Basics of an Emulator 1/2/3/4

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The info on page 1 cover the basics of ROMs and emulators for consoles, like the Super NES, NES, and even Atari 2600. I will now talk a bit about basic emulator features. As an example, I'll take Snes9x. Most emulators have a Windows GUI, so that's easy to start. ROMs can often be loaded by selecting File, Open ROM. But first it is wise to read the Readme.txt file that came with the emulator. Also, you might want to configure your emulator to fit your needs on things about the graphics, sound and control system. I highly advice using a decent game controller with any emulator. For any sound options in an emulator, it's best to select some kind of sound buffering, so the sound won't crackle. Also, the output rate is best on 44Hz.

Graphics options are the most difficult to make in an emulator. The first choice is on which resolution you're going to play the game. It differs from system to system, but with Snes9x, I like a Full Screen resolution of 320x240 with 16 bit colours. Most of the time there are options for buffering, so the image won't tear along your screen. With output image processing you can select a method to 'increase' the graphics with some mathematical algorithms. I don't like them, but if you want them, your resoltion should be set higher than 320x240. Anyway, there are several more options to choose, but I won't give comments on them here, it's not a Snes9x tutorial. For some emulator tutorials you may visit EasyEmu. It's often wise to not fiddle with settings you don't know what they're for. But you may always try, and remember you can't damage your PC with it either.

As you notice, some knowledge of graphical settings is required to succesfully set up and decently run a game on an emulator. I learned most things I know now by trial and error. Nowadays most of you have a good Internet connection at home, so you can ask questions to other people on Forums. Most emulator authors have a Forum on their site, otherwise, many Emulation news sites have Forums.

Once you're done with the emulator options (or haven't changed anything at all), you can try to load a ROM file. Most emulators support zipped ROM files, so you may zip your ROMs. ROMZipper is a handy utility to mass zip your ROMs (after you've renamed them). It's best to play only good ROMs. Bad dumps are unreliable, but Overdumps usually can be played well.

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