Frequently Asked Questions
Please select a question below.
Program Questions
- When I try to load a game, all I get is a black screen.
- When I try to use vNES on a console or handheld, it gives me an error.
- When I try to use vNES on my PowerPC iMac, it doesn't work.
- How do I use vNES with my Java-enabled cellphone?
- How do I have Player 2 connect to vNES over LAN or the Internet?
Website Questions
When I try to load a game, all I get is a black screen.
It sounds like you need to install or update your Java installation. Not all computers come preloaded with Java, which vNES uses to let people play Nintendo games. Luckily, the Java Virtual Machine is a free download and is rather easy to install.
Click here to download the Java installation package.
If installing Java doesn't seem to have helped (in Windows):
- Open the Control Panel.
- Open "Java"
- Click the "Advanced" tab.
- Click "Default Java for Browsers"
- Ensure that all of the options available under this menu are checked.
- Click "Apply"
- (Some users may need to restart, if using Internet Explorer.)
(Firefox users may need to close their browser and open it again for changes to take effect.) - Use vNES. It should work now.
When I try to use vNES on a console or handheld, it gives me an error.
As you probably know, vNES uses the Java Virtual Machine to let people play Nintendo games. The issue with this is that vNES was designed first and foremost for computers, not for game consoles. There are times when Java (specifically J2SE) is unavailable, or other issues are hampering the use of vNES.
When I try to use vNES on my PowerPC iMac, it doesn't work.
Unfortunately, due to the depreciation of the PowerPC processor, I am unable to provide support vNES on the PowerPC platform.
Having said that, if anyone with a PowerPC iMac would be kind enough to donate it so that we might be able to correct the bug preventing it from running properly on older iMac systems, we can probably correct the issue.
How do I use vNES with my Java-enabled cellphone?
vNES doesn't run on cellphones. Cellphones use J2ME, vNES is J2SE.
Although, out of pure coincidence, there is a completely different product called vNes which is for some older J2ME cellphones. We don't have a lot of information on that, your best bet is to Google it.
How do I have Player 2 connect to vNES over LAN or the Internet?
vNES does not support this feature. It also is not entirely clear if Java is capable of doing that to begin with.
How do I become an affiliate of vNES?
Due to repeated bad experiences with this program, vNES no longer runs an affiliate program.
How do I become a friend of vNES?
The friends of vNES page is what it says it is - websites run by people we like.
If you are going to be incredibly adamant about it, you can use the contact form above. Keep in mind these things:
- You will probably not get accepted.
- You need a real web host.
- Your site can't have pornographic ads or content.
- Your site has to be somehow related to videogames or computers (or, at least, not about pottery or any other random unrelated topic.)
What happened to all of the games?
In March 2008, we received a series of letters from the ESA. The ESA is contending that the operation of vNES is illegal, despite our (painstaking) compliance with the law.
In an effort to avoid further legal issues, instead of simply shutting down the website, we no longer provide access to games we don't have a physical cartridge of, effectively making vNES operate like a virtual equivilant of a rental store, or, more accurately, library.
How do I download these games to my computer?
You cannot download games from the vNES website.
The idea is that you don't need to download them, because they can be played online.
Will there ever be a vSNES?
If you are asking me, there won't be a vSNES. That isn't to say that someone else can't make one, but there are a lot of techncical hurdles to jump over, most of which have to do with the internal architecture of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
As far as the design of the SNES goes, someone inexplicably thought it was a good idea to have a less-powerful base console, but make it easier to add in an extra processor on a cartridge. From an emulation standpoint, that makes things remarkably difficult at times, because the most popular games like Super Mario Kart and StarFox used add-on chips on the cartridge to assist in graphics. From there, you not only have the overhead of emulating the 5A22 (CPU), PPU, and SPC700 (Sound), but now have a RISC processor or Nintendo DSP to emulate as well. It slows the system down dramatically, and would be excruciatingly painful to do in Java, assuming it is actually possible.
And if I was to only emulate the base hardware, I would have complains in my inbox every day about how we need to get Super Mario Kart or StarFox, or someone who wants to use a Super Game Boy with vSNES.
That is only from an emulation standpoint. Don't forget we would need to start collecting SNES games.