Emulators

[Clock]

I am curious what people think of emulators...

 

Technically your only supposed to use roms of the copyrighted games you already own, but lets be honest, most users will play the games they enjoy regardless of ownership.

 

So it must be wrong and therefore bad...

 

...but it also introduces a new generation to classic gaming which is good

[JB]

I think they're nice(a lot of games I likely never would have played without an emulator), but no substitute for a real system.

 

I also think much of the modern emulation community is people that just want free games.

GBA emulation is disturbingly popular, and people continue to leap upon every rumored PS2, XBox, and GameCube emulator with glee.

[Rocko]

I like emulation, for a few reasons:

1. I could try games before I buy them (This works for Cart based systems, I did this alot back when I had my SNES. Got Uniracers and a bunch of others because of it, so I do buy the games on my pc)

2. I can play the rarer games, without having to shell out mucho $$$

3. I use my Neo Geo and mame emus alot, because for both, the games are expensive (especially for the Neo Geo)

4. Real arcade games take space, something of which I dont have....

[Albert]

I think you're going to find that most people on a video game forum are going to be "pro-emulation". Besides being a great way to enjoy classic console, computer, and arcade games, they are great as a development tool when writing new games for these systems, and many companies are taking commercial advantage of emulation for mainstream retro gaming products. I think emulation has helped bring many people into the classic gaming scene, which in turn helps these commercial efforts by companies like Digital Eclipse, Infogrames, and Activision.

 

..Al

[HawgWyld]

As a rule, I don't much care for emulation, but find it useful for two things:

 

1. Great "try before you buy" method of testing games for the 2600 and such

 

2. MAME is great.

 

For the most part, however, emulation is no substitute for the original. Playing 2600 games on a Pentium IV with a snazzy joystick seems wrong somehow.

[Rocko]

For the most part' date=' however, emulation is no substitute for the original. Playing 2600 games on a Pentium IV with a snazzy joystick seems wrong somehow.[/quote']

 

That or using the keyboard to play Boxing or using a mouse on Kaboom!

[Vic George 2K3]

Oh, but the joy of playing Seaquest with a mouse!!!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Emulators are great for development (as long as you don't try new tricks ) and I also use them to check lots of games which I never would have chance to get.

[dark_vampiric_rogue]

Though i think the rule for Emulaters are stupid in teh first place--i'll just add in my 2 cents even if i will be hated for it or not

 

If you can break the law and get away with it--do it!

 

Emulaters are a way to have fun---and there is a loop hole that says you can use things 'for your own entertainment' so longa s ya dont mass produce it. sre-you can mas produce the games if you have the equipment but thats asking for trubble. Emulaters are a way of self-entertainment. So i dont follow that illigal bull that they posted up.

 

Besides, if i do get caught i can have the exuse that "i do have the games, but they were stolen from me or i lost them in the fire of my last house"

 

Trust the rogue

[atari_wizard]

i see nothing wrong with it. i have a 2600 emulator and i am trying to get all the games any how. i have 357 atari 2600 carts. so eventually i will catch up to what i have on my hard drive.

[raindog]

I find it hard to get morally outraged about infringing 25-year-old copyrights when most of them would have expired without the ludicrous extensions on top of extensions the movie and music industries have bought in the interim. (Speaking of moral outrage...)

 

That said, I tend to like playing these games on my laptop best of all, because it's portable, can emulate about 200lbs worth of different consoles and carts, and I do have two (still untested) Stelladaptors

[Gregory DG]

I think it was emulation that got me back into the Atari scene in the first place. Plus, it's great for getting screen captures without having to own the actual game and/or having to hook up my Atari to my computer.

[Room 34]

I keep MacMAME, RockNES, and Stella on all of my Macs, and I have every 2600 ROM from the AtariAge archives. This proves mainly to be useful in situations like last week, when my boss and I got on the topic of Atari and she remembered a game she used to play but wasn't sure what it was called. (It turned out to be Ghost Manor.)

 

Frankly, I find most 2600 games unplayable in emulation, partly because of the severity of the flicker (no phosphor simulation in Stella, at least on the Mac), and partly because Stella needs such a powerful processor to run in a window larger than a matchbook. (It works on my iMac G4 at home, but not in my G3 iBook.)

 

MacMAME and RockNES, on the other hand, are great for actually playing the games... but I don't play games on my computers that much anymore, now that I have the 'Cube.

[Cootster]

Well, for games/systems that you don't stand a reasonable chance of finding in the wild, it's a useful thing to keep them alive . . .

 

However, I don't get how ROMs for currently active systems (particularly the GBA, since the vast majority of the available stuff for the others are homebrews that the creators want to distribute because commercial games are too big to host) exist w/o a massive crackdown . . . You know the N's paying attention.

[raindog]

I think it's a whack-a-mole thing. You take down one site, it pops up on another. Then you have P2P, such as ed2k/emule and Bittorrent and even Usenet, and people in those venues tend to distribute Nintendo stuff extra heavily out of spite whenever Nintendo closes a site they liked. Keep in mind that Nintendo doesn't merely shut down sites that trade Gameboy stuff, but N64, SNES and NES stuff as well. They are within their legal rights to do so, but legal rights aren't enough to garner sympathy for big companies anymore. I certainly root for the pirates, even though the only consoles I own are Nintendo.

 

Basically, the law is a sledgehammer and the pirates are ants.

[Cap5750]

For the most part' date=' however' date=' emulation is no substitute for the original. Playing 2600 games on a Pentium IV with a snazzy joystick seems wrong somehow.[/quote'']

 

That or using the keyboard to play Boxing or using a mouse on Kaboom!

 

Try using a touchpad on a laptop!

 

Cap

[dark_vampiric_rogue]

For the most part' date=' however' date=' emulation is no substitute for the original. Playing 2600 games on a Pentium IV with a snazzy joystick seems wrong somehow.[/quote'']

 

That or using the keyboard to play Boxing or using a mouse on Kaboom!

 

Try using a touchpad on a laptop!

 

Cap

 

hehehe

[Susuwatari]

I think emulation is OK within reason. I use them to test play some games and to check out rare and expensive games. I prefer to playing on the real console so if I like the game, I'd consider buying it. If the game sucked, I won't buy it. It's like test driving a car before you buy them.

 

It's too bad some scum abuses this and play free games for the modern consoles, deprieving the company of the money they deserved.

[Rocko]

For the most part' date=' however' date=' emulation is no substitute for the original. Playing 2600 games on a Pentium IV with a snazzy joystick seems wrong somehow.[/quote'']

 

That or using the keyboard to play Boxing or using a mouse on Kaboom!

 

Try using a touchpad on a laptop!

 

Cap

 

Ouch. Thats gotta suck.

[Rocko]

I think emulation is OK within reason. I use them to test play some games and to check out rare and expensive games. I prefer to playing on the real console so if I like the game' date=' I'd consider buying it. If the game sucked, I won't buy it. It's like test driving a car before you buy them.

 

It's too bad some scum abuses this and play free games for the modern consoles, deprieving the company of the money they deserved.[/quote']

 

I do emu for the GBA, I have backed up all my games (and ONLY my games, no others) because I am constantly losing my GBA, or my friend has borrowed a game.