NES Sound Format

File Format
Name	NES Sound Format
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Audio and Music NES Sound Format
Extension(s)	.nsf

NES Sound Format (NSF) is an audio file format invented by Kevin Horton, to provide a way to transfer Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) music data. NSF files consist of the original music / sound code from a NES game and some header data.

While the original intention was to allow storage, transfer and playback of music / sounds ripped from NES games, the format has become popular with composers of chiptunes and many original compositions are now available.

Files

Examples of NSF files can be found at:

• Akumu's NSF Archive
• Famicompo Mini
• NES Music Archive
• Zophar's Domain - Nintendo NSF Music

Information

Information on the NSF format can be found at:

• 2A03 - The NES Music Archive
• NesDev wiki - NSF
• NES Music Format Spec (.txt file)
• Wikipedia - NES Sound Format
• NesDev forum discussion about the NSF 2.0 featureset

Other information that might be of use:

• NES APU Sound Hardware Reference
• NesDev
• NesDev NES Music forum

Playback - Hardware

There have been a number of projects developing hardware NSF players

• CopyNES NSF Cart
• HardNES
• NES PowerPak
• TNS-HFC (japanese)

Playback - Software

There are a number of options for playing back NSF files, including both standalone players and plugins for popular media players such as Winamp.

Plugins

• Festalon is an open-source xmms and Winamp plugin, as well as a standalone command-line NSF player.
• Game Emu Player is a foobar2000 plugin supporting multiple formats, including NSF. Source is available here.
• NEZplug is a plugin for Winamp 2.x, kbMediaPlayer (japanese), Netscape and Internet Explorer 3.x - 5.x. Both binary and source are available, and the SVN can be browsed here.
• NEZplug++ (japanese) is a Winamp plugin.
• NotSo Fatso is a Winamp plugin. Both binary and source are available.
• NSFplug is a plugin for Winamp 2.x, Winamp 5.x and kbMediaPlayer 2.28 (japanese) or later. Both binary and source are available.
• NSFten is a plugin for Winamp 2.x

Standalone

DOS / Windows

• Bleep! plays NSF and GBS files. It also offers a Winamp plugin.
• BNSF (zip archive)
• DeliPlayer supports a huge number of formats, including NSF.
• G-NSF (japanese)
• NSFLive (zip file)
• NSFplay original version by Brezza.
• NSFPlay a fork of the original by Brad Smith.
• SlickNSF
• VirtuaNSF (japanese)

Cross-platform / Other

• Mesen-X - an accurate NES emulator, supports NSF, NSFE and EPSM in those.
• Audio Overload plays back damn near everything (including NSF) and is available for Linux, Mac and Windows.
• FlashNSF is, as the name suggests, an NSF player implemented in Flash. Also plays NSFE files.
• Modizer is a module player app for iOS which supports NSF.
• NoiseES is an iOS app supporting NSF, NSFE, GBS, VGM and SPC.
• Nosefart offers two Linux versions, a DOS version, an XMMS plugin, a Winamp plugin and a CL-amp plugin.
• tgxnsf is an NSF player for the PC-Engine / TurboGrafx 16. Binary and source available.

Composition Software

• FamiStudio
• FamiTracker
• Dn-Famitracker - Dn-Famitracker is a fork of 0CC-FamiTracker that incorporates numerous fixes and features.
• Furnace
• DefleMask
• Musetracker
• NerdTracker II
• NTRQ - a native NES tracker
• mck

Conversion Software

NSF to X

• nsf2midi NSF to MIDI.
• NSF2WAV NSF to WAV.

X to NSF

• IT2NSF IT to NSF.
• S3M2NSF info, download S3M to NSF.

Sample files

• dexvert samples — music/nsf