¶ Technical data
- Manufacturer: NEC (with Hudson Soft)
- Year of release: 1987
- CPU: Hudson HuC6280 (65C02-derived) @ 7.16 MHz
- RAM: 8 KB
- VRAM: 64 KB
- Video: HuC6270 (VDC) + HuC6260 (VCE)
- Resolution: 256x239 to 512x242, 512-color palette
- Sound chip: PSG built into the HuC6280, 6 channels
- Media: HuCard (credit-card sized cartridge)
- Controller: mandatory
¶ Presentation
The PC Engine is a home console launched by NEC and Hudson Soft in Japan in October 1987. Despite its 8-bit central processor, it packs a 16-bit graphics chipset that lets it display large numbers of colourful sprites and deliver arcade conversions that were remarkably faithful for the time. Its tiny footprint and its cartridge format — the HuCard, a card the size of a credit card — make it a machine unlike any other of the late 1980s.
In Japan the PC Engine quickly became the main rival of the Famicom and then of the Mega Drive, carried by legendary shoot'em ups and a very rich library. Outside Japan it was sold as the TurboGrafx-16 from 1989 in North America, in a far bulkier case and with very limited European distribution: it never achieved the same success there.
The machine spawned a whole family of hardware: the CD-ROM² add-on in 1988, the first consumer CD add-on for a game console, the SuperGrafx in 1989, the handheld PC Engine GT, and the all-in-one PC Engine Duo. On Recalbox each of these variants is its own system: CD games are launched from PC Engine CD and SuperGrafx games from SuperGrafx.
Roms are not interchangeable between these three systems: a PC Engine HuCard does not belong in the
supergrafxfolder, and a SuperGrafx game (.sgx) will not run correctly if it is stored inpcengine.
¶ Emulators
Emulator availability per board:
| Emulator | RPI3/RPI02W | RPI4/400 | RPI5/500 | OGA/OGS/RG351 | PC | RG353 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Libretro Mednafen_SuperGrafx | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Libretro Mednafen_PCE_Fast | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Libretro FBNeo | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Libretro Geargrafx | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
The PC Engine is available on every board supported by Recalbox.
Mednafen_SuperGrafx is the default emulator: it is the most versatile of the four, its compatibility is excellent and it supports netplay as well as CRT video modes. Mednafen_PCE_Fast is a lighter alternative, also netplay-capable, but without CRT support. Geargrafx is a recent core that adds softpatching (an .ips or .bps patch placed next to the rom is applied automatically) and CRT support. FBNeo only covers the handful of PC Engine titles included in its romsets and expects unrenamed .zip files.
RetroAchievements are supported on this system. A controller is required to play: if you are looking for one, the 8BitDo Pro 3 is recognised automatically by Recalbox.
¶ BIOS
| File name | Description | MD5 | Emulators |
|---|---|---|---|
gexpress.pce |
Game Express card (optional — unlicensed games) | 6d2cb14fc3e1f65ceb135633d1694122 | Mednafen_SuperGrafx, Mednafen_PCE_Fast |
No BIOS is needed to play regular HuCards. If you want to run Game Express games, place the file like this:
/recalbox/share/bios/pcengine/
└── gexpress.pce
¶ Roms
Put your games in:
/recalbox/share/roms/pcengine/
Supported extensions per emulator:
| Emulator | Extensions |
|---|---|
| Mednafen_SuperGrafx | .pce .m3u .zip .7z |
| Mednafen_PCE_Fast | .pce .m3u .zip .7z |
| FBNeo | .zip .7z |
| Geargrafx | .pce .zip .7z |
Roms in No-Intro format are strongly recommended. North American games (TurboGrafx-16) use the same
.pceextension and run without any special setting.