Author Topic: Emulators (Read 19036 times)

Soul Sojourner · « **on:** June 17, 2006, 03:10:09 PM »

What is an emulator?

Well forget the fancy descriptions. Simply put, they act as if they are the original gaming console, but run from your hard drive instead. Basically, if you have an SNES (Super Nintendo) emulator, you can play SNES games on your computer with it.

How do you do that, you ask? It's not like the actual games have an insertion slot. There are files you play the games with, called roms.. All you have to do is find a rom for a game and open it with the emulator and play.

If we upgrade a little bit, and use let's say, a Playstation emulator rather than a SNES emulator, things change a little bit. For one, we no longer use "roms" instead, we use CD Image files, such as ISO, CCD, IMG, and other formats. These can be burned to discs and played as though they are the game itself, or may be "mounted" to a fake disc drive by a program such as Daemon Tools, which basically fools your computer into believing there is another disc drive, and that the mounted image file is a disk in that drive.

Of course, emulators have their advantage, such as no need for GameShark, or GameGenie etc. Many emulators have those built-in, so cheat away. Besides that luxury, most of them can save instances, so you can basically save whatever and whenever you want to. Even during cinematics or while the game is starting up! Obviously this is more convenient, but also allows for a far easier game if you like the idea of using it to cheat.

Now I have heard people bringing these beautiful creations up on here recently, hence the reason I decided to make this topic. However, I did not make it for the sheer purpose of giving a brief explanation as to what they are; I made it to provide help in getting them, and a little of my knowledge on some of the NES (regular Nintendo), SNES (Super Nintendo) emulators, playstation, and perhaps other emulators.

Just remember, the "rule" of emulators is that whatever game you download, you are supposed to have the real game for. It is otherwise illegal, and this board is in no way responsible if you decide to download any games illegally, or if you obtain malware/viruses/or your computer explodes as a result of doing so. Point the finger elsewhere.

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I will start with NES. NES stands for Nintendo Entertainment System. A few popular titles you've heard of have started here, on this system. Such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, or the Legend of Zelda.

I have gotten to liking the Jnes emulator the most. It has a decent cheat system, and is set up in a nice and orderly fashion. There are many others besides this one and I have tried many, if not all, of the major ones and I would recommend this one over the rest. That is my opinion and preference though, experiment for yourself to see what suites you best.

Here is a link to some NES emulators, Jnes is the third one down. I will note that the first one is also very good, but only experienced users may want to use it. (Not necessarily, but..)

NES Emulators

Now, you have access to NES emulators, but what about roms? Well, there are many places all over the web that you can look for NES roms, but I will provide a link to some anyways.
NES Roms

One last thing, for those of you interested in the Dragon Warrior series. The first four are for NES, and I know a place that provides all four roms, plus walkthroughs, guides, maps, and just about anything you could want for the Dragon Warrior series. It's a really sweet site if you like the series!

Dragon Warrior Series

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Now for the SNES. SNES stands for Super Nintendo Entertainment System. This system has had countless games, and I can tell you from having played it for years since I was little, that this system holds some of the best games ever created. (not just my opinion! FACT! =P)

Now once again, I have tried various emulators for SNES. My personal favorite is the Snes9x. Once again I would recommend this one above the rest. Let me note, however, that the ZSNES is just as good and just as popular. Between the two of them, it really just depends on which one is more suitable to you.

Here is a link to some SNES emulators, the Snes9x and the ZSNES are the top two.

SNES Emulators

What's an emulator without any roms to play it? Well, I'll tell you that my absolute favorite site for SNES roms WAS www.cherryroms.com, but the site is down. =( I am unsure whether or not it will ever be back up again. (probably not =( ) Like any other emulator roms can be obtained from various locations on the web, but I will nonetheless provide a link to a place with some of them.

SNES Roms

As a side note, if you plan on using an SNES emulator and enjoy RPG's, I will recommend trying out Super Mario RPG, The Legend of the Seven Stars. It is an RPG, and one of my favorite games for the SNES. It's graphics are really excellent compared to most other SNES games.

Some other good titles:
Chrono Trigger
The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past
Star Ocean

There are various other good ones, these are RPG's. My mind is drawing blanks right now, sorry. =(

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Sony Playstation! Also has countless games... really... countless. There are many emulators for the Playstation as you may have guessed. ePSXe is, without a doubt, my favorite.

Playstation Emulators are a little bit trickier than the ones we've already covered. For these we use CD Image files and we have about a billion plugins we can use to get games to function the way we want them to.

For a list of Playstation Emulators and information, plugins, tools, etc. regarding all of them:
NGemu -> Playstation

The links I am providing pertain particularly to the ePSXe emulator.

The emulator can be found here: ePSXe Playstation Emulator
Plugins here: ePSXe Plugins
Daemon Tools (for CD Image mounting): Daemon Tools
Playstation Games: Rom Hustler

A particular note about cheating with ePSXe, there are multiple plugins/add-ons you can use but there isn't one built in. The one I use is a seperate cheating program/plugin that can be used with ePSXe, but needs to be downloaded seperately. This basically allows you to use a system like GameShark. It's real easy to use, although I've only used it a couple of times.
The link to that is here: PEC Plugin

One more thing to note. zlib1.dll file is missing! This error occurs when using ePSXe 1.7.0.0. To fix it, all you need to do is download the file and place it in your WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ folder. Keep in mind that is SYSTEM not System32!!!
The link to the file can be found here: zlib1.dll

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There are numerous other emulators too. Such as ones for Sega, Gameboy, N64, Playstation 1,2, XBOX, etc. Just take a look around. ISO's and Roms can be found in many different places, if you are looking for something specific, and cannot find it, I urge you not to give up. Sometimes they can be difficult to obtain. When it comes to Playstation, you can most definitely take a game that you have a physical copy of, and make it into a playable ISO. However, I am not going to cover how to do that here, sorry.

As a last helpful little effort, I will provide you with some general links to help aid you in your searches.

**This is my all time favorite site regarding Playstation, Playstation 2, XBOX, N64 and many others.
http://www.ngemu.com/index.php

---This is a great site to find Emulators:
http://www.emulator-zone.com/

---This is a great site to find ROMs:
http://www.freeroms.com/

---This is a great site in general, for ROMs, Emulators, and the like:
http://www.emuparadise.org/

--This site is excellent for Playstation games as well as other games:
http://romhustler.net/

--This one seems to have an interesting collection:
http://www.rom-freaks.net/

--This one has an interesting collection as well:
http://www.romnation.net/

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Also, there is an emulator out there that can emulate buttons on your keyboard with a controller/joystick. I find it extremely useful when using ePSXe, because I have two buttons on my controller emulate my keyboard's quick save and quick load keys. As the emulator itself only allows you to change the hotkeys on the keyboard to other keys. It can be useful for various other emulators and situations as well, I like it so I can kick back and don't have to mess with the damn keyboard.

It's called JoyToKey and it can be found here:
JoyToKey

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Any other information you want to know, or any questions you may have, let me know. I might know the answer, or if not, I can help you to find it.

Good luck and have fun! =P

://///:UPDATED: New information regarding Playstation emulators, updated links, and updated other general information.
://///:UPDATED: Added JoyToKey information, and fixed a few typos/grammatical errors.

Chard! · « **Reply #1 on:** June 17, 2006, 03:47:34 PM »

Thanks alot HeLL!! I'm playing FF1 at the moment.

Mo · « **Reply #2 on:** June 17, 2006, 08:58:38 PM »

There are also Playstation emulators available.

Soul Sojourner · « **Reply #3 on:** June 18, 2006, 01:34:45 AM »

Quote

There are also Playstation emulators available.
[snapback]30032[/snapback]

And xbox, and atari, and xbox360, and gameboy advanced, the list goes on...

Sonicle · « **Reply #4 on:** November 03, 2008, 07:26:08 AM »

thanks a lot hell ... im going to play trough the whole final fantasy series now

good bye social life...

Tyrael · « **Reply #5 on:** November 03, 2008, 11:23:26 AM »

The ps2 emulator works at decent speeds now too... but you need a good pc for it. Ive been playing God hand on it, goes at 40+ fps (i played it on my old pc too but it barely went at 10 fps) but its an hilarious game. http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=XY90Jl-W6Bg
You get lots of new moves during the game and you can set them as you like in the menu.

The ps2 emu site, www.pcsx2.net

Sonicle · « **Reply #6 on:** November 03, 2008, 11:55:58 AM »

wahhh i cant get the playstation 1 emulators to work ... it always says its missing some .dll file =((((

and btw i installed a playstation bios still it doesnt work

Soul Sojourner · « **Reply #7 on:** November 03, 2008, 04:40:23 PM »

Quote from: Sonicle on November 03, 2008, 11:55:58 AM

wahhh i cant get the playstation 1 emulators to work ... it always says its missing some .dll file =((((

and btw i installed a playstation bios still it doesnt work

Have you tried EPSXE? It's the one I use for playstation ROMS. I have a wireless PC controller that resembles playstation controllers I like to use. This emulator works excellent.
Here's a link: http://www.epsxe.com/

Also, you should definitely consider downloading a whole bunch of plugins for it. The more plugins you have the more choices you have when one isn't working. For some games it takes a lot of tweaking to get it just right, but it's worth it in the end.

This site is excellent for getting plugins:
http://www.ngemu.com/psx/epsxe.php?action=plugins

Another thing when it comes to PSX emulators, is the roms typically come in many .rar files that are seperate and each part needs to be downloaded. Once you download all the parts, if it's only for one disc, just extract one part and it will extract everything from all the parts into one folder. After that you don't need any of the parts anymore.

Here is a excellent site for PSX ROM downloads, and other ROMs in general:
http://romhustler.net/

Hope that helps!

Tyrael · « **Reply #8 on:** November 03, 2008, 08:41:46 PM »

ya the .dll files youre missing are the plugins most likely because the bios are .bin anyways.
And yeah epsxe should work without any problem i used that one for most games, i remember chrono cross didnt work on it and i used another good emu, but i forgot the name...

Sonicle · « **Reply #9 on:** November 05, 2008, 12:08:30 PM »

completely downloaded ff XIII ... my problem is epxe 1.7.0.0 wont work somehow ... i got the so called "best" ps bios downloaded and installed but still its missing some .dll's

Soul Sojourner · « **Reply #10 on:** November 07, 2008, 06:34:45 PM »

Tell us the name of the .dll files.

Sonicle · « **Reply #11 on:** November 09, 2008, 05:19:11 AM »

zlib1.dll

Soul Sojourner · « **Reply #12 on:** November 23, 2008, 10:09:19 PM »

I can't find any .dll's with that name, and I'm using v1.6.0.0 with 0 problems. Perhaps it's on the version your using, or perhaps it's in the game you're trying to run. I would suggest trying another game, if that doesn't work, try version 1.6.0.0

Soul Sojourner · « **Reply #13 on:** December 08, 2008, 04:32:50 PM »

Sonicle. I have updated information for you. I recently updated to 1.7, still have 0 problems and zlib.dll is nowhere to be found in the installation. I checked up on it for you and zlib.dll is a compression library.
Here is a link to the file: http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?zlib1

Here is a link to the website: http://www.zlib.net/

Hope that helps!

Soul Sojourner · « **Reply #14 on:** January 19, 2009, 08:29:02 PM »

Updated first post of topic. There's much more information there now.

Tyrael · « **Reply #15 on:** April 23, 2009, 05:09:47 PM »

Theres a gamecube/wii emulator named Dolphin that runs some comercial games, im playing tales of symphonia at 40+ fps on it, and the ps2 emulator is also updated running a lot of games at full speed now (PCSX2) God Hand goes at 50+ fps, thats the only game i play on the emu because its too damn hard without the quicksave feature lol

Mo · « **Reply #16 on:** April 23, 2009, 08:58:07 PM »

Where the heck have YOU been?

Tyrael · « **Reply #17 on:** April 24, 2009, 01:14:47 PM »

Uhm nowhere i just come on from time to see whats going on, well besides the few months the site wouldnt let me log in for some reason, i posted that somewhere else. So just kinda bored playing ramdom stuff.

Tyrael · « **Reply #18 on:** April 30, 2009, 08:43:00 PM »

Btw i forgot to add that theres also a fully working nintendo ds emulator that runs most if not all games at 100% speed with both screens, the mouse pointer works as the stick in the lower screen (the touchpad thingie) though i only like 2 ds games and theyre both in japanese so its kinda useless for me, its named no$gba, also theres even a ds emulator for the psp (lol) but its still in beta stage, wonder what they will do about the touchscreen, though its still quite a hit for the ds guys cos the ds can barely run some old console emus, the psp has all console emulators up to psone, n64 included.

Soul Sojourner · « **Reply #19 on:** May 01, 2009, 06:33:40 PM »

Yeah, there are a lot of emulators out there, I only made a reference for the ones I felt like listing, which are pretty much the ones I use most. To put it bluntly, there's pretty much an emulator for everything worth making an emulator for, and if there's not, you just gotta wait a little bit longer.

420 · « **Reply #20 on:** May 03, 2009, 06:59:13 PM »

Quote from: Soul Sojourner on May 01, 2009, 06:33:40 PM

To put it bluntly, there's pretty much an emulator for everything worth making an emulator for, and if there's not, you just gotta wait a little bit longer.

I'm going to wait for an emulator that emulates all the other emulators.

-420

Soul Sojourner · « **Reply #21 on:** May 04, 2009, 04:46:56 AM »

There are emulators that emulate emulator functions, it's a start.

Soul Sojourner · « **Reply #22 on:** May 03, 2011, 01:33:59 AM »

Added info on JoyToKey, a useful little program I use that emulates keyboard functions with a PC controller/joystick. It's useful when playing roms and computer games.

Link:
JoyToKey

420 · « **Reply #23 on:** May 03, 2011, 02:03:59 PM »

My local bar is having a problem. They have MAME on a laptop in an arcade case with 4 Street Fighter 2 style controls. Each of the joystick directions and each button must be assigned to a different keyboard key.

The problem is that certain key combos execute Windows commands. For example, I'm playing Street Fighter 2 and I hit the top 3 buttons to execute Zangief's whirlwind move and it just so happens that those 3 buttons are assigned to Ctrl, Alt, and Delete... yeah. So I had the guy that maintains the machine reassign that particular combo but there are a bunch of other Windows commands like that like Windows key + m.

So there are two solutions I see, either disable the Windows key combo commands somehow or come up with an optimized key assignment for the controls that will minimize the chance of Windows command combos. There are 60 total keys that need to be assigned (8 joystick directions + 6 buttons + start button x 4).

-420

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Author Topic: Emulators (Read 19036 times)

Chard!