Saurabh Yadav

Full-Stack & Systems Developer

Project Detail

NES Emulator in C++

Building an NES emulator from scratch - 6502 CPU emulation, memory bus architecture, address/data flow. Currently implementing core CPU and memory systems.

Shipped 2026

C++

systems

Technical Summary

StackC++
Platformdesktop
RoleDeveloper
TechnologiesC++
ContextPersonal Project
Team Size1

Key Responsibilities

  • Studying NES hardware architecture
  • Implementing 6502 CPU in C++
  • Building memory bus system
  • Planning PPU and APU components

Project Insights

Learning hardware architecture, CPU instruction sets, memory mapping, and emulation techniques from first principles

Technical Concepts

  • 6502 CPU instruction set and register architecture
  • Memory bus with address and data lines
  • NES memory map with ROM, RAM, and I/O regions
  • Clock cycle accuracy and timing

Architecture & Features

  • CPU opcode decoding and execution
  • Memory read/write through bus interface
  • Addressing modes (immediate, zero page, absolute, indexed)
  • Instruction pipelining and cycle counting

Key Learnings

  • Emulation requires deep understanding of hardware architecture
  • Cycle-accurate emulation is complex but necessary for authenticity
  • Building from scratch teaches system design fundamentals

Project Links

No external links available.