Originally developed under the code-name "Mirage" and designed to serve as a Super Famicom development environment, Silhouette has been modified into a working Super Nintendo emulation environment which rivals the best efforts of any public development. In my opinion, the history of Silhouette is nothing short of fascinating, so please read this document at least once before you throw it in the trash. (NES)Silhouette is the product of internal Nintendo research over several years. All too often Mac users suffer for delaid game releases, and in gener a lot smaller game library than that of the PC or VG consoles, but with the use of emulator software you can expande your game collection to include classics like Super Mario 64, Super Metroid, Street Fighter II (SNES) , Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64), Super Mario Bros.My SN30 Pro+ works perfectly too. OpenEmu works perfectly on everything I've tried so far (only tried Atari 7800 and GameCube). It is the multi-setup emulator that not only supports SNES but is also compatible with other systems including Game Boy, SG-1000, Game Gear, Mega Drive, and many more.amuzulo. So, commencing the list, here is Higan the best SNES emulator. Compatibility:- Windows, Mac, and Linux.Most machines didn't even have hard drives! Compile times for even meager projects were horrendous, and keeping all the work on floppies was getting out of hand. Deadlines approaching, the Apple IIgs was chosen as a quick if inelegant solution-several C and assembly compilers were available, and testing and debugging was easier since we were able to use a native 65816 for testing.However, the IIgs proved woefully inadequate for large projects. However, it was soon realized by the development teams that a reliable 65c816 development platform could not be found on the usual Nintendo platforms (most Nintendo devs at that time had a generic PC, excluding the art and marketing department which was mostly Macintosh and a few segments of the development team). (Trivia tidbit: the original Super Famicom plans called for much more extensive onboard 3D hardware-PilotWings was developed assuming that this hardware would be present, and since this chip was scrapped from the Super Famicom at the last minute, Nintendo was forced to include this 3D chip on the PilotWings board in order to keep the game on schedule.)The other reason for difficulty in development is much less known, and very surprising-almost all the programming for these titles was done on the Apple IIgs! This seems ridiculous until you realize that both the Super Famicom and the Apple IIgs are based on the 65816 processor, a cheap toy with inadequate processing power that was stuck in the Super Famicom to smooth over the early development process (since it is backwards compatible with the 6502, the NES' processor). Popular Super Famicom titles, like F-Zero and Super Mario World, were the most difficult for several reasons-if nothing else, the Super Famicom hardware specifications changed in small ways at least twice during the development project, requiring changes to existing code. BSNES is a Super Nintendo emulator for Mac OS X designed for accuracy.The first batch of games for the Super Famicom were developed around 19.
![]() Of course, there were a lot of limitations, and nobody would argue that Mirage could replace a real unit, but it was a start.This is where the story gets interesting. Developers found that the time needed to load their code from Mirage into the testing units (up to a minute for large games) was excessive, when with a click of the mouse they were able to immediately see the game running within Mirage. A second team optimized the code, and combined with computer upgrades around the Nintendo offices, this let Mirage run in pseudo-realtime, although it was a fraction of the speed of a real Super Famicom.It soon became common to test games on Mirage more and more extensively. This process took several seconds on our original hardware-one could watch the screen slowly draw from top to bottom-but it worked, and it was more accurate than most of the emulators you see today. Silhouette had two main developers, myself being one of them the Mirage team also worked on large portions. Regardless, the project Silhouette was spun off from Mirage in an attempt to broaden Nintendo's market to PC owners, especially those who liked SNES software. On the other hand, Nintendo 64 has not been the blockbuster that was hoped for in the US market obviously the higher-ups overestimated the market for $79 games designed for kids when competing systems sell their games for $39. Suddenly the potential struck him-Super Nintendo games on household PCs! Obviously there's a market.Nintendo of Japan shrugged off the idea, but they always have-NOJ is known for passing over potentially valuable markets, and focusing on selling elaborate junk to young children (Virtual Boy, anyone?). Diddy Kong Racing-shudder.) By now, computer hardware had advanced to allow Mirage to run at playable speeds on this guy's average desktop hardware. (Trivia tidbit: Yes, Rare has many of its development labs within Nintendo of America headquarters nowadays-they were always in bed together, now more recently they've even shacked up. For example, Mirage had no sound support whatsoever-Silhouette includes a full SPC700 APU emulator, designed by myself and my partner from the ground up. Every attempt was made in Silhouette's course of development to obtain speed without sacrificing compatibility.In many cases Silhouette was forced to expand to include features that Mirage did not cope with. No debugging windows, no test modes, no compiler-just the emulated hardware, with the best possible gaming experience. Age of empires 2 serial keyPiracy sucks, people-don't use Silhouette as a vehicle for piracy.Unfortunately, as you can see, Silhouette did not make it into stores nationwide as planned. Try watching your colleague's or friend's hours and hours of labor get translated into a ZIP file and get spread across the Internet and see how it makes you feel. Nintendo's efforts in combatting ROM image piracy have always been swift and effective, and frankly I feel nothing but satisfaction seeing ROM pirates get shut down. The entire SNES9X cancellation story is a huge mess of bad PR for Nintendo, but it couldn't be helped-if a Super Nintendo emulator were released as freeware (along with the heavy ROM piracy that is characteristic of the Internet), the market for Silhouette would be slim to none. Snes Games Emulator Zip Disk BeforeIn fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they denied that it ever existed, at this point. I packed my bags and made sure to get a copy of Silhouette on Zip disk before taking off.I'm pretty sure that Silhouette is dead at Nintendo. That ended my career at Nintendo, since Silhouette had been my only major project at Nintendo for several months and I had nothing to do after the project was gone. After that, it was only a matter of time before the word came down from NOJ to axe the Silhouette project, still unfinished. The high-level executive who brainstormed Silhouette lost his job in the red tape. Much of the blame for this rests with the current state of N64 sales (let's just say we're not doing so well Sony destroyed us this Christmas). ![]()
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