Sunday, April 10, 2011

Playing old console games on your computer

Do you have old games that you want to play but can't because either the game is broken in some way or missing cables for the system itself? Then there is a simple way to make it so you can play it on your computer. Though how simple it is really depends on what game console you want to work. There are programs out there, called emulators, that make it so that you can play games on the computer from arcade games to the Wii. But the later the generation of the console the more buggy it will be (anything from the Gamecube foreword will most likely give you more advance problems that more has to do with the fact that the emulator is still unable to keep up then problems on the users end.)

So the easiest emulator to work with is the SNES and the NES. The emulator for the SNES is called ZSNES, http://www.zsnes.com/index.php?page=files . Once you have made it to the site all you have to do is download the current version of the emulator made for your computer type. When you have downloaded the emulator you will have the potential to play any game for the system it emulates, but it does not come with the games you want to play attached so the next step will be to find the Rom for the game you want to play. You will not be able to find roms on the site that you get your emulator from, this is due to the fact that it is illegal for a person to own a rom of a game that they have not purchased for the original system. But after you use google to find a download of the rom that you want to play, all you have to do is put it in the folder that you have the emulator in (make sure the rom is not in a .zip folder). After you have both the emulator and the rom in place all you have to do is start the emulator and open the rom to start the game. Make sure to make the settings to your liking, mostly the controls.

For now I will leave the emulators at that. If you want to see instructions on how to get other emulators to work leave a comment at my most recent post. Also if you have any questions on any of my post, or if you have a new question entirely, you should also leave a comment on my newest post.