NESVM for C64

The World's First NES Emulator for C64 — Powered by MPE

NESVM is the world's first NES emulator for the Commodore 64. It is made possible by MPE, firmware designed for the TeensyROM+ cartridge. The C64 provides the display, SID sound, keyboard, and joystick controls.

It is a new public MPE engine alongside DoomVM—putting NES emulation on a real C64 through the same downloadable VM platform.

NESVM in action

These current development captures put Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Dr. Mario first.

Four C64 display modes

NESVM supports Standard (F1), pan-and-scan (F3), MHS Prism (F5), and Sharp (F7) presentations. In pan-and-scan mode, hold WASD to move the camera across the centered native-pixel image. MHS Prism centers the native 256-pixel view with fast C64 color selection, while Sharp provides a centered hires view.

These are development captures, not a list of titles supported by the current public download.

What you need

NESVM requires a TeensyROM+ v0.4 with a Teensy 4.1 and MPE GUI firmware 1.2.6 or later. No extra PSRAM is required.

Compatibility and ROMs

The current public release supports compatible NTSC mapper 0 (NROM), 1 (MMC1B/C), 2 (UxROM), 3 (CNROM), 4 (MMC3), 7 (AxROM), and 11 (Color Dreams) NES ROMs within the current board and ROM-size limits. Mapper 1 and 4 games support up to 8 KiB of cartridge RAM with automatic saves. This is not a claim of full NES compatibility. The download includes the authorized Crossbow demo only; commercial games are not included. Add your own compatible ROMs to /VMS/NESVM/ROMS/.

TeensyROM hardware and its original firmware are the work of Travis Smith / Sensorium Embedded. MHS developed MPE, the MPE Cartridge VM format, the custom GUI, and NESVM integration. NESVM uses Matthew Conte's Nofrendo core via Jean-Marc Harvengt's MCUME, with notices and licence included in the download.

Download NESVM

Download NESVM and current MPE firmware from the project Downloads section. The NESVM guide covers installation, controls, display modes, and compatibility.