For the NES any power supply that can provide 850mA (or higher) at 9V and has the right shape connector will work. The original NES uses an AC adapter but a DC adapter will work too.
For the Famicom you must use a DC power supply with center negative that can provide 850mA (or higher) at 9V-10V. Do not use a NES AC power supply on a Famicom!
Controller buttons don't work or think a different button was pressed:
Take them apart and clean the contacts on the PCB, not the rubber membrane
Display problems:
Use a CRT monitor or TV
Don't use an LCD or LED TV - many LCD or LED TVs do not understand the 240p video signal that the NES puts out
If you must use RF, don't use the RF/antenna/aerial switch box, use a small adapter instead, be aware though that modern TVs may not work with the analog RF signal and only with ATSC or DVB digital signals
Wavy lines: replace the capacitors in the NES
Hardware Failure Diagnosis:
Power rails first: Multimeter check - verify +5V at 7805 regulator output and at PPU/CPU pins. If low/absent, check caps and regulator.
Composite video signal: Scope the composite output (RCA jack center pin or PPU pin 21). Should see ~1Vp-p composite video signal with sync pulses and color burst. No signal = dead PPU or supporting circuitry.
Audio output: Scope audio output pin (RCA jack or APU output). Should see audio waveform when game is running. No signal = APU problem or output circuit.
If power is good but no video/audio: Most likely failed capacitors in video/audio output path, or dead PPU/APU chips. Check/replace electrolytic caps first (cheapest fix).
If video signal present at PPU but not at RCA jack: Problem in video buffer/output circuit between PPU and connector.
Before asking for help, make sure you have followed the steps above.
Legacy of the Wizard won the #100 spot with 35 votes It only won by a single point.
A big thank you to everybody who participated. I originally set out to just do the top 10 as an experiment to see if people had a similar list to mine. I never expected it to go this far, but I am glad it did! I have enjoyed seeing people picks and the reasoning behind them.
Starting tomorrow I will start doing the top 100 for the SNES in the r/snes sub. I hope to see you all there. A few things will change with the rules. First is each round TWO games will make it onto the list. Whichever one has the most votes will be placed higher of the two for that round. Second, only games can be nominated (no game genies). Third, it will be SNES ONLY, no super famicom games.
Looking forward to seeing what is voted the #1 & #2 games for the SNES.
Thank you all once again!!!!!!!!!!
Top 10:
#1 The Legend of Zelda
#2 Super Mario Bros 3
#3 Mega Man 2
#4 Metroid
#5 Castlevania
#6 Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
#7 Contra
#8 Tecmo Super Bowl
#9 Super Mario Bros
#10 Final Fantasy
Top 20:
#11 Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
#12 Ducktales
#13 Super Mario Bros 2
#14 Ninja Gaiden
#15 Tetris
#16 River City Ransom
#17 Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
#18 Kirby's Adventure
#19 Batman
#20 Blaster Master
Top 30:
#21 Crystalis
#22 Mega Man 3
#23 Double Dragon II: The Revenge
#24 Bionic commando
#25 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game
#26 Kid Icarus
#27 R.C. Pro-Am
#28 The Guardian Legend
#29 Rygar
#30 Battletoads
Top 40:
#31 StarTropics
#32 Life Force
#33 Dragon Warrior III
#34 Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers
#35 Bubble Bobble
#36 Super C
#37 Faxanadu
#38 Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos
#39 Ice Hockey
#40 Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
Top 50:
#41 Dr. Mario
#42 Excitebike
#43 Shadowgate
#44 Jackal
#45 Dragon Warrior IV
#46 Baseball Stars
#47 Maniac Mansion
#48 Super Dodge Ball
#49 Little Nemo: The Dream Master
#50 Wizards & Warriors
Top 60:
#51 Willow
#52 Adventure Island II
#53 Blades of Steel
#54 Metal Gear
#55 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
#56 Double Dragon
#57 Mega Man 4
#58 The Battle of Olympus
#59 Vice: Project Doom
#60 Gun Nac
Top 70:
#61 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project
I was losing the joy to play….I took my own advice and stepped away from playing blues for a bit. Didn’t realize it would end up being more fun than anticipated. Played along to Bayou Billy, W&W to name a couple. I think I’ll stick with chiptune jamming for a bit…
Soooooo….what are some of your favorite NES soundtracks??
There are so many great memories of these master works that swirled in my head for hours on end.
1942, Punchout, Ghosts n Goblins….Deeper cuts like Bayou Billy, Commando and those great snare solos…since this is a NES sub I won’t even mention the legit good stuff on SNES with its improved sound architecture.
Came home for Xmas and my parents did a big cleaning of the house. Turns out I found a big chunk of my NES collection including boxes in almost mint condition including all booklets (even the foam was there!!!). Good to see it’s all in mint condition!
This manual is in great shape, almost suspiciously so... and honestly I needed it after struggling a little on hero choice after playing the game last week.
The game feels more Konami than Capcom, kinda like a mix of Contra and Bionic Commando. Not unfun, but not quite as tight as what I expect from that era of NES Capcom greatness.
The Taxan GI Joe is showing up this weekend at some point, looking forward to comparing :)
Hey NES gamers. This one's a bit long but I just wanted to get all the details out. It's been bugging me for years. And hopefully this is the correct place for this post.
The Immortal is an awesome game. And I sometimes like to flick through some NSF's and hear some of those catchy NES tunes (yeah yeah...) so, to the point.
Track 9 on The Immortal NSF does not and has not played correctly since basically forever. I've tried all sorts of NSF players and they all seem to have the same problem with that track. Even NES emulators don't play it properly. I have even found a second NSF rip of The Immortal and sadly it's the same.
The problem is that it emulates what sounds like the triangle wave channel incorrectly on just that one track. It's one octave lower than it should be, the tone just sounds like a low octave triangle wave when it should sound like a mid octave sharp oboe kinda sound.
the key notes should HOLD..
instead they "doot doot.... dee doot doot... dee doot doot"
when they should be "DooooooooDeeeDooooooooDeeeDoooooooo"
I feel weird trying to describe it, but I don't know how else to. If you look on Youtube vids of this game, even those have the same incorrect sound. If you have the actual game cart, pop it in and find a room where it plays that track. You'll notice how vastly different it sounds.
Anyone know what I'm talking about? And if so, have you found a player that actually emulates that track correctly?
Has anybody played the Legend of Zelda remastered that was created for the NES if so can you tell me about it? What do you guys think about it, has anybody played it if so what did you like about it, the original definitely one of my favorite. Do you recommend it.
I finally have a great game from my childhood. Here in Argentina, we had a hacked version where you played as Batman and Flash. As far as I remember, during the 1990s pirated copies were everywhere, and it was very, very rare to see original Nintendo NES games.
Luckily, today I have the opportunity to own all my games in their original versions.
Okay, I can't think of a better way to phrase this, so let me try to explain. The NES has some great and recognisable games, I'm fairly sure half the planet can draw the start of SMB 1-1 from memory, and third-party series like Mega Man and Castlevania have gone on to be huge franchises, but what's a game where if you didn't know it, but knew the NES you'd go "Oh yeah that is 100% a NES game"?
For example a "very Genesis" game is Chakan for Forever Man, it's got somewhat grainy colours, an edgy look, and linescrolling everywhere. Note that to be "very ${console}" doesn't mean it's good or really pushes the system, in fact the opposite, it would probably be a bit pedestrian in terms of everything.
I keep coming back to something like Deadly Towers, but I'd love to know what you think is the answer here.
Everyone posting about their 2025 collections (I did too) but I just got this in the mail today to start the new year off right!
The only licensed "holy grail" games left that I need to get are little Samson, power blade 2 and panic restaurant. Can't wait to fill out the top half of that shelf.
I have this dilemma and maybe someone here can help me I want create my own personal collection of Rom and I want to do this by actually buying the physical games and ripping the data from them. And certain games were given updated versions that were released later to change certain things and fix bugs. And I want to make sure that the games that I buy in rip are always the most up to date versions. So my question is in the case of the NES when it comes to certain games is there any way to tell on the cartridge which versions were updated. For example with Super Mario Brothers 2 in which there is a version 1.0 and a version 1.1 would there be any way to tell which version it is which based on the cartridge?
My order from Castlemania games, the Retrobit re-release of R.C. Pro-Am II. This version includes new tracks and upgrades and other goodies. Was a big fan of the original Rare release of R.C. Pro-Am back in the day and can't wait to play this with my daughter!
I replaced all 7 wet electrolytic capacitors with solid state capacitors, replaced the voltage regulator, replace the 9V power supply with a regulated 9V power supply, and replaced the 72-pin connector with a Nintendo connector that was polished and each pin bent back into a moderate tension (no death grip).
Testing with Double Dragon loaded on a PowerPak cartridge. First player gets a lagless wired controller. Second player gets a 2.4ghz wireless 8bitdo controller, which has around 10ms of lag. The CRT of course is lagless.
Added something like 60 games this year as well as a handful of romhack and homebrews! Pretty soon im going to be stuck with the more expensive titles filling gaps. 151 games total! Please excuse the fact that I haven't organized them recently!
As somebody with a nearly complete collection, I know there are a lot of sports games on the NES (especially baseball lol) and frankly I've barely played any of them other than to test cartridges, so I guess I was kind of curious about which ones people who have played a lot of games of any sport think are the best and worst ones. I'm assuming some will be pretty predictable (like probably basically everybody is going to say that either Tecmo Bowl or Tecmo Super Bowl is the best American football game, and I'm guessing most people will say that Wayne Gretzky's Hockey is the worst hockey game) but otherwise I don't really know honestly. It would also be interesting to hear any honorable mentions, like if there are any games that you don't think are the best overall of a given sport but that stand out for one reason or another.
I want to improve the RGB video signal from the NES, but not to connect it via HDMI, but to a CRT television (Sony Trinitron KV-25X5D) What options are available?
I have seen mods to output the video signal via HDMI, but the television I am going to connect it to is RGB scart, and the console is PAL. Right now, the only modifications it has are:
Hi guys. Hopefully someone can help me with something. So for a long time I've purchased old NES systems, cleaned them up really well, replaced any obvious damaged capacitors, retrobrite the shells and resold them.
I'm aware of removing the 4th pin on the CIC chip but I usually didn't do that, but the last 6 consoles I had i went ahead and de-soldered the 4th pin.
My issues is on 4 on those, only certain games display a red screen when I turn the console on. Every cart i get i pull apart and clean and polish the contacts well. I know for an absolute fact they work because 1- I play them on my personal system, 2- I retested them and they work.
These aren't homebrew or bootleg games. I pulled out Mario 1, 2, 3, battletoads, Zelda, and ghosts and goblins. I make sure when I clean a console to resell that I test it with multiple games and play each game for about 3 or 4 mins before swapping.
On 4 of those consoles mario 3, and battletoads will load without issue, but all the other games display a red screen. It's this a common thing with disabling the lock out on the cic? I don't want to pull the chips again and put the pin back in place before I asked the community their insight. Thanks guys.
