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nwidger/nintengo

An NES emulator written in Go
Source code at GitHub null
nwidger/nintengo.json
{
  "createdAt": "2014-01-21T01:26:23Z",
  "defaultBranch": "master",
  "description": "An NES emulator written in Go",
  "fullName": "nwidger/nintengo",
  "homepage": null,
  "language": "Go",
  "name": "nintengo",
  "pushedAt": "2020-09-19T17:45:15Z",
  "stargazersCount": 1304,
  "topics": [],
  "updatedAt": "2025-10-22T05:30:10Z",
  "url": "https://github.com/nwidger/nintengo"
}

nintengo

Section titled “nintengo”

Build Status

An NES emulator written in Go

Super Mario Bros.

Donkey Kong

Excitebike

Legend of Zelda

Punch-Out!

Super Mario Bros. 3

Mega Man 2

Build

Section titled “Build”

Mac OS X/Linux/Windows

Section titled “Mac OS X/Linux/Windows”

  1. Install Azul3D by following the official installation instructions for your platform.

  2. go get -u github.com/nwidger/nintengo

WebAssembly

Section titled “WebAssembly”

WebAssembly support requires Go 1.11 or higher.

  1. Download nintengo

    go get -d -u github.com/nwidger/nintengo

  2. Build wasm/nintengo.wasm

    cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/nwidger/nintengo
    GOOS=js GOARCH=wasm go build -o wasm/nintengo.wasm .

  3. Start web server running on port 8000

    cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/nwidger/nintengo/wasm
    go run serve.go -http :8000

  4. Open http://localhost:8000 in your browser. Press the Choose File button and select a .nes file to run.

Usage

Section titled “Usage”
nintengo OPTIONS FILE
FILE can be a .nes file or a .nes file inside a .zip archive
  -audio-recorder="": recorder to use: none | wav
  -connect="": Connect to address as slave, <rom-file> will be ignored (e.g., 'localhost:8080')
  -cpu-decode=false: decode CPU instructions
  -cpu-profile="": write CPU profile to file
  -http="": HTTP service address (e.g., ':6060')
  -listen="": Listen at address as master (e.g., ':8080')
  -mem-profile="": write memory profile to file
  -recorder="": recorder to use: none | jpeg | gif
  -region="NTSC": system region to emulate: NTSC | PAL

Controls

Section titled “Controls”
z - A
x - B
Enter - Start
Right Shift - Select
Arrow keys - Up/Down/Left/Right


p - Pause/Unpause
n - Toggle stepping by cycle/scanline/frame with p
r - Reset
q - Quit


F1 - save state
F5 - load state


F8  - 200% FPS (2x fast forward)
F9  - 100% FPS
F10 - 75% FPS
F11 - 50% FPS
F12 - 25% FPS


` - toggle overscan
1 - 256x240 screen size
2 - 512x480 screen size
3 - 768x720 screen size
4 - 1024x960 screen size
5 - 2560x1440 screen size


9 - Show/hide background
0 - Show/hide sprites


keypad 0 - toggle mute all channels
keypad 1 - toggle mute pulse 1 channel
keypad 2 - toggle mute pulse 2 channel
keypad 3 - toggle mute triangle channel
keypad 4 - toggle mute noise channel
keypad 5 - toggle mute DMC channel


l - Save pattern tables to left/right.jpg


o - Toggle CPU decoding
i - Toggle PPU decoding


with -recorder=gif:
s - Start recording to frame.gif
d - Stop recording


with -recorder=jpeg:
s - Save screenshot to frame.jpg


with -audio-recorder=wav:
keypad - (minus) - Start audio recording to audio.wav
keypad + (plus) - Stop audio recording

Support

Section titled “Support”

Audio support is currently a work in progress. All audio channels are working in some capacity.

Battery backed saves is implemented and are saved to disk with a .sav file extension.

Save states are supported and are saved to disk with a .nst file extension.

Netplay

Section titled “Netplay”

Nintengo includes two-player netplay support using the -listen and -connect command-line arguments. To use, player one launches nintengo and tells it to listen for incoming connections using the -listen flag:

nintengo -listen=:8080 FILE

Player two then connects to player one using the -connect flag, providing the server’s host/port:

nintengo -connect=192.168.1.110:8080

Note that player two does not need to provide a FILE argument.

Mappers

Section titled “Mappers”
  • NROM
  • MMC1
  • UNROM
  • CNROM
  • MMC3
  • ANROM
  • MMC2

Acknowledgments

Section titled “Acknowledgments”

This project would not have been possible without the amazing treasure trove of information that is the NESdev Wiki and the fine folks at #nesdev on EFnet.

Being able to read the source code of other NES emulators was also extremely helpful. The following is a short list of the ones I consulted most often, although it is probably not the complete list: