game in Menu – The game will be dimmed a picture you may want to add a little delay to give
when the menu is active, making it easier to see the the display time to set up the picture parameters.
menu options but more difficult to see the effects
of changing video parameters. Title – Menu – Starts up directly with the Root
Menu after showing the startup sequence
NTSC – Sets the console to identify as a U.S. or Load Custom Pattern – Allows you to load a custom
Japanese console pattern contained on the SD card. Will send you to
PAL – Sets the console to identify as a European the File Browser. Pattern files are 768 bytes in size.
console Here is a link to a few custom patterns :
LED Options