Information regarding the SF2000 handheld console
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SF2000

The SF2000 is a cheap hand-held emulation gaming console which was released in early 2023. Although the device itself is sold by a variety of vendors, it was the vendor "Data Frog" who caught public attention, and so the device is often simply referred to as "the Data Frog".

For a cheap device, it's actually fairly capable - most Game Boy, Game Boy Color, NES and Genesis/Mega Drive games play at full speed, and many arcade, Game Boy Advance and SNES titles do as well. The device has an IPS panel (not OCA laminated), and a user-replaceable "18650" battery, which can be charged via a USB-C port on the device. It also has analog A/V out (note: not HDMI), meaning it can be connected to a CRT TV - the type of display most arcade, Genesis/Mega Drive and SNES games were originally intended to be displayed on. It has a built-in 2.4GHz antenna, and can receive input from a compatible wireless controller (usually sold separately).

Some downsides to the device: it's mono only, there's no headphone jack (although there is a volume wheel), screen brightness cannot be altered (it's fairly bright), SNES and Game Boy Advance are hit-or-miss in terms of performance (some games are fine, many games run slowly), the stock firmware is closed-source so the device's performance may never get any better than as-shipped, and some folks have had issues with the buttons (they're quite cheap, and sit flush when pressed).

So is the "Data Frog" any good? Only you can answer that question for yourself. There are certainly more powerful devices out there, more fully featured devices, devices with better hardware, etc. - but almost all of those devices cost a lot more than the SF2000. At the end of the day, you have to look at the features offered at the given price-point, and only then can you decide if you're interested in the device or not.


Table of Contents


Hardware

CPU

Although the main CPU of the SF2000 has literally had it's markings milled off by a routing tool, the community has determined that it's a HCSEMI B210, a single-core MIPS processor running at 810 MHz. It appears to be a clone of an ALi Tech chip. No SDK is currently available for it, and the device is closed-source.

Display

The SF2000 features a 240x320 IPS display panel (not OCA laminated), which has been rotated 90° clockwise to give a 320x240 display. It demonstrates screen tearing for all emulators, running from the right of the console to the left due to the panel rotation.

Buttons

The ABXY are basically a clone of the original SNES controller buttons. Although everyone seems to be getting two purple and two lilac coloured buttons, there's a disparity to the type of buttons folks are getting - some get two convex and two concave buttons, others have gotten three concave and one convex, etc..

Both the buttons and the underlying membrane from an original SNES controller can be swapped into the SF2000, which may improve the "feel" of the buttons. Note that the SF2000 uses ABXY buttons that have two plastic tabs sticking out to keep them in the shell (at 180 degrees from each other); some after-market SNES-style buttons have three tabs, and won't fit the housing.

Some folks have modded the stock ABXY buttons on their SF2000s by adding a thin strip of tape or other thin material into the circular depression under each button - this causes the buttons to be raised a bit higher out of the shell, and to not sink as far into the shell when the button is pressed.

D-Pad

Just like the ABXY buttons, the d-pad is a clone of the SNES d-pad. An original SNES d-pad and membrane can be swapped into the SF2000 as well.

Thumb Stick

The SF2000 uses a Switch-style thumb stick that does not depress for L2/R2. It is compatible with Switch thumb stick third-party covers.

Battery

The SF2000 takes a 18650 type rechargeable battery, which is easily user replaceable (it's behind a battery door with a screw), and comes with a 1,500mAh one which runs for about 4 hours. 18650 batteries with and without "nubs" both fit fine. The console has built-in over-charge protection, but does not have under-charge protection, so for safety do not leave the console turned on when the battery is low. From when it displays a full-screen low battery indicator, it takes about 3.5 hours to charge the stock battery. The green charging light does not turn off when fully charged.

Wireless Connectivity

The SF2000 does not feature wifi or Bluetooth, but it does have a 2.4Ghz antenna to support local wireless multiplayer using a compatible 2.4Ghz wireless controller for Player 2. The Y2 SFC wireless controller and the SF900 wireless controller have both been reported to work fine.

A/V Output

The SF2000 features a mini-jack for analogue composite A/V output. The device is capable of output a user-selectable PAL or NTSC video signal. Only the left audio channel is output - the device does not down-mix to mono, which results in missing audio channels in games that expect to output stereo sound.

There's some limited evidence to suggest the A/V output is at 576i. When outputting a PAL signal, while the signal is indeed 50Hz, it seems like the emulators are still targeting 60Hz output - PAL scrolling is "jerky". Switching the device to output NTSC, scrolling becomes smooth. This holds true regardless of using a PAL or NTSC version of a ROM. Depending on your external display, video output over A/V may be somewhat heavily cropped on all screen edges - if so, this can result in UI elements at screen edges in games (health bars, remaining credits, etc.) being out-of-frame. Switching between PAL and NTSC doesn't alter the visible screen area. I've tested with a modern flat-panel Panasonic TV (cropped), a 1980s Commodore 1702 monitor (cropped), and with an el-cheapo USB 2.0 "EasyCap" video-capture USB stick (not cropped).

On my own unit, plugging in a charging cable while outputting over A/V introduces a lot of video noise in the A/V signal; so those planning to use the SF2000 as a TV console may need to do so while running on battery for the best experience.


Emulators

The device advertises support for arcade, NES, SNES, Genesis/Mega Drive, Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance; it also supports loading Master System ROMs. SNES and GBA performance are very hit-or miss (more miss than hit, really); the other consoles actually perform fairly well. All consoles currently stretch their output to fill the display, and do not maintain aspect ratio.

The SF2000 appears to be using Libretro with a custom front-end (i.e., not RetroArch).

Arcade

The device is running Final Burn Alpha v0.2.97.42 (Git commit 621e371). Thanks to some truly exceptional work by adcockm#8175 from the Retro Handhelds Discord, we know it supports an unusual mix of ROM sets, largely based on MAME 0.106 and Final Burn Alpha v0.2.97.42. adcockm#8175 has gone ahead and compiled two separate Clrmamepro dat files - one for all sets technically supported by the SF2000's current BIOS (as of May 2023; though note that "supported" does not mean working or playable), and one for all playable sets with duplicates removed (and note, "playable" may include games with missing sound, graphical glitches, performance issues, but are otherwise technically functional). If you want to build a working set (must be non-merged) from the dat files, adcockm#8175 has further provided a list of "hints" as the sets you'll need to track down - for obvious reasons neither I nor anyone else can provide links to such material, but hopefully the hints will get you something you can start searching for. Finally, there's also a HTML document with a list of all of the supported sets along with some useful metadata, such as the set's full name, playability information, screen orientation, etc.. The inrom column indicates if the ROM was included on the SF2000's stock microSD card; it's interesting to note that there were more ROMs located on the card than were defined in the mswb7.tax file (and thus available from the arcade game list); none of the unlisted games were actually playable on the SF2000, so it's possible someone from Data Frog actually tested the games to an extent, and removed ones from the available list that were broken.

adcockm#8175 also provided the following interesting statistics:

  • Number of arcade ROMs known by the SF2000's firmware: 1431
  • Number properly rotated: 1291
  • Number with vertical orientation: 134
  • Number with screen upside-down: 6
  • Number "playable" (maybe no sound, some slowness, minor graphics issues): 949
  • Number unplayably broken but technically running: 175
  • Number fully broken (load hang/crash, etc.): 307
  • Number of playable unique games (dupes filtered out) in proper rotation: 354
  • Number of playable unique games (dupes filtered out) with rotated display: 61
  • Number of different versions of Street Fighter 2: 60+ 😵‍💫 [Von Millhausen: I think this stat is only half a joke!]
  • Playable set total size: 3.10 GB (3,336,344,502 bytes)
  • Full set total size: 11.4 GB (12,245,306,389 bytes)

NES

Emulator is FCEUmm (Git commit 7cdfc7e). There are references in the firmware to different NES palettes, but there's no interface or configuration for the emulator itself to choose one. On the original firmware, the A and B buttons were swapped. See "Button Mappings/Key Bindings" section below.

SNES

Emulator is Snes9x 2005 v1.36 (Git commit b94a804). With the April 20th version of the firmware, SNES games often appear to run very slowly on first launch; but if you exit the game and load it again, it usually starts performing much better.

Genesis/Mega Drive

Emulator is PicoDrive 1.91 (Git commit cbc93b6). Works pretty well. This emulator is capable of loading Master System ROMs if placed in the user ROMs folder on the microSD card; Game Gear ROMs do not load. Some PAL-region games may run too fast; NTSC-region games seem to always run at the correct speed. On the original firmware, A was mapped to A, B was mapped to B, and RB was mapped to C for some reason. See "Button Mappings/Key Bindings" section below.

Game Boy

Emulator is TGB Dual v0.8.3 (Git commit 9be31d3). Uses a black and white colour palette, which currently cannot be changed. On the original firmware, the A and B buttons were swapped. See "Button Mappings/Key Bindings" section below.

Game Boy Color

Emulator is TGB Dual v0.8.3 (Git commit 9be31d3). On the original firmware, the A and B buttons were swapped. See "Button Mappings/Key Bindings" section below.

Game Boy Advance

Emulator is gpSP v0.91 (Git commit 261b2db). Performance is fairly poor. On the original firmware, A and B buttons are mapped correctly, but the GBA shoulder buttons are mapped to X and Y for some reason. See "Button Mappings/Key Bindings" section below.


Firmware/BIOS (bisrv.asd)

The firmware for the SF2000 is actually located on the microSD card, in a file called bisrv.asd located in the BIOS folder. This file is a monolithic binary blob, which contains the device's OS, the emulators, their settings... basically everything. Data Frog have issued some firmware updates for the device since launch; the updates have added new features (e.g., additional language support, favourites, history, etc.), but have also introduced bugs (e.g., some SNES games run very slowly until they are quit and launched again, etc.). Data Frog have published a YouTube video showing how to update the firmware on the device, which you can find here; the video's description contains a link to where you can download the latest firmware.

Known firmware versions are currently (dates approximate):

Date Version Notes
Mid-March ? The original firmware that shipped with the first batch of devices
April 20th ? The first official firmware update; fixed some button mappings for Genesis, added support for 15 new languages. Also partially broke SNES compatibility - many SNES games will run very slowly on first launch, but quitting and immediately re-launching the game will have it run at normal speed (normal for the SF2000, anyway)
May 15th ? Added a built-in UI for global button mapping (which is broken in several ways, mainly SNES and Genesis controls are swapped, and no support for setting Player 2 controls), added a History feature, added a Favourites feature
May 22nd 1.5V First firmware with an official version number. Fixed the SNES/Genesis swapped button mappings, and now sets Player 2 controls to be identical to Player 1 (no way to set independently). There's some evidence of undocumented emulation improvements; some GBA homebrew that was non-functional in previous firmwares now loads correctly, and some GBA titles see marginally improved performance

There is not currently any custom firmware (CFW) for the device. The stock firmware is currently being investigated; here are some findings from it:

Button Mappings/Key Bindings

osaka#9664 discovered that the OS supports loading game-specific key bindings from .kmp files, stored in the save folder for each system and named after a game's ROM file (e.g., /FC/save/Game Name.EXT.kmp). They also discovered where in the bisrv.asd file the default mappings for each emulator are stored. Working with this information, notv37#4200 worked out what bits related to what buttons for each emulator. Using both their findings, we now have a tool which can be used to update both the global button mappings for the emulators, as well as create per-ROM mappings - you can find this tool here.

Note that the game-specific key bindings function have been removed from the May 15th firmware onwards.

When the device is powered on, a "Welcome" image is displayed for a short time before the main menu appears. This image comes from inside bisrv.asd, (towards the end; exact offset varies between BIOS revisions). It's a 512x200 RGB565 Little Endian raw image file, and looks like this:

Boot Logo

The image is actually displayed at half-resolution on the internal display though, 256x100, centred in the middle of the screen. The boot logo can be changed to an arbitrary 256x100 image using a web-based tool I wrote, which you can find here.


Resources

The Resources folder on the microSD card contains all of the resources used by the device's firmware to construct the user interface at runtime. The following tables list the files from various firmware versions (the numbered columns, in approximate mm.dd format) and what they are used for, grouped by broad categories. Resolution and format given are for the latest firmware version only; details may be different for older firmwares. The icons in the firmware columns have the following meanings:

  • : file is new to this firmware version
  • : file is unchanged this firmware version
  • 🚩: file is changed this firmware version
  • : file is removed this firmware version

Fonts

Filename 03.15 04.20 05.15 05.22 Description
Arial_cn.ttf The "Arial" typeface, containing Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Chinese, and Japanese characters. Duplicate of yahei_Arial.ttf, the single font file from the original firmware version
Arial_en.ttf The "Arial" typeface, containing Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Armenian, Hebrew and Arabic characters
Arial_jp.ttf The "Arial" typeface, containing Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Chinese and Japanese characters
Arial_kr.ttf The "Arial" typeface, containing Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters
Tahoma.ttf The "Tahoma" typeface, containing Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Armenian, Hebrew, Arabic and Thai characters
yahei_Arial.ttf The "Arial" typeface, containing Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters

Images (Used)

As far as I am aware, all of the below images are actively used by the 20230515 version of the firmware; happy to take any corrections if it turns out any of them are unused! Note that while the stock theme is based around a 640x480 resolution, the actual display on the SF2000 is a 320x240 one. The OS on the device uses nearest-neighbour scaling for its images, giving the stock UI a somewhat aliased appearance. If you're planning to make your own theme for the SF2000, design it for 320x240, and then double the resolution when exporting the final images to the device for a crisper look on the internal panel. I've written a generic image tool for the SF2000 - it lets you convert SF2000-formatted images to PNG files, and lets you convert PNG or JPEG images to SF2000 formats (which may be useful if you want to theme your device); you can find this tool here.

Filename Resolution Format 03.15 04.20 05.15 05.22 Description View
aepic.nec 1008x164 BGRA 🚩 User settings screen icons and labels in Korean view
apisa.dlk 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian 🚩 Arcade game-list background view
appvc.ikb 150x214 BRGA Game art placeholder view
awusa.tax 1008x164 BRGA 🚩 User settings screen icons and labels in Thai view
bisrv.nec 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian In-game menu (position 3) view
bttlve.kbp 60x144 BGRA Battery level indicator icons view
c1eac.pal 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian SNES game-list background view
cero.phl 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Game Boy Color game-list background view
certlm.msa 40x24 BGRA NES game-list indicator view
cketp.bvs 640x816 RGB565 Little Endian The console selection images at the bottom of the new button mapping feature screen view
d2d1.hgp 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian In-game menu (position 2) view
dism.cef 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian In-game menu (position 1) view
djctq.rsd 40x24 BGRA SNES game-list indicator view
djoin.nec 1008x164 BRGA 🚩 User settings screen icons and labels in Spanish view
dpskc.ctp 640x320 RGB565 Little Endian In-game menu save-state slots (positions 1, 2, 3 and 4) view
drivr.ers 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian SNES main menu background view
dsuei.cpl 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian 🚩 User ROMs main menu background view
dxdiag.bin 40x24 BGRA Genesis/Mega Drive game-list indicator view
dxkgi.ctp 1008x164 BRGA 🚩 User settings screen icons and labels in English view
dxva2.nec 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Search keyboard (pressed) view
ectte.bke 161x126 BRGA Main menu icon selection box view
efsui.stc 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian 🚩 Game Boy Advance game-list background view
esent.bvs 1008x164 BRGA 🚩 User settings screen icons and labels in Turkish view
exaxz.hsp 152x1224 BRGA 🚩 Main menu "Games Exist" and "Start: Open" labels for all languages view
fixas.ctp 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian NES main menu background view
fltmc.sta 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Game Boy game-list background view
fvecpl.ai 40x24 BGRA Game Boy game-list indicator view
gakne.ctp 576x256 BGRA A new copy of the English menu labels image, identical to older versions of dxkgi.ctp (which was changed entirely in 05.15) view
gkavc.ers 576x256 BGRA A new copy of the Chinese menu labels image, identical to older versions of itiss.ers (which was changed entirely in 05.15) view
gpsvc.bvs 392x80 RGB565 Little Endian In-game menu save-state slot (position 3) view
hctml.ers 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Arcade main menu background view
hgcpl.cke 392x80 RGB565 Little Endian In-game menu save-state slot (position 2) view
hlink.bvs 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Search keyboard (hover) view
htui.kcc 40x24 BGRA Game Boy Color game-list indicator view
icm32.dll 40x24 BGRA Game Boy Advance game-list indicator view
icuin.cpl 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Genesis/Mega Drive main menu background view
igc64.dll 217x37 BGRA "Yes" and "No" text, with "No" selected; used when being asked if you want to overwrite a save-game slot view
ihdsf.bke 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Genesis/Mega Drive game-list background view
irftp.ctp 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Game Boy Advance main menu background view
irmon.tax 1008x164 BRGA 🚩 User settings screen icons and labels in Dutch view
itiss.ers 1008x164 BRGA 🚩 User settings screen icons and labels in Chinese view
jccatm.kbp 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian "Battery Empty" screen view
ke89a.bvs 1008x164 BRGA 🚩 User settings screen icons and labels in Portuguese view
kmbcj.acp 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian The full-screen background image for the new button mapping screen view
ksxbar.ax 392x80 RGB565 Little Endian In-game menu save-state slot (position 4) view
lfsvc.dll 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Search game-list background view
lk7tc.bvs 52x192 BGRA Transparent labels for the button assignments in the new button mapping feature; these are the ones overlaid on the big SF2000 image showing the current assignments view
lkvax.aef 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian History game-list background view
mkhbc.rcv 640x1440 RGB565 Little Endian Six vertically-stacked images of the SF2000 with different buttons highlighted, used as part of the new button mapping feature's UI view
mksh.rcv 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Search keyboard (normal) view
msdmo.gdb 392x80 RGB565 Little Endian In-game menu save-state slot (position 1) view
msgsm.dll 40x24 BGRA Arcade game-list indicator view
mssvp.nec 1008x164 BRGA 🚩 User settings screen icons and labels in Japanese view
normidna.bin 40x24 BGRA Search game-list indicator view
ntdll.bvs 1008x164 BRGA 🚩 User settings screen icons and labels in Polish view
nvinf.hsp 16x240 BGRA Latin numbers 0 to 9 listed vertically, used for the number of games available in each main menu category view
okcg2.old 32x32 BGRA The star icon that appears beside favourited games in the game-lists view
pcadm.nec 1008x164 BRGA 🚩 User settings screen icons and labels in Italian view
pwsso.occ 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian In-game menu (position 4) view
qasf.bel 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian 🚩 User game-list background view
qwave.bke 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Game Boy Color main menu background view
rmapi.tax 1008x164 BRGA 🚩 User settings screen icons and labels in German view
sdclt.occ 120x240 RGB565 Little Endian 🚩 🚩 TV system selection icons view
sensc.bvs 1008x164 BRGA 🚩 User settings screen icons and labels in French view
sfcdr.cpl 576x1344 BRGA 🚩 Main menu system logos view
subst.tax 1008x164 BRGA 🚩 User settings screen icons and labels in Russian view
ucby4.aax 1008x164 BRGA 🚩 User settings screen icons and labels in Arabic view
urlkp.bvs 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian NES game-list background view
uyhbc.dck 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Favourites game-list background view
vidca.bvs 1008x164 BRGA 🚩 User settings screen icons and labels in Hebrew view
vssvc.nec 1008x164 BRGA 🚩 User settings screen icons and labels in Malay view
wshrm.nec 217x37 BGRA "Yes" and "No" text, with "Yes" selected; used when being asked if you want to overwrite a save-game slot view
xajkg.hsp 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Game Boy main menu background view
ztrba.nec 64x320 RGB565 Little Endian Non-transparent labels for the button assignments in the new button mapping feature; these are the ones that pop up when you go to change a button assignment view

Images (Unused)

To the best of my knowledge, the following image files are currently unused by the 20230515 firmware, and were probably left over from previous devices (the SF2000 shares a bit of lineage with some USB-stick devices) or development. The images marked "Alternate UI" below appear to have been for a UI where the systems were scrolled through horizontally, and the "shortcut" games for each system were scrolled vertically.

Filename Resolution Format 03.15 04.20 05.15 05.22 Description View
aeinv.bke 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Alternate UI: Genesis/Mega Drive main menu background view
aepic.ers 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Alternate UI: User main menu background view
c1e.pal 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian CPS2 game-list background view
cca.bvs 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian In-game menu (position 1; Chinese language hardcoded) view
dectMap.key 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Button test screen (active) view
desk.cpl 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Eight-game selection screen view
djoin.hsp 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Alternate UI: Arcade main menu background view
fcont.ctp 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Alternate UI: User main menu background view
fdbil.ph 1100x120 BGRA Large icons for each system, including systems not supported by the SF2000 (selected) view
gpapi.bvs 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian In-game menu (position 5; looks like it was for some kind of button layout changing UI) view
ihds.bke 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Genesis/Mega Drive game-list background, with baked-in thumbnail placeholder view
kdill.hsp 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Alternate UI: Game Boy Advance main menu background view
logilda.be 40x24 BGRA CPS1 game-list indicator view
mfc64.emc 40x24 BGRA CPS2 game-list indicator view
mfpmp.ers 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Alternate UI: Arcade main menu background view
mhg4s.ihg 400x192 RGB565 Little Endian Background and buttons for a "warning" prompt with "OK", "Yes" and "No" buttons. Also has rounded edges stored in a separate image file, zaqrc.olc view
mrtac.klo 40x24 BGRA Neo Geo game-list indicator view
msdtc.bke 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Alternate UI: Game Boy Advance main menu background view
mswbv.cpl 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Alternate UI: Game Boy Advance main menu background view
nettrace.dll 40x24 BGRA Unknown game-list indicator (grey joystick with yellow buttons) view
nsibm.ctp 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Alternate UI: Arcade main menu background view
nvinfohsp 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Alternate UI: Genesis/Mega Drive main menu background (note: there's no extension separator for this file, I suspect the file name is typo'd in the filesystem!) view
pcadm.hsp 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Alternate UI: User main menu background (NTSC TV system selected) view
plasy.ers 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Alternate UI: Game Boy Advance main menu background view
rmapi.cpl 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Alternate UI: User main menu background (English UI language selected) view
seltMap.key 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Button test screen view
spmpm.gdp 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Alternate UI: NES game-list background, with baked-in thumbnail placeholder view
subst.bke 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Alternate UI: Arcade main menu background view
tsmcf.cpl 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Alternate UI: Arcade main menu background view
url.bvs 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian CPS1 game-list background view
werui.ioc 320x240 RGB565 Little Endian "NODATA" save-state thumbnail placeholder image, with a "horror" style typeface view
wshom.ocx 1100x120 BGRA Large icons for each system, including systems not supported by the SF2000 (normal) view
x86e.hgp 640x480 RGB565 Little Endian Neo Geo game-list background view
zaqrc.olc 8x224 BGRA Rounded ends that pair with the warning dialogue stored in mhg4s.ihg view

Other Files

These are other files that have been identified, which don't fit into the other categories. Non-Latin characters in the files are encoded in UTF-8.

Filename 03.15 04.20 05.15 05.22 Description
Archive.sys 🚩 Stores the settings for UI language and TV system. Two 32-bit words (4-bytes), little endian. The first is UI language; 0x00000000 is English, 0x01000000 is Chinese, etc.. The second is the TV system setting; 0x00000000 is NTSC, 0x01000000 is PAL. Note the "🚩" icon here indicates the format of the data, or the permissible values were changed (as opposed to the data itself, which will vary from device to device based on user settings)
bfrjd.odb 🚩 UI strings in Korean
bxvtb.sby 🚩 UI strings in Thai
dufdr.cwr 🚩 UI strings in Turkish
eknjo.ofd 🚩 UI strings in Spanish
fhshl.skb 🚩 UI strings in English
Foldername.ini 🚩 🚩 Used to control menu rotation for the main menu; see below for more notes on this
History.bin Used to store the history of played ROMs; only appears after the first game is played after installing the 05.15 or later firmware. User ROMs are not added to history, only built-in games. If a built-in game that is referenced in history is removed from the device, the device will crash when trying to view the History screen. You can delete the History.bin file to clear the device's history; there is no built-in functionality to do so
jsnno.uby 🚩 UI strings in Dutch
kcbn7.avc Duplicate copy of bisrv.asd, the main firmware for the device which is found in the BIOS folder
KeyMapInfo.kmp Used to store the user-assignable global button mappings for each emulated system
lf9lb.cut 🚩 UI strings in Portuguese
ntrcq.oba 🚩 UI strings in Japanese
ouenj.dut 🚩 UI strings in Polish
qdbec.ofd 🚩 UI strings in Italian
sgotd.cwt 🚩 UI strings in French
snbqj.uby 🚩 UI strings in German
t2act.sgf 🚩 UI strings in Chinese
Test.zsf A SNES ROM, which displays a controller test program
tvctu.uby 🚩 UI strings in Russian
vdaz5.bjk 🚩 UI strings in Arabic
wtrxj.lbd 🚩 UI strings in Malay
xjebd.clq 🚩 UI strings in Hebrew

Foldername.ini

This file controls some of the UI settings for the main menu. It's a plain-text file, but not an actual INI file. It's contents from the May 22nd firmware (just as an example) are as follows:

SF2000
17
FFFFFF
FF8000 ROMS
FF8000 FC
FF8000 SFC
FF8000 MD
FF8000 GB
FF8000 GBC
FF8000 GBA
FF8000 ARCADE
FF8000 ROMS
FF8000 ROMS
8 7 0
24 184 144 208
40 24


And here's my current understanding of what each line is used for:

  • SF2000: The name of the device; I don't believe it's actively used anywhere, please correct me if I'm wrong!
  • 17: The number of languages supported by the firmware
  • FFFFFF: Hexadecimal colour (RGB) for the general game-list texts, and the x/yyy game count in the top-right corner of each game-list
  • FF8000 ROMS: The first defined main menu section (the sections that are scrolled vertically on the main menu). Internally they are numbered from 0; so the ROMS section (user ROMs and settings) is 0, FC (NES) is 1, SFC (SNES) is 2, etc.. The FF8000 is the hexadecimal colour (RGB) to display the text of the currently selected/highlighted game in the list; the default colour is orange. Side note: after the ARCADE section, there's two additional ROMS sections; this is just a guess on my part, but I think the firmware is hard-coded to have ten sections. The SF2000 appears to share its firmware with other similar devices, and some of those devices feature different menu sections (e.g., "CPS1", "Neo Geo", etc.). I suspect that the best of those systems has ten sections in its main menu, which doesn't match up with the eight sections on the SF2000 (seven supported systems + the user ROMs/settings section). As the firmware requires ten sections to be defined, they just repeated the ROMS section to fill in the remaining places. Like I say, that's just a guess!
  • 8 7 0: This is used to control the main menu rotation. 8 tells the firmware how many main menu sections are actually in-use on this device; for the SF2000 that's seven supported consoles + the user ROMs/settings section, for eight total. 7 tells the firmware which menu section to default to when the device boots up, which is why by default it always starts in the ARCADE section. 0 tells the firmware which section to display the special "user settings" menu on (the one with History, Favourites, TV System, Language, etc.). So for example, if you wanted the SF2000 to start up on the user ROMs/settings screen instead of Arcade, you could change this line to read 8 0 0
  • 24 184 144 208: These numbers control the position and size of the game artwork in each system's game-list. The first two numbers are the X and Y coordinates from the top-left corner of the screen for where to start drawing the artwork; the second two numbers are the width and height of the artwork to draw. Note that the SF2000 doesn't do any image scaling; the dimensions are for the rectangular area the device will begin adding each pixel of the source artwork to. If the artwork's dimensions don't exactly match the dimensions specified here, the artwork will not display properly
  • 40 24: The width and height of the icon shown beside the currently selected/highlighted game in a game-list. Again, these are the dimensions of the rectangular area the SF2000 draws the pixel data into, so if these numbers don't match the dimensions of the list indicator image, the image will not display properly

NOTE: While the text colours above work just fine with the SF2000 first boots up, after loading a game and returning to the menu some text colours revert to default, and are likely being pulled from inside the BIOS somewhere.

ROM Lists

Credit for this section goes to taizou#9644, author of FROGTOOL. These files relate to the built-in game-lists under each main system; the list of games is pulled from these files instead of being built at runtime - annoying, but presumably for performance reasons. It means if you want to change the list of built-in games (instead of using the User ROMs section), you have to edit these files - hence FROGTOOL, you should really check it out.

Files Description
mfpmp.bvs (Arcade), mgdel.bvs (Game Boy Color), nethn.bvs (NES), qdvd6.bvs (Game Boy), sppnp.bvs (Game Boy Advance), wmiui.bvs (Genesis/Mega Drive), xvb6c.bvs (SNES) Pinyin translations of the English ROM names, used for Chinese language searching. Not all game names are translated
adsnt.nec (SNES), fhcfg.nec (NES), htuiw.nec (Game Boy Advance), msdtc.nec (Arcade), setxa.nec (Genesis/Mega Drive), umboa.nec (Game Boy), wjere.nec (Game Boy Color) Chinese translations of the English ROM names, used to display the game-lists when the UI language is set to Chinese. Not all game names are translated
mswb7.tax (Arcade), pnpui.tax (Game Boy Color), rdbui.tax (NES), scksp.tax (Genesis/Mega Drive), urefs.tax (SNES), vdsdc.tax (Game Boy), vfnet.tax (Game Boy Advance) English ROM Names, used to display the game-lists when the UI language is set to English
xfgle.hgp, xfgle.hgp.bak The xfgle.hgp file contains the ROM "shortcuts" on the main menu for each game system. The xfgle.hgp.bak file appears to be a test version of this file that was not removed from the firmware before being sent to production
TSMFK.TAX This is a ROM list file similar to the other .tax files, except it is built at run-time from the ROM files in the user roms folder. The file is regenerated each time the device boots

Sounds

There are several sound files in the 20230420 firmware, stored in raw signed 16-bit PCM format (mono, little-endian at 22050 Hz). The SF2000 seems to play the files back at an incorrect sample rate vs. the raw data; if you want to customise the background music, resample your audio to 21543 Hz, and then speed the audio up to 22050 Hz, using the resulting audio as the raw data (credit to notv37#4200 in Discord for doing the math on that).

If you want to do it using Audacity , the steps are:

  1. Open your audio file
  2. Click the "Audio Setup" button on the top toolbar, choose "Audio Settings..."
    • Set "Project Sample Rate" to "22050 Hz"
    • Click "OK"
  3. Click the "Select" button in the lower-left corner of your audio track area to select all the audio
  4. If your track is stereo, downmix to mono: "Tracks" menu > "Mix" > "Mix Stereo Down to Mono"
  5. "Tracks" menu > "Resample..."
    • Set "New sample rate (Hz)" to "22050"
    • Click "OK"
  6. "Effect" menu > "Pitch and Tempo" > "Change Speed..."
    • Set "Speed Multiplier" to "1.023"
    • Click "Apply" (your audio will now sound slightly too high-pitched if you play it back, but don't worry - the SF2000 plays everything slightly slow/low-pitched, so we speed/pitch things up before exporting so it plays back correctly)
  7. "File" menu > "Export" > "Export Audio..."
    • Set "Save as type" to "Other uncompressed files"
    • In "Format Options", set "Header" to "RAW (header-less)"; set "Encoding" to "Signed 16-bit PCM"
    • Enter your "File name", and click "Save"
    • If the "Edit Metadata Tags" window appears, just leave everything blank and click "OK"
Filename 03.15 04.20 05.15 05.22 Description Listen
c2fkec.pgt 🚩 "Popping" sound that is played when moving around the search keyboard listen
dpnet.dll "Downwards Zap" sound, unknown usage listen
dsreg.bvs "Upwards Bleeping" sound, unknown usage listen
help.lis "Double Buzzer" sound, unknown usage listen
mfsvr.nkf 🚩 "Beep" sound that is played when entering a letter on the search keyboard listen
nyquest.gdb 🚩 "Whooshing" sound that is played when switching between emulated systems on the main menu, between the "Resume", "Quit", "Load" and "Save" options on the in-game menu, and scrolling by pages within a system's game-list listen
oldversion.kbe 🚩 "Three Note Upward Chime" sound that is played when deleting a letter on the search keyboard listen
pagefile.sys 🚩 Main menu background music. If you don't like background music, and would rather just have silence, you can find a replacement silent pagefile.sys here - just replace the one in the Resources folder (don't forget to backup the original file first, in case you ever want that jaunty tune again!) listen
swapfile.sys "Squishy" sound played when navigating horizontally through "shortcut" games on the main menu, or vertically within a system's game-list listen

Unknown Files

These are files that I have not yet determined what they do; if anyone has any information on these, do post about it in the Data Frog channel in the Retro Handhelds Discord server please!

Filename 03.15 04.20 05.15 05.22 Description
kcnuv.lit UNKNOWN; a bunch of 4-byte binary chunks (e.g., 0xC4 0x00 0x00 0x00), followed by a list of .NES ROM file names. Very similar to the .bvs/.nec/.tax files detailed above, but doesn't have the same type of "header" they have

All of these are linked above already in their relevant sections, but just in case you prefer to see them as a pulled-out list, here they are again:


Version History

  • 20230526 - 1.13: Updated Audacity instructions to support latest version of Audacity. Added a BIOS CRC32 patcher tool for the reckless and brave. Added a note about Foldername.ini text colours reverting after loading a game (thanks Zerter#4954!)

  • 20230525 - 1.12: Added a section about the internals of the Foldername.ini file. Added a note to the Arcade section about the "inrom" column in adcockm#8175's metadata document. Added a small firmware note for the May 22nd about community-spotted GBA performance improvements. Added specific emulator versions and Git commit links for each emulator (thanks osaka#9664 and notv37#4200!). Added specific steps for producting SF2000-format audio files using Audacity.

  • 20230524 - 1.11: Added my new Generic Image Tool. Added more exceptional information from adcockm#8175 in regards to arcade emulation on the SF2000, and cleaned up the old info accordingly. Corrected some typos related to bisrv.asd (thanks Luke#4448!). Usage of nvinf.hsp was tracked down to the numbers of games available on the main menu pages (thanks kid_sinn#9691!).

  • 20230522 - 1.10: Updated resource tables for the new 05.22 firmware (no changes); added a table with details about known firmware versions. Added a "Tools & Links" section.

  • 20230516 - 1.9: Updated most of the Resources file lists to include firmware-related information (added, (un)changed, removed). Added new image resources for the latest May 15th firmware. Updated some images files previews to contain the fake name extensions as well. Added detail about the removal of per-game button maps from May 15th firmware. Renamed the sound previews to contain the fake name extensions as well.

  • 20230513 - 1.8: Discovered two "unused" images (the yes/no buttons) are indeed actually used, when being asked if you want to overwrite a saved game. Fixed a few typos. Changed formatting of file names used throughout. A bit more info on A/V out.

  • 20230512 - 1.7: Added a note about stock battery runtime. Added a section with information about A/V output performance. Added a bit of info about PAL/NTSC region speed for Genesis/Mega Drive. Retitled the "bisrv.asd" section to make it clearer that's the BIOS/firmware.

  • 20230511 - 1.6: Added a quick note about the display panel to the Hardware section, and added a new section for Emulators, including an incredible collection of ROM notes for Arcade thanks to adcockm#8175! Also added a "silent" background music file for download, and a table of contents (this page is getting fairly long 😅). Added a favicon.ico to get rid of that one annoying console error.

  • 20230510 - 1.5: Added additional detail to the Hardware section about the buttons, d-pad, thumb-stick, battery, and wireless controller support.

  • 20230510 - 1.4: Added my own version of osaka#9664's button mapping tool at their request, and changed the link in the Key Mapping section accordingly.

  • 20230509 - 1.3: Added more details about how the boot logo ends up scaled on the screen, as well as a link to a new tool I wrote for altering the logo. Corrected one small formatting error.

  • 20230508 - 1.2: Added details for Archive.sys - thanks to osaka#9664 for the hints on what it related to!

  • 20230507 - 1.1: Some "unknown" files from the Resources folder identified with taizou#9644's help (thanks!); moved them to the Sounds and Rom Lists sections with details. Only two files left!

  • 20230507 - 1.0: Original creation of this page.