The real SNES has two ports to connect input devices. Usually 1P and 2P SNES joypads are connected but various devices and adopters can be plugged.
| Multi Player 5 | known as Multi Tap; a five player adapter, allowing up to five people to play at once on games that supported it. |
| SNES Mouse | a 2-button mouse, originally supplied with a paint program. |
| Super Scope | a light-gun; it used infrared to provide wireless communication between the gun and the console unit. |
| Justifier | a gun similar to Super Scope, supported with one gun-shooting game. |
Snes9x can emulate those input devices with the keyboard, mouse, and gamepad of your Mac.
Choose 'Configure Keyboard...' in 'Config' menu. Drag and drop each icon onto the key which you want to assign. Blue icons are for 1P joypad, orange icons are for 2P joypad, and green icons are for other input devices and additional functions. To restore to the default key mapping, press 'Default' button.
Choose 'Configure Controllers...' in 'Config' menu. Click the button in the dialog, and within 2.5 seconds press your gamepad or mouse (or keyboard) button that you want to assign. To remove the assignment, click the button and do nothing for 2.5 seconds. To clear all the settings, click 'Clear All' button. Additionally, you can switch controller settings quickly by selecting a preset by 'Controllers Preset' in 'Config' menu.
The 'Automatic Fire...' dialog in the 'Config' menu provides five configuration options for emulating autofire controllers:
| Enable Automatic Fire | If this option is enabled for a given controller button, holding down that button will produce a rapid-fire effect (barring the use of the 'Automatic Fire is Active Only While TC is Pressed' option - see below). |
| Allow Alt to Toggle Enable/Disable Automatic Fire | If this option is enabled for a given controller button, pressing Snes9x's Alt key in conjunction with that controller button in-game will toggle that button's 'Enable Automatic Fire' setting. |
| Automatic Fire is Active Only While TC is Pressed | If this option is enabled for a given controller button, you must hold down Snes9x's TC key in conjunction with that controller button in-game to produce a rapid-fire effect, provided that 'Enable Automatic Fire' is toggled on for that controller button. If TC is not depressed, that controller button will function as normal. Note that when 'Enable Automatic Fire' is toggled off for a controller button, its 'Automatic Fire is Active Only While TC is Pressed' setting has no effect. |
| Button Input is Inverted | If this option is enabled for a given controller button, Snes9x behaves as though you are pushing that controller button if and only if you are not pushing it. This option is most often used in conjunction with 'Enable Automatic Fire', producing a rapidly-firing controller button without any player intervention. |
| Automatic Fire Speed | This option controls the rate at which autofire controller buttons cycle their fire. |
Snes9x's Alt and TC buttons can be mapped to both keyboard keys and joypad buttons, in the 'Configure Keyboard...' and 'Configure Controllers...' dialogs respectively.
Select the device in 'Input Device' in 'Emulation' menu at any time.
Devices that Snes9x supports are: SNES Mouse, Super Scope and Justifier using the mouse, SNES joypads, and Multi Player 5.
Assign your Mac's mouse (or gamepad) buttons to SNES Mouse buttons in 'Configure Controllers' dialog. To move SNES Mouse cursor, move your Mac's mouse.
Assign your Mac's gamepad buttons or keyboard to Super Scope turbo/cursor/pause buttons in 'Configure Controllers' or 'Configure Keyboard' dialog. Note that the turbo button acts as a toggle button. To move the gunsight, move your mouse. Use SNES Mouse left button to fire.
Similar to Super Scope. Assign your Mac's gamepad buttons or keyboard to 'offscreen' button in 'Configure Controllers' or 'Configure Keyboard' dialog. To shoot offscreen, shoot anywhere while pressing the 'offscreen' button.
Configure 3rd, 4th, 5th players in 'Configure Controllers' dialog. Note that 3rd, 4th, 5th players need gamepads.
You can remap the buttons for the functions listed below by 'Configure Keyboard' dialog. The default mapping is:
| ESC | pauses the game and exits from the emulation loop. |
| 1 | saves a freeze file. |
| 0 | loads a freeze file, restoring a game to an exact position. |
| ` | takes a screenshot. |
| R | dumps SPC file. |
| \ | turbo mode (fast forward) - for skipping long intros. |
| Q | decreases turbo mode speed. |
| W | increases turbo mode speed. |
| , | Snes9x's TC key - used for some options in the 'Automatic Fire...' dialog. |
| . | Snes9x's Alt key - used for some options in the 'Automatic Fire...' dialog. |
| / | Snes9x's Fn key - press this button with the keys below. |
These functions below work with 'Fn' button:
| F1-F4 | toggles background 1-4 on/off. |
| F5 | toggles sprites on/off. |
| F6 | swaps 1P and 2P controllers. |
| 1-8 | toggles sound channel on/off. |
| 9 | enables all sound channels. |
| 0 | toggles displaying pressed buttons. |
| - | toggles displaying frame counts in movies. |
| Q | increases emulated frame time - slowing down the game. |
| W | decreases emulated frame time - speeding up the game. |