FCEUX is an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on 15 July 1983 as the and was later released as the redesigned NES in several test markets in the ...

and

Family Computer Disk System The commonly shortened to the Famicom Disk System, is a peripheral for Nintendo's Nintendo Entertainment System, Family Computer (Famicom) home video game console, released in Japan on February 21, 1986. The system uses proprietary floppy disk ...

emulator In computing, an emulator is Computer hardware, hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run sof ...

. It is a merger of various

forks In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from 'pitchfork') is a Eating utensil, utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tine (structural), tines with whic ...

of FCE Ultra.

Multiplayer support

The Win32 and SDL versions of FCEUX do not currently support TCP/IP network play functionality, as they do not support controllers.

Ports

An integrated GTK2 GUI was added to the SDL port of FCEUX in version 2.1.3. This GTK GUI deprecated the previous python frontend, gfceux. As of version 2.3.0, the SDL port migrated from GTK2 to a cross platform Qt5 GUI front end. The 2.4.0 version was the first release in which the SDL port is runnable on Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. It has been

ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desig ...

DOS DOS (, ) is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible syste ...

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

(with either SVGAlib or X),

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

(its SDL port should also work on other

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X, *nix or *NIX) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Uni ...

platforms such as

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free-software Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version was released in 1993 developed from 386BSD, one of the first fully functional and free Unix clones on affordable ...

Solaris Solaris is the Latin word for sun. It may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Sol ...

and

IRIX IRIX (, ) is a discontinued operating system developed by Silicon Graphics (SGI) to run on the company's proprietary MIPS architecture, MIPS workstations and servers. It is based on UNIX System V with Berkeley Software Distribution, BSD extensio ...

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

GP2X The GP2X is a Linux-based handheld video game console and portable media player developed by South Korean company GamePark Holdings. It was released on November 10, 2005, in South Korea only. The GP2X is designed for homebrew developers as we ...

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PA ...

, the

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

GameCube The is a PowerPC-based home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, in Europe on May 3, 2002, and in Australia on May 17, 2002. It is the suc ...

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America, and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, f ...

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October, in Europe on 24 Novembe ...

and Pepper Pad.

History

FCE Ultra was forked from FCE (Family Computer Emulator). Its last full release was version 0.98.12 in August 2004, while a pre-release version 0.98.13-pre was released in September 2004 as source code only. After that, development appeared to stop and the homepage and forums for the emulator were taken down. In the absence of official development, many forks of FCE Ultra were created. Most notable are ''FCEU-MM'', which supports many new and unusual mappers, ''FCEU Rerecording'', which incorporates many useful features for

tool-assisted speedrun A tool-assisted speedrun or tool-assisted superplay (TAS; ) is generally defined as a speedrun or playthrough composed of precise inputs recorded with tools such as video game emulators. Tool-assisted speedruns are generally created with the go ...

s, and ''FCEUXD SP'', which adds a number of debugging utilities. In March 2006 it was reactivated and shortly thereafter a project was initiated to combine all the forks into one new application called ''FCEUX'', which attracted collaboration from many authors of the various forks of FCE Ultra. FCEUX was first publicly released on August 2, 2008. This fork of the emulator has continued steady development since then, allowing the other forks to become deprecated, and now has features the original FCE Ultra does not, such as native movie recording support and the ability to extend, enhance, or alter gameplay with Lua scripts. Thus it has become far more advanced than its predecessors.

Contributors

FCE was written by Bero. FCE Ultra was written by Xodnizel. It was reactivated by Anthony Giorgio and Mark Doliner. The FCEUX project was initiated by Zeromus and Sebastian Porst. Additional authors joined the group prior to its first release, including mz, adelikat, nitsujrehtona, maximus, CaH4e3, qFox and Lukas Sabota (punkrockguy318). Other contributors have included Aaron O'Neal, Joe Nahmias, Paul Kuliniewicz, Quietust, Parasyte, bbitmaster, blip, nitsuja, Luke Gustafson, UncombedCoconut, Jay Lanagan, Acmlm, DWEdit, Soules, radsaq, qeed, Shinydoofy, ugetab and Ugly Joe.

Reception

Brandon Widdler of ''

Digital Trends Digital Trends is a Portland, Oregon-based tech news, lifestyle, and information website that publishes news, reviews, guides, how-to articles, descriptive videos and podcasts about technology and consumer electronics products. With offices in P ...

'' considers FCEUX the go to emulator for the NES because of its multiple advanced features including debugging, ROM hacking, and video recording.

References

External links

* * * * {{Portal bar, Free and open-source software, Video games 2008 software Nintendo Entertainment System emulators DOS emulation software GP2X emulation software Linux emulation software Lua (programming language)-scriptable software MacOS emulation software Windows emulation software Portable software Free video game console emulators