NES Sound Format

Description

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
• NES Music Format Spec (.txt file)
• Wikipedia - NES Sound Format

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

• 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.
• NSFplug is a plugin for Winamp 2.x, Winamp 5.x and kbMediaPlayer 2.28 (japanese) or later. Both binary and source are available.

Conversion Software

NSF2WAV converts NSF files to WAV. Both binary and source are available.