For those of you who are unfamiliar with the "Emulation Scene", Emulation
is taking one thing and making it act and think like another. In
this case, it is making a PC act like a console system (NES, Genesis, etc).
The Emulator is the program that makes the PC act like that system.
A ROM file is a file that is an actual copy of a game cartridge.
Since the space for my web page is very limited, there isn't any room to
store files for you to download from here, but I will provide you with
links and information. Covered in this page is NES,
Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Gameboy,
ROMs, and Links to Other General Emulation
Sites.
(Page Last Updated February 17th, 1998 6:00AM
MDT)
Nintendo
Entertainment System
By far, the best NES Emulator, is NESticle, made by Bloodlust. It
was first released in April of 1997, and has reigned high as one of the
best emulators. Included with it is a DOS and Win95 version.
The Win95 version has the ability to play games over the internet.
Both versions have great graphics, great sound, and a cool GUI (Graphic
User Interface). Download
NESticle 0.43 here.
Sega
Genesis
Sega Genesis emulation started out slower. For quite a while, there
was only 1 Emulator named GenEm. Then mid-last year, Bloodlust released
Genecyst. Shortly after it's release, Steve Snake released KGen,
yet another emulator. I won't go through the history, but I'll tell
you how things look today. GenEm was discontinued and the home page
deleted. It had primitive sound, ok graphics, but was very slow.
You can download GenEm
0.19 here, though I don't know why you'd want to. Genecyst and
KGen are both really good emulators. They both have excellent graphics
and excellent sound. Genecyst has a more elaborate mouse driven GUI,
and KGen has a simple, nice looking, keyboard GUI. As far as speed
goes, they are both neck and neck, but Genecyst is a tiny bit faster.
The thing that makes them different is compatibility. Some games
look or sound a tiny bit better on one or the other. Sonic 3D Blast
has a bonus round that has garbled graphics on Genecyst, but looks fine
on KGen. Also, racing games like Road Rash, tend to look nicer on
KGen. The choice is yours. Check out the KGen
homepage or Download
KGen 0.34b or Genecyst 0.32 here.
Super
Nintendo Entertainment System
SNES emulation has gone through it's phases of better emulators.
The competition of which emulator is the fastest, has the best graphics,
and has the best sound (if any), has always been a great one. In
the earlier days, there were emulators like Super
Pasofami, and VSMC,
which were primative and stopped being developed.
NLKSnes was considered
the fastest emulator for a while, but had problems with graphics, and lacked
sound. ESnes
caught up to the speed of NLKSnes, with ok sound, and better graphics.
Snes9x (earlier
Snes96/97) came around, passed both of them, with great speed, great graphics,
great sound, and a nice GUI. It was moving along nicely, a new version
released every few weeks, but then in the end of October 1997, it was discontinued
for a number of reasons. Snes9x was very close to perfect emulation,
but it lacked one main thing, Mode 7 addition/subtraction transparency
effects. No emulator had these effects until ZSnes came along.
ZSnes is currently the best emulator
on the scene. The newest versions have made it surpass the once thought
unbeatable Snes9x. Using VESA2 technology, it is able to do graphics
you won't see on any other SNES emulator. The only disadvantage is
the speed. You need a fast computer if you want take full advantage
of all of ZSnes' features. It will run on slower computers, but it's
jerky.
Most of the emulators you see above, haven't been updated recently, except
ZSnes. There are a few new SNES emulators which are still in the
early development stages, but might be promising in the future. SNEeSe
and SNEmul are two of these,
both with version releases in the past week. Then again, ZSnes has
also been updated during the past week.
Gameboy
Since I never actually owned a Gameboy, I wasn't too interested in Gameboy
emulators. But the thing that actually got me interested in the "Emulation
Scene" was when a user uploaded Virtual
Gameboy (VGB) to Buttmunch BBS mid-February
1997. They also uploaded a few ROMs. Being my curious self,
I un-zipped it and ended up playing it for a few hours. Later that
day, I got on the internet and searched around, becoming very interested
in the scene. I know there are more Gameboy emulators out there,
but I'm only writing this page on my personal experiences. Virtual
Gameboy worked perfect for me, but if you'd like to find others, check
the general emulation links below.
Roms
As explained above, ROMs are actual copies of the information stored in
the game cartridges. They are a necessary ingredient to emulation.
The only problem is ROMs are copyrighted material. There used to
be a lot of great ROM sites around, but sometimes they are shut down due
to pressure from immature emailers or even threats from game companies.
My policy, which is shared by many others, is if you own the actual game
cartridge, you may own the ROM, otherwise it's pirating. Some people
are OK with pirating, and some are not. I don't have many ROM sites
to tell you right now, but feel free to email
me if you know some good ones. One really nice ROM site is The
Dump. It has an outstanding selection of Genesis and Turbo Grafx
16 ROMs. Another nice ROM page called Irsangla
has focus on ROM series, like 13 Final Fantasy ROMs, 15 Sonic The Hedgehog
ROMs, 15 Super Mario Bros ROMs, etc., for different game systems.
It also has a few nice single ROMs that didn't take place in series.
Links
to other General Emulation Sites
I know my page isn't the best. I don't have as much time to spend
on the internet updating my page. I know there are a lot of emulation
sites out there, that do a great job of keeping up with the scene.
They also have more space, more visitors, and have nicer pages. Here
are a few links to those sites, feel free to email
me if you know other sites.
Emu News Service is a great
page to find very frequent, up-to-date news on the Emulation Scene.
It is updated usually once every few hours, bringing news of new things.
You can also find links to just about any emulator on their links page.
Zophar's Domain is another
great page that is updated pretty frequently. It has features on
many different emulators, and just about anything can be found there.
It's also very nicely put together. Definitely one to check out.
Archaic Ruins is one of
my all time favorites. This is where I first got all my information
about the Emulation Scene. But when the Parodius server went down,
many emulation pages had to find new homes. Hopefully the server
will be up again soon, and I'll change the link to their old famous address.
Emu Xpress has been famed
for it's many links. It's said if you're looking for any Emulation
page, you can find a link to it here.
