Skip to content

PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16)

Overview

The PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16) application is an emulator for the PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16 game consoles.

Nantettatte Engine by Andrew Darovich and Paul Weller

Controls

The emulator supports up to four controllers. The keyboard and gamepad mappings are listed in the tables below.

Keyboard

Keyboard support is only available for controller one.

Name
Keys
Comments
Move
I or A Key only available in 2-button mode.
II or S Key only available in 2-button mode.
III Only in 6-button mode.
IV Only in 6-button mode.
V Only in 6-button mode.
VI Only in 6-button mode.
Run
Select The Right Shift Key.
Show Pause Screen

Gamepad

Gamepad support is available for both controllers.

Name
Gamepad
Comments
Move  or 
I or X Button only available in 2-button mode.
II or Y Button only available in 2-button mode.
III Only in 6-button mode.
IV Only in 6-button mode.
V Only in 6-button mode.
VI Only in 6-button mode.
Run Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate)

Press the Menu (Start) Button.
Run
(Alternate)
 and  Hold down the Right Trigger and click (press down) on the Right Thumbstick.
Select Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate)

Press the View (Back) Button.
Select
(Alternate)
 and  Hold down the Right Trigger and click (press down) on the Left Thumbstick.
Show Pause Screen  and  Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate 3 or 4)

Hold down the Left Trigger and press the Menu (Start) Button.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate)
 and  Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate 3 or 4)

Hold down the Left Trigger and press the View (Back) Button.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate 2)
 and  Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate 3 or 4)

Hold down the X Button and press the View (Back) Button.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate 3)
 and  Hold down the Left Trigger and click (press down) on the Left Thumbstick.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate 4)
 and  Hold down the Left Trigger and click (press down) on the Right Thumbstick.

Battery-backed SRAM

Some PC Engine cartridges include battery-backed SRAM as a means of preserving state between sessions. The PC Engine application supports persisting this SRAM state into the browser's local storage or optionally to cloud-based storage. The SRAM contents will be persisted to storage whenever the pause screen is displayed (or the game is exited). Therefore, the menu should be displayed periodically for games that support battery-backed SRAM to ensure the state is properly persisted.

Feed

This section details how PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16) application instances can be added to feeds.

Type

The type name for the PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16) application is mednafen-pce.

Note

The alias pce also currently maps to this application. In the future, the pce alias may be mapped to another PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16) application (different emulator implementation) if it is determined to be a more appropriate default.

Properties

The table below contains the properties that are specific to the PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16) application. These properties are specified in the props object of a feed item.

Property Type Required Details
rom URL Yes URL to a PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16) ROM file or a zip file containing a ROM file.
pad6button Boolean No Whether to use 6-button control pads (2 button is the default).
mapRunSelect Boolean No Whether to map RUN and SELECT to standard buttons.
zoomLevel Numeric No A numeric value indicating how much the display image should be zoomed in (0-40).

This property is typically used to hide the black borders that are present on some games.

Example

The following is an example of a complete feed that consists of a single PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16) application instance (type value of pce). The rom property value is a URL that points to a Dropbox location that contains the excellent homebrew game Nantettatte Engine by Andrew Darovich and Paul Weller.

{
  "title": "PC Engine Feed",
  "longTitle": "PC Engine Example Feed",
  "categories": [
    {
      "title": "PC Engine Games",
      "items": [
        {
          "title": "Nantettatte Engine",
          "type": "pce",
          "props": {
            "rom": "https://www.dropbox.com/s/7e37b7wxdyvx7vj/Nantettatte_Engine.zip?dl=0"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

This example can be tested by adding a feed with the following URL within the webЯcade player:

https://tinyurl.com/sample-pce-feed

References

Back to top