Emulation Page...How to's
Emulation is my newest thing at the moment. Some people are probably thinking Emu...what?
Basically it's the process of making your machine behave like another. You can "emulate" Acorns, macs, Ataris, Amigas, Arcade machines, consoles - like N64, SNES, NES, master system, Turbo Grafix 16, Genesis ( or megadrive) and even things like gameboys, game gears and NEO GEOs.
So where do you start?
Right, the first thing is to download an emulator. I'm wary about putting links in this page, as Emulation sites constantly change their servers ( a bit like warez sites.) a good one to start with is Classic Gaming.
They've got most of the emulators you'll need. If you want to start somewhere simple, download a NEO GEO emulator, NEO Rage X being the best of the lot. MAME is another good emulator for Arcade Machines, but you'll need what is known as a "Front End" ( a graphical interface to make the most of it.)
Right, lets take the emulator NEO Rage X.
When it's downloaded, unzip the file and put it in any directory you like.MAke sure you've downloaded a file called NEO Rage BIOS. This is an essential file, without which the emulator won't work.Sometimes download sites have a habit of putting the bios somewhere else, even on a different site. If you can't find it, go to a search engine and type "NEO Rage x BIOS." you'll find it somewhere! You now need the games, known as ROM IMAGES. These are sort of the insides to the games themselves. Obviously you start to get into copyright problems a lot with these, but I'll explain the legal aspects at the bottom of the page. To find some ROMs, go to classic gaming again, or just go to a search engine and type NEO GEO ROMs.
When you've downloaded a game, put the ROM ( still zipped - v. important) into any directory, but make sure you know where the hell it is. Best way to do it is to start a folder in "My Documents" or something like that, Named "ROMS."
Now Start the Emulator by clicking on the execute file ( the one which has the NEO GEO Graphic on it.)
You should be taken magically to a page , where you'll see alist of games on one side, and a option screen on the other. Click on "Directories" and then click on "Rom Path 1." Then type in the address of the directory where you put the ROM file earlier... ( i.e. c:\my documents\roms)
then click on "IMPORT." it should say...1 Game detected...click on Launch and away you go. Make sure at some point you Print out the read me File on NEORage X. It contains the keys for changing things such as scan-lines, resolution and sound.
One thing you should be aware of is the Legal side of Emulation. Owning/writing/downloading/using an Emulator is not a crime. However, the ROM Images ( the Games) are illegal to keep for more then 24 hours if you do not own the game , or do not own the copyright. Thought you'd all better know....