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PC-FX

Overview

The PC-FX application is an emulator for the PC-FX game console.

Adding Games (Feed Editor)

Due to large Disc image sizes, adding PC-FX-based games in the Feed Editor must be done manually (versus using auto-detection).

Important

The PC-FX application only supports the .CHD disc file format (.ISO, .BIN, and .CUE are not supported).

See the Disc and Archive-based Items section for the list of steps required to add a PC-FX game in the Feed Editor.

Important

Both the iOS Safari and Xbox Series X|S Edge browsers limit the amount of memory that can be consumed by a particular web application (such as webЯcade).

The current limit is around 450 megabytes. Therefore, loading larger disc sizes may fail.

To increase the likelihood of a game with a larger disc size loading, you can optionally choose to launch the game using a standalone-based link (versus launching the game within the webЯcade player or editor). See the Standalone section of this documentation for further information (On Xbox, you would most likely want to bookmark the direct link. On iOS, you would most likely want to add the game to the home screen).

BIOS File

In addition to PC-FX Disc images, the following BIOS file must be specified globally within the feed (See the Feed Properties Dialog and PC-FX Feed Properties sections).

File Hash (MD5)
pcfx.rom 08e36edbea28a017f79f8d4f7ff9b6d7

Controls

The emulator supports up to two 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
II
III
IV
V
VI
Run
Select The Right Shift Key.
Show Pause Screen

Gamepad

Gamepad support is available for both controllers.

Name
Gamepad
 Comments
Move  or 
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
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.

Internal and External Backup Memory

The PC-FX application supports persisting internal and external backup memory to the browser's local storage or optionally to cloud-based storage. The memory will be persisted to storage whenever the pause screen is displayed (or the game is exited). Therefore, the menu should be displayed periodically to ensure the state is properly persisted.

Feed

This section details how PC-FX application instances can be added to feeds.

Type

The type name for the PC-FX application is beetle-pcfx.

Note

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

Feed Properties

The table below contains global PC-FX feed properties. These properties must be specified in the props object of the feed's Feed Object.

Property Type Required Details
pcfx_bios URL Yes

URL to a valid PC-FX BIOS file.

See the BIOS File section for additional information.

Item Properties

The table below contains the properties that are specific to the PC-FX application. These properties are specified in the props object of a feed item.

Property Type Required Details
uid String Yes

A unique identifier for the particular game (must be unique across all PC-FX games).

This identifier is primarily used to associate persistent state with the game.
discs Array of URLs Yes

Array of URLs to one or more (for multi-disc games) PC-FX game discs.

The PC-FX application only supports the .CHD disc file format (.ISO, .BIN, and .CUE are not supported).
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 PC-FX games.

Example

The following is an example of a complete feed that consists of a single PC-FX application instance (type value of pcfx). The discs property value contains a URL that points to a PC-FX game disc image. The uid property value contains a unique identifier for this specific game (must be unique across all PC-FX games).

It is also worth noting that the PC-FX BIOS location (pcfx_bios) is specified globally within the Feed Object's props object.

{
  "title": "PC-FX",
  "props": {
    "pcfx_bios": "https://<host>/pcfx.rom"
  },
  "categories": [
    {
      "title": "PC-FX Games",
      "items": [
        {
          "title": "Some Game",
          "type": "pcfx",
          "props": {
            "uid": "38395a25-dc21-41ff-8ef7-bb1261933423",
            "discs": [
                "https://<host>/somegame.chd"
            ]
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

References

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