Table of contents
Having problems? Read this before asking. Or expect to be pointed to this when you ask.
See also the issue tracker or the Platform-Specific documentation page relevant to your needs.
More info: https://github.com/TASEmulators/BizHawk#usage

Introduction

I am getting this error: "To run this application, you first must install one of the following versions of the .NET framework: v4.0.30319"

You computer did not have .NET Framework 4 installed on it and BizHawk requires this framework. The Prereqs installer provided will fix this. You can also get this from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17851 Microsoft

Games are running way too fast even with Config -> Speed/Skip -> Limit Framerate On

Your computer hardware may not be accurately reporting time. See this article to see if this is your issue. Adding /usepmtimer to your boot.ini may fix this. Refer this on how to add multiple boot configs (do this temporarily in case this line causes a boot failure)

What does BizHawk mean?

BizHawk is Hawk Biz.

Crashes And Such

Out of memory errors while recording movies

Use config > customize > Store movie working data on disk instead of RAM - This will eliminate most of the possible out of memory errors by simply not using RAM. This option has been well-validated.
-or-
Use config > customize > Store movie working data in extended > 1GB Ram - This option is useful on 64bit systems with >=8GB of RAM - `AWE` is employed to access more memory than normal in a 32bit process. As mentioned, this has not yet been well validated and may require admin permissions.

Memory Manipulation

I'm trying to cheat/poke/freeze a memory address, but it keeps changing

Bizhawk can only overwrite your address once per frame, so if the game changes it more frequently, you'll have to use memory write callbacks to track when the game does so, to overwrite it yourself right after that.
But since some callbacks happen before the event, and some happen after (depending on the core), you may have to change CPU registers instead, where the value initially comes from upon the memory write.
Note that not every Bizhawk core implements memory callbacks and register editing.

Running Games

I get the error "You are missing the needed firmware files to load this Rom"

This is due to not having the Firmware/BIOS file(s) in the Firmware folder.

Where can I find the Firmware files?

You need to dump them from the hardware. They are not legally download able due to being copyrighted.

How do I use N64 texture packs?

Here's a guide on the Ocarina of Time Randomizer Wiki.

Recording a Video

How do I make it stop splitting the video near 2GB?

How to prevent splitting on resolution changes?

The resizing filter is Nearest Neighbor.
Another option (allows to control resizing filter):

The recorded video has tiny resolution. How to fix that?

Do the same as right above, just set some real high resolution. In this case you won't need lossless video, so pick something lighter:

TAStudio

My TAStudio project got corrupted and doesn't load anymore. What do I do?

TAStudio projects are .zip files. Get latest 7zip, open your .tasproj with it, and remove the GreenZone file.
If it can't remove it, unzip the whole .tasproj to some folder (ignore the errors/warnings), remove the GreenZone file, compress everything back to .zip, and rename that to .tasproj.
If the .tasproj still has issues loading, you can create a new .tasproj using BizHawk, unzip it to a new folder, copy the previous Input Log.txt file over, and recompress that movie.

TAStudio forces an empty frame at the end of my inputs. How do I remove it?

It's not an extra frame, it's just a visual representation of when your last input will be sent to the game. See how TAStudio's first frame is 0? That is the point before anything has been emulated, it's just a way to send inputs to the game on its first frame of emulation, which is listed as frame 1 in TAStudio.
During old-school movie recording (without TAStudio) you hold down your inputs before the frame you need, and hit the Frame Advance hotkey, and that way those inputs are being recorded to your movie file. If you open that movie as an archive and then open Input Log.txt in a text editor, you won't see the 0th frame there when you started holding down your inputs, you'll only see the 1st frame when you've actually sent them to the game. Similarly if you open your .tasproj file the same way, the last "empty" frame won't be there. Because the last frame is when the game has received your last inputs.
Bizhawk/FAQ last edited by feos 25 days ago
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