Floating IPS is a program, not a patch format. People shorten it to Flips and then search as if FLIPS were a file extension. The extensions are still .ips and .bps. Alcaro writes it. The license is GPL-3.0 or later. It runs on Windows, and the source builds on Linux with a GTK front end. It applies several patches in one pass and can launch an emulator when it finishes. The feature that made it the default BPS writer is size. The readme says the BPS files it emits are smaller than those from any other tool it compared.
The historical utility record and newer release use different numbering schemes. The older utility listing says v1.31 dated 29 Jun 2015. GitHub releases have been numbered in the v198 style. The v198 release is dated 21 February 2025, later than the archived 2015 v1.31 entry; these labels should not be merged into one version. If you need a feature, read the release notes for the build you downloaded. Both labels refer to this project.
Use Flips when you are creating a BPS for a SNES, N64, or GBA hack and you want the checksum trailer. Use it to apply a stack of IPS files if a readme numbered them. The browser also creates and applies BPS and IPS. Flips wins when you want the batch behavior, the emulator handoff, or the exact writer a patch author told you to match. Matching the writer matters less for apply than for create, because BPS is specified. It still matters if a project claims bit-identical patches.
Lunar IPS is the older IPS-only neighbor. NUPS is the UPS neighbor. Flips does not replace either for those formats' desktop habits, except that it does write IPS. Related pages: BPS, IPS, and the tools index.
