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The earliest games released on the Famicom suffered from significant hardware constraints due to the way the Famicom was designed: limited memory addressing (which meant games had a small maximum ROM size), how the graphics were loaded onscreen, just the native sound processing was available, no saving... To solve this problem, Nintendo came up with two solutions:
* The '''Family Computer Disk System''' (FDS). A Japan-only [[#PeripheralsHardware features and accessories|add-on]] that played games from a semi-custom variant of Mitsumi's Quick Disk format. It offered slightly higher data storage and slightly enhanced sound processing. It also had a microphone never found anywhere else. There were plans to release it in the US; however, since the NES had its launch delayed to late 1985, and the mapper solution obsoleted it, the [[#PeripheralsHardware features and accessories|add-on]] was never exported, and some of its exclusives were ported as regular cartridge releases.
* '''Memory Management Controllers''' (MMC), also known colloquially as '''[[#Mappers|mappers]]'''. They solved every aforementioned problem with bank switching for much more data, onboard FM audio chips, and much more. Most games released after 1986 that really pushed the system to its limits used mappers. A similar solution was used for the Game Boy.
! scope="col"|[[#Hardware_variants|Hardware<br/>Variants]]
! scope="col"|[[#Enhancements|Enhancements]]
! scope="col"|[[#PeripheralsHardware features and accessories|PeripheralsHardware features<br/>and accessories]]
! scope="col"|[[#Mappers|<small>Mappers Support<br/>Level</small>]]
! scope="col"|[[Emulation Accuracy|Accuracy]]
===Comparisons===
*[[Mesen|Mesen]] is a [[Emulation_accuracy|cycle-accurate]] NES emulator. Also, it is very user-friendly and supports lots of [[#Enhancements|enhancements]], [[#PeripheralsHardware features and accessories|peripheralshardware features and accessories]], [[#Hardware_variants|variants]] and [[#Mappers|mappers]] that other emulators are missing. It also supports [[GoodTools|goodmerged]]. Latest versions require [https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet .NET 6]. This is the most compatible NES emulator of the cycle-accurate variety.
*[[puNES]] is another [[Emulation_accuracy|cycle-accurate]] NES/FDS emulator. It is deemed as the second most compatible NES emulator of the cycle-accurate variety.
|-
| rowspan=4 | Misc
| [[Netplay#NES|<abbr title="Should not be confused with Famicom Modem emulation, see #Peripherals Hardware features and accessories section for more information.">Netplay</abbr>]]
| {{Y}}[https://www.mesen.ca/docs/tools.html#netplay *]
| {{Y}}
<references group=N2/>
==PeripheralsHardware features and accessories=={|class=wikitable style=text-align:center!Name!Mesen!Emulator 2!Emulator 3!Emulator 4!Emulator 5|-|Zapper Lightgun|{{✓}}|{{✓}}|{{✓}}|{{✓}}|{{✓}}|-|Power Pad A B Sides|{{✓}}|||||-|Family Trainer A B Sides|{{✓}}|||||-|Arkanoid Paddle|{{✓}}|||||-|SNES Controller|{{✓}}|||||-|SNES Mouse|{{✓}}|||||-|Virtual Boy Controller|{{✓}}|||||-|P2 Controller Microphone button|{{✓}}|{{✓}}|{{✓}}|||-|Microphone||||||-|Hypershot Lightgun|{{✓}}|||||-|Hypershot Pad|{{✓}}|||||-|Turbo File|{{✓}}|||||-|Battle Box|{{✓}}|||||-|Barcode Battler||||||-|Exciting Boxing|{{✓}}|||||-|Top Rider||||||-|Multitap|{{✓}}|||||-|Game Genie||||||-|Action Replay||||||-|Trackball|{{✓}}|||||-|Pachinko|{{✓}}|||||-|Partytap|{{✓}}|{{✓}}||||-|Oeka Kids Tablet|{{✓}}|||||-|Disk System|{{✓}}|{{✓}}|{{✓}}|{{✓}}|{{✓}}|-|Datach Card|{{✓}}|{{✓}}||||-|Family BASIC|{{✓}}|{{✓}}|{{✓}}|||-|Data Recorder|{{✓}}|{{✓}}||||-|3D Glasses||||||-|Miracle Piano||||||-|Network System|{{✓}}|{{✓}}||||-|Copy, Cut & Paste for Family BASIC||||||-|Cartridge Hot Swapping for new NES and old and new FC (an example: [https://bilibili.com/BV1AT411k7t3?p=1 Super Mario Bros. + Tennis])|higan support it, so ares may also support|||||-|Cartridge Titling for new NES and old and new FC||||||}
There were many accessories released for the Famicom and NES but Emulation in General only covers accessories that are truly differentiated data streams from the basic controller. For example, the Power Glove is, in actuality, just a really complicated NES controller designed to convert motion into D-PAD, SELECT, START, A, and B button commands. The same goes for R.O.B. and his ''Stack-up'' and ''Gyromite'' games because he was really just the second player. Strangely, the Famicom has a lot more peripheral hardware to emulate than the NES.<ref>[[Wikipedia:List of Nintendo Entertainment System accessories|List of Nintendo Entertainment System accessories]]</ref><ref>[https://problemkaputt.de/everynes.htm#controllers ProblemKaputt: NES controllers]</ref>
