SNES Games on iPad: Learning How to Play in 4 Super-Easy Steps

12 Jul 2010 | Advice |

iPad Tips

Yes, your iPad can be used to run 3D games and various classy mobile applications. Still, if you miss the good old times when computer games were simple yet cool, you can simply use an emulator and enjoy the classics.

What you will need is the following:

  • Your iPad (rather expectable, huh?)
  • Wiimote
  • Sync Cable for iPod/iPad/iPhone
  • A Computer with Mac, Linux or Windows OS

1) Jailbreak the iPad!

Unsurprisingly, you will need to get your iPad jailbroken first. You can do that with the help of Spirit Jailbreak software, which runs on Windows, Mac and Linux OS computers, is intended for iOS 3.2 iPad and is incredibly easy to use.

However, don’t forget to take all the necessary precautionary measures first as things can go terribly wrong (that happens very rarely though) bringing about cases when you will really need everything synced and backed up in advance. Your iPad can even be damaged beyond repair but this kind of issues is observed even less frequently.

Done with the backup? Now quit iTunes and then launch Spirit Jailbreak. The info in the program’s window will let you know if an iPad is connected to your computer or not. If the iPad is there and the Spirit is running well, simply hit the Jailbreak button. When the process is over, the button may be replaced with the Close one. However, hitting it may launch the jailbreak process over again. Thus, feel free to quit the program at that point.

When the mission is accomplished, you will have your iPad jailbroken and ready for action. Cydia will be installed to it (must appear on your home screen somewhere). You see, nothing too difficult here.

 

2) Download snes4iphone to your iPad

See the Cydia thumbnail on your home screen? Launch the software, wait until everything is loaded and then click “Cydia Store: Products”. A list of popular apps will appear on the screen. They require paying but, fortunately, snes4iphone is not that much of an expensive one: it will cost you $6 only. Purchase this app with the help of your Amazon or PayPal account  once snes4iphone is on your iPad, you can start loading up the games that you want to play.

3) Install game ROMs

There are two different methods that you can use when loading emulator games to your iPad. Here they are:

a) SSH into your iPad and then simply copy the game ROMs over. The directory in which the ROMs are stored is the following:

/var/mobile/media/ROMs/

If you have launched snes4iphone already, a new folder called SNES will be created inside the above directory. By the way, this directory can also contain the ROM folders of other emulators in case you have any installed.

b) Go to Browse section of snes4iphone, then click Search and start browsing for ROMs online. You can also upload your ROMs to some site on the Net and simply copy the link into the snes4iphone bar.

4) Sync Your Wiimote

This might be the easiest part of the whole process. Simply open the Options panel in your snes4iphone and scroll down to the last option under the title Wiimote Support. Turn it on and then restart snes4iphone. When the program is loaded, it will start searching for the controller. When it does, get your Wiimote and hold down 1 and 2 buttons  both at once. It won’t take snes4iphone long to find the controller when it is finished, you will be able to get down to playing at last!

If something goes wrong, try going to your iPad’s setting and deactivating Bluetooth there. Yeah, we know, this sounds strange but that’s the way things are: there is a possibility that the iPad’s Bluetooth is interfering with the snes4iphone’s method to connect to various devices the one called btstack.

 

P.S. The method described above is far not the only one that you can resort to when you want to play those SNES games on your iPad. There is a bunch of other-supporting emulators available from Cydia (such as NES, N64 and others)  feel free to download any of them. By the way, Wiimote is not the only controller that you can use  iPhone or iPod touch will also do as long as they are jailbroken. They can be used with the help of SNES HD (read more about the software and how to download it with Cydia). Spirit can be used in the process of jailbreaking iPods and iPhones too but it doesn’t work with all models, so check out the compatibility info before using it.

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