Mapper

From NESdev Wiki
Revision as of 17:59, 4 October 2012 by Tepples (talk | contribs) (→‎iNES 1.0 mapper grid: Color Dreams, Nichibutsu, Racermate, and now 96 of 256 (37%) are done)
Jump to navigationJump to search

A mapper is a piece of hardware soldered to a cartridge's printed circuit board that performs address decoding, bank switching, and possibly other tasks. Some mappers can generate interrupts for timing; some Famicom games' mappers even have extra audio channels.

NES cartridges can include extra hardware which allows the use of large program and graphics ROMs and extra features. This extra hardware is usually referred to as a "mapper", as it is used primarily to map the relatively small CPU and PPU address spaces to a portion of the larger address space of the ROM(s) on the cartridge.

Mappers vary in how they translate addresses. The various CPU memory mapping schemes expand the maximum program size above the standard 32 KiB to larger powers of 2, while PPU memory mapping schemes can add new graphic features.

Most mappers fall into one of two categories: discrete logic, and ASIC based. Some discrete logic mappers are susceptible to bus conflicts. Nintendo uses the term Memory Management Controller (or MMC for short) for its ASIC mappers ("Why Game Paks Never Forget" article in Nintendo Power).

Discrete logic mappers are often referred to by the name of a board that they are commonly used in (e.g. "UNROM"). ASIC mappers are named after the ASIC (e.g. "MMC1" or "FME-7"), except in boards that use an ASIC in an unusual way (such as "TQROM", "TLSROM", or "NES-EVENT"). The emulation community generally refers to mappers by a numbering scheme that originated with the iNES emulator (e.g. "mapper 002").

iNES 1.0 mapper grid

Mfr icon Nintendo.png 000 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 001 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 002 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 003 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 004 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 005 Mfr icon pirate.png 006 Mfr icon Rare.png 007 Mfr icon pirate.png 008 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 009 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 010 Mfr icon Color Dreams.png 011 012 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 013 Mfr icon pirate.png 014 Mfr icon pirate.png 015
Mfr icon Bandai.png 016 Mfr icon pirate.png 017 Mfr icon Jaleco.png 018 Mfr icon Namco.png 019 020 Mfr icon Konami.png 021 Mfr icon Konami.png 022 Mfr icon Konami.png 023 Mfr icon Konami.png 024 Mfr icon Konami.png 025 Mfr icon Konami.png 026 027 028 029 030 031
Mfr icon Irem.png 032 Mfr icon Taito.png 033 Mfr icon Irem AVE.png 034 035 036 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 037 038 039 040 041 042 043 Mfr icon pirate.png 044 Mfr icon pirate.png 045 046 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 047
Mfr icon Taito.png 048 Mfr icon pirate.png 049 Mfr icon pirate.png 050 Mfr icon pirate.png 051 052 053 054 055 056 Mfr icon pirate.png 057 058 059 Mfr icon pirate.png 060 Mfr icon pirate.png 061 Mfr icon pirate.png 062 063
064 Mfr icon Irem.png 065 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 066 Mfr icon Sunsoft.png 067 Mfr icon Sunsoft.png 068 Mfr icon Sunsoft.png 069 Mfr icon Bandai.png 070 Mfr icon Codemasters.png 071 Mfr icon Jaleco.png 072 Mfr icon Konami.png 073 074 Mfr icon Konami.png 075 Mfr icon Namco.png 076 Mfr icon Irem.png 077 Mfr icon Irem.png 078 Mfr icon AVE.png 079
Mfr icon Taito.png 080 081 Mfr icon Taito.png 082 083 Mfr icon pirate.png 084 Mfr icon Konami.png 085 Mfr icon Jaleco.png 086 Mfr icon Jaleco.png 087 Mfr icon Namco.png 088 Mfr icon Sunsoft.png 089 Mfr icon pirate.png 090 Mfr icon pirate.png 091 Mfr icon Jaleco.png 092 Mfr icon Sunsoft.png 093 Mfr icon Capcom.png 094 Mfr icon Namco.png 095
Mfr icon Bandai.png 096 Mfr icon Irem.png 097 098 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 099 Mfr icon pirate.png 100 101 102 103 104 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 105 106 107 108 109 110 111
112 Mfr icon AVE.png 113 114 115 116 117 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 118 Mfr icon Rare.png 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127
128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 Mfr icon Jaleco.png 140 141 142 143
144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 Mfr icon Bandai.png 153 Mfr icon Namco.png 154 155 156 157 158 Mfr icon Bandai.png 159
160 161 162 163 164 Mfr icon pirate.png 165 166 167 Mfr icon Racermate.png 168 169 Mfr icon Bandai.png 170 171 172 173 Mfr icon pirate.png 174 175
176 177 178 179 Mfr icon Nichibutsu.png 180 181 182 Mfr icon pirate.png 183 Mfr icon Sunsoft.png 184 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 185 186 187 188 189 190 191
192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 Mfr icon pirate.png 200 Mfr icon pirate.png 201 202 Mfr icon pirate.png 203 204 205 Mfr icon Namco.png 206 Mfr icon Taito.png 207
208 Mfr icon pirate.png 209 Mfr icon Namco.png 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223
224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 Mfr icon Codemasters.png 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239
240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255

See also

External links