The Emulation Thread
 

Use this thread to discuss emulation, including:

Arcade Machine Emulation (eg MAME)
Computer Emulation (eg WinUAE for Amiga, VICE for earlier Commodore machines)
Console/games machine emulation (Atari 2600, Vectrex, etc)

Personally I find emulators fascinating. Especially realising that a low end computer today can emulate, in software, arcade machines of the past that were the pinnacle of gaming technology at the time.

It is not just mapping the instruction set of the emulated CPU, but the ancillary chips, timings, etc. So the computer that is doing the emulating has to be many times more powerful than the emulated system. Amazing then that a Nintendo DS can even emulate some of the less taxing systems!

My favourites include:

MAME, because I spent heaps on the earlier games when they were new and in the arcades

WinUAE for Amiga emulation - I had an Amiga 1000 when they first came out, and it was seriously cutting-edge at the time. The games were a step ahead of any other system on the market, besides the Atari ST, its only natural predator. WinUAE has really improved with the newer releases - much more user friendly.

VICE, for Commodore 64 and Vic 20 emulation. Again, I had both of these machines when they were new. Got the Commodore 64 when it first came out, with a tape deck which was so incredibly slow. Like, put in a tape of a game to load, have dinner, come back and it would be just about done. Later added a disk drive, dot matrix printer, monitor instead of TV, and a 300bps modem :D

Stella - for Atari 2600 emulation. The Atari pre-dated any of my computers, and at the time was the duck's nuts of console gaming. Today, the games look ancient.

I've used just about every emulator out there. Most recently I've been fiddling with the CPS3 emulation and I'd have to say my favorite emulation memories stem from Nesticle and Genecyst.

Nesticle is fun, there were some great games on the NES.

Magnavox Odyssey emulator (?Odyemu) is interesting. The Odyssey was an analogue computer, so emulating it is a bit different to emulating digital computers. I remember having a similar device before the Atari 2600 (can't remember what it was, but it wasn't from Magnavox). Basically a Pong game with different sizes and numbers of "racquets" to produce games such as tennis, football, etc. So basic :)

Have you ever checked out www.emuasylum.com ?

It used to be emusa and has always had the best emulators.

I've been using MAME and DEGA recently.

Still waiting on a good Atari Lynx (system never came out here) and Sega Saturn emulator...I played an alright saturn one a while ago, but it was far from perfect.

Too bad emulation isn't legal...they could finance people to work on it, and all those games could run perfectly, and be available for download at a reasonable price (hopefully)...think about it...it's not as though they wouldn't make enough cash, I know I for one would fully support it, if it meant better quality experience.

That's a great site.

planetemu.net is another good one - lots of amiga adf images.

Yes it is a shame. Especially since older computers were never viewed until reasonably recently as having much historical value. It is sad to see that some of the old games are probably lost forever. For example, the original version of Balance of Power for the Amiga (not the update which I think was done in 1986). I used to have the original one when I had an Amiga and it was an amazingly deep strategy game for its time. The author of the game actually has the later version for free download on the web, but last time I checked the original wasn't there

Arctic Fox for the Amiga is another one that doesn't seem to be available. There are a few images going around but sadly I haven't seen one that works. This was a great game - one of the very earliest first person perspective shooters.

I would gladly pay for both of these games in their original form.

My first "computer" was something called an AMSTRAD from memory...I was pretty young then, but I remember 2 games I used to love to play on it.
One was Batman, that you viewed top-down, more of a puzzle game than anything, you had to run around avoiding traps and collecting items.
The other was called "Roland in space" which I can't remember AT ALL, just that I loved it...it would be interesting to know if this system was ever successfully emulated, as it ran something like audio-tapes as games.
Anyone ever play it?

So, what's the last emulated game anyone here played?
I fired up Alex Kidd in Miracle World with friends a little while ago, but we were too drunk to play, ha.
Bomberman world, one of my favourite games, is what I played last in MAME.

Last emulated game I played was Barbarian for the C64, I used to love playing that when I was younger. My uncle would pirate thousands of C64 disks and we'd alway have a ton of games.


Load "*" ,8 ,1

Last night I played Ports of Call for the Amiga.

It's a pretty good game about international shipping. You have to start a shipping company, buy ships, and then send them around the world transporting cargo for money. I had it on the Amiga when it was new.

Also played some 1942 and Metal Slug 2 on MAME.

Here are some Amstrad emulators

http://www.emuguide.co.uk/amstrad-emulators.html

Here is Roland in Space

http://www.thegamearchives.com/?val=..._20096_0_0_0_0

And there are a few Batman games. Take your pick:

http://www.thegamearchives.com/?val=...0_4_10_0_2_0_0

I wish some of the C64 games had online, that Weather Wars game would be great. Oh yeah, do NOT miss out on Windjammers. Download that for a NeoGeo emulator and play it with a friend... so much fun.

I haven't played Windjammers - I will have to give it a go.

As far as C64 games and online play - it's amazing how far things have come since those days. Back then, multi player was plugging two joysticks in.

Have you ever played the game I'm talking about? I THINK it was called Weather Wars. You would share one joystick and take turns launching different "storms" at the other person picking the angle and intensity of the weather phenomenon. You could use lightning, hail, wind, tornados, etc... It was pretty fun back then but I think now, over 20 years later, I would be less than enthralled.

Windjammers is essentially a pong game in concept but it's deep and has plenty of style. A blast for two people. I think NeoGeo is the system I was most happy to get emulated simply because of the cost to purchase the real system and games. Either that or the PC Engine, I'll never forget the first time I was able to play Dracula X: Rondo of Blood.

I haven't played Windjammers - I have a ROM image for it but it seems to be corrupted :mad:

As for the C64 game - I have one Called Weather Wars II. You basically have 2 castles on the screen (one for each player) and each turn you have to choose whether you send rain, hail, lightning, or tornado at the other player - and you have to choose a number as a direction to fire your weather in - taking into account wind. Is this the one you mean? It is actually a fun game.

Anyone ever play castle of the winds or castle excelsior?

Weather Wars II was the game, and it was a lot of fun as a multiplayer game. As for Castle of Winds I've heard of it but never played it, it kind of looks like a MUD with some simple graphics.

I got to play Windjammers today in some free time at work, and it is damn addictive! Played it via MAME, so much fun.

Last time I played NeoGeo games I used Nebula... does MAME support ip to ip multiplayer?


EDIT: I lied, after thinking about it I used NeoRage.

I don't think it does.

But I was just playing at work in some spare time. I have MAME installed on a computer at work, so that was the easiest option.

Are you threatening meeeeee?

Eh? Who are you talking to? Playing Beavis and Butthead for the Genesis? :)

I have an ancient laptop that basically functions as a word processor and storage for my emulators. I've got Stella and Nester on it right now, and a third one that I can't remember. If I went to boot the laptop up to find out, I would have to wait half an hour to finish this post. *laugh*
As a surprise after working on my laptop my friend returned it to me with roms of every Atari 2600 game he could get his hands on, along with a few Game Boy titles and a few things from the Sega Genesis. There are some old classics on there too, like Contra. I'll have to go look and see what I load it in to to play it.

And that amounts to about 2.5 megabytes of files :) Just looking at them, these files were so small - the biggest was about 16kb (most are 4-8kb). Amazing how they could make such fun and playable games out of so little.

Current PC games are often 4+ gigs. Sure, they are much more complex, and a lot of that storage goes into multimedia (video cutscenes, sampled audio). It's just amazing how far things have come.

Quite true...except it was a REALLY old Compaq Presario so that 2.5 megabytes is the difference between 4 minutes and 8 minutes booting up. :D

This is one of the things I love about flash games as well...nothing really fancy, but they're damned entertaining and you'll keep going back to them.

Heh you think that is old. I have a Toshiba laptop still languishing under my bed. It is c1989. 2x3.5" floppies. CGA graphics. 1 meg of ram. It probably couldn't cope with Stella :)

So true. PC games are great when you have time to play for 30 mins or more, but often times I find I don't have a lot of time time game uninterrupted. Flash/arcade etc games are perfect when you just have a few minutes and want to play something that you can get straight into and finish in a short time.

You really need to try MAME if you haven't already. I think you would love it.

If you like flash games, get the one called NINJA.
Easily the best I've seen. Jump around off things, run up walls...etc while collecting "gold", activating switches, avoiding traps and enemies.
Great fun, challenge increases fairly over time.
I posted it waaaay back, but went and found it for you...
http://www.harveycartel.org/metanet/n.html
Some funny-ass deaths too.
Only those looking for a serious challenge need apply.


Back to the topic at hand...I was wondering if you guys could tell me some cool rpgs to check out on the snes.
I've played the secret of mana, zelda, and earthbound already...but I know there's heaps of 'em. Any recos?

No recommendations because I never really got into rpg's on the SNES. But I found this link that lists a few:

http://forums.gamewinners.com/forums...d.php?t=282986

As I say, don't know which ones are good or not, but it might give you some things to look out for.

Robotrek
the Lufia series
the Soul Blazer series (Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma)
Breath of Fire series
Super Mario RPG
Lagoon
Chrono Trigger
Final Fantasy 3 (You know the drill right? 3 here is 6 in Japan...)
Brain Lord
Harvest Moon (heh)
Shadowrun

Don't overlook the Genesis which had a few good RPGs and Action RPGs like Landstalker, Beyond Oasis, and the Phantasy Star series just to name a few.

Thanks.

Just played CRIME CITY on mame...haha

Finally! A working image of Arctic Fox for Amiga emulation.

Well, I believe that there was a WHD'd version previously, but this is a floppy disc image, using the SPS system. It's probably been out for a little while now, but I have just managed to find it. The old ADF files that were circulating never worked (although there were 2 I believe).

I loved this game when I had an Amiga and was dying to play it again. It is surely very dated now (and runs at about 2 fps!) but it is great for the sake of reminiscence.

Ah an emulation thread. I love the emulators I was about 5 back when the SNES and SEGA and stuff came out brings back alot of memories. My older brother would always play RPGS so Ive been playing one of my favorites Final Fantasy 3.

I love my SEGA Genesis and my NES. I didn't get a SNES until after the PS2 came out. But playing those games now makes me wish I was a little kid again.

Monster In My Pocket, Forever Baby!

After playing the newest gerneration of consoles I can't play stuff like PS or N64 but I can always find a good 16 bit to play.

I still bust out my old systems regularly. Brings back good memories.

Did you ever play a game for SNES where you were in these robots and you would push the select button and your little guy would pop out and you could run around, I loved that game but I can't remember the name of it.

I haven't played that many SNES games. I was more of a Genesis gamer at that time.

DAMN i wish I knew the name of that

There was a game on the original NES that was kind of like that. Dinowarz.

There was one with a futuristic setting that had a lot of robot creatures in it...you were predominately in a metal slug type tank thing, and your guy could get out and run around...he could also go into certain boss stages, where it would go into close-up mode.
I don't know what #1 was like, but this game was "blaster master 2".


Anyone with a sega master system emulator...I'd like to see how far you get in the following:
*Psychic world
*Cyborg Hunter
*Aztek Adventure.

And anyone with NES, check out "kickle cubicle" for a weird, challenging game, and of course, one of the best challenges ever, the original nes version of lode runner.

^^^That there's a good day of gaming.

I wanna get into the phantasy star series...until the p.o.s version that was released on the otherwise very cool dreamcast, it looked like a pretty damn cool series.

I also invite anyone to check out my favourite sega 16bit titles if they havent...
*Shining force (for the oldskool rpg fans)
*Flashback - The quest for Identity (for those that appreciate depth in games)
*Zombies Ate My Neighbours (For those who have yet to discover it's coolness)

There ya go, my post.