Emulator files?

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So, what are these files? I mean like Gameboy Emulator, Nintendo Emulator files, don't know what else is out there, really. Are any worth getting? Of course, I would never think to download a game I didn't own. Really.

 

If you own a Mega Drive/Genesis, programs like GENS can be good if only because of the save function. You can legally download the ROMs of games you own, and play and save your progress at your leisure. It takes a marathon session otherwise to get through some of the longer games.

Presumably most other emulators have some sort of Save State feature as well

 

Emulators should be completely legal as long as they do not have the copyrighted BIOS of the original console (that is why you have to download it separately ).

Ravyn, make a search for "Virtual Boy" if you want a good GBA emulator, "FCEU" for NES, "Project 64" for N64, "ePSXe" for PSX, or head to www.ngemu.com for some news. Especially take a look at the post of N64 getting cel-shading and TrueFrom filters. Also, several of these require graphic and sound plug-ins to work and these are of varied quality. I can personally recommend Pete's PSX plug-ins as they seem to be the best ones out there ATM.

Cel-shading on any emulator would be awesome and especially PSX could really benefit of it. Final Fantasy 7 or Crash Bandicoot with up-to-date graphics, yam.

 

What is a BIOS? Do I need any special equipment?

 

You don't need anything more than the emulator program and something to run on it

A BIOS is the most basic functional level of a computer - the Basic Input/Output System. It lets the system handle keyboards, for instance, without needing to refer to software.

 

'zsnes' is probably the best SNES emulator around.

But beware when going to ROM sites - you're likely to end up with 10000 new pieces of spyware, viruses, ect.

 

@ Aikanaro IMO snes9x is better for the snes games, turbo mode is quite nifty, and it's much easier to use it than zsnes. But zsnes's auto (turbo?) botton is buttkicking.

eps works well for the old PS games.

 

Yeah, the GUI of Snes9x is much cleaner. Somehow the one in ZSNES feels a bit clumsy...

As to ROMs, most Google results are just spam-sites specifically designed to trash the results, so you may need to do some digging. ROM files themselves are pretty clean and personally I haven't come across a single virus in them.

 

Sorry Tal, my misinformation.

I was under the impression that if you had a ROM or ISO of a game you owned it counted as a backup copy, not pirated.

 

Every one I saw, which was like 3, said that it was ok to download games you already owned. Thank you for the heads up Tal. I'll have to be careful. Thanks everyone for the tips.

 

Technically yes, but if you have a large collection of "backup" copies the juries will hear none of it. But for single user they are as good as legal (--if you own the original one, of course ).

But that's just talk for users who *actually* care is it legal or not. Most don't.

 

Ok, I'll just have to be sneaky, er, careful. Thanks y'all.

 

Care to explain this? Emulators are perfectly legal if they don't distribute any copyrighted material with it. Which they don't. As for downloading ROMs, yes that is illegal unless you own the game. This is subject for some arguing here, but as you could "quite easily" dump the ROMs yourself and use them instead, how does it differ from downloading them instead? Also name some emulator makers or ROM dumpers that were busted because of dumping a game or making an emulator. Some may have been busted for distributing ROMs and rightly so.

 

That was probably some commercial emulator? That changes things quite a bit. I don't think there has been many of those except Bleem, which was doomed to fail at that time. But anyway, I won't push this matter further, think what you want to .