getting started with emulators

[paladoris]

Hi everyone . I'm really interested in using an emulator for gameplay on my PC. I suppose what I'm looking for as a little advice, or a primer or something, because I've never used this method before. Which one is best? Is it difficult to configure on the PC, and is there a high rate of error? (aka, will I screw up my computer?). If anyone can help me out I would really appreciate it...I'm very interested in this as I've heard so many talk about them. Are they stable? How do you hook up the joystick? I've visited the Stella website but it wasn't really clear.

 

Thanks so much,

Brandi~:-)

[Cap5750]

Well I used to prefer z26 as it was the fastest and most accurate. However, since I switched to XP (and I have an SB Live Card), I haven't been able to get it to work correctly.

 

That said, I use pretty much all of them as each one seems to have its own strengths and weaknesses. A game may not play right on one, that will play correctly on the other.

 

Cap

[Thomas Jentzsch]

z26 is still the best, but for XP you should try CyberStella.

[AtariDude]

Hi everyone .  I'm really interested in using an emulator for gameplay on my PC.  I suppose what I'm looking for as a little advice, or a primer or something, because I've never used this method before.  Which one is best?  Is it difficult to configure on the PC, and is there a high rate of error?  (aka, will I screw up my computer?).  If anyone can help me out I would really appreciate it...I'm very interested in this as I've heard so many talk about them.  Are they stable?  How do you hook up the joystick?  I've visited the Stella website but it wasn't really clear.

 

Thanks so much,

Brandi~:-)

 

It is not clear but are you referring to Atari emulators or emulators in general? I see that you mentioned Stella which is an Atari 2600 emulator but I did not want to make the assumption that this was the type of emulator that you were interested in.

[Atari2600Lives]

download an emulator such as cyber stella, download roms and place them in the appropriate directory (read the instructions on how to do this). CYberstella works fine with a USB gamepad (as an example) it should work with most joysticks or gamepads for the PC.

[Voch]

Also, if you use any of the versions of Stella (CyberStella, Stella for DOS, Stella for Macintosh, etc.) I have available a Stella profile file that helps the emulator recognize and properly play the various "known" Atari 2600 ROM dumps. It is updated pretty frequently (whenever I find a new ROM that is dumped or created, whenever I find or am told of a game setting that needs tweaking, etc.).

 

An older version is likely distributed with the various versions of Stella itself but you can always get the latest version from my Stella profile home page. Unzip the STELLA.PRO file from the zip and put it in the same directory as the Stella executable.

 

If you have any more questions or potential additions to the profile file (like "game XXX is supposed to use paddles", etc.) my e-mail is listed in the header of the profile file.

 

Voch