For example, if you own a Nintendo Entertainment System and games, then it is possible and legal for you to acquire a Nintendo emulator and Nintendo game "Roms" (games in PC format).  Then you'll be able to play Nintendo games on your own computer!

If you are interested in getting such emulation programs, then I'm not really the best person to go to for this.  There are other people out there that are almost obsessed with this, and they have information updated nearly every single day.  It is best to go to them.

In general, you must have the emulator itself, plus you must get whatever games you need to go along with it.  For legal reasons, it is very difficult to find emulators AND games in the same site, so you might have to do some searching.  Also, some emulators require that you get other additional files to beef up your computer's graphics abilities.

Below are some links to a few sites that have more information.

GAME SYSTEMS:

Go to Eldorado's Emulation Heaven for NES (Nintendo), SNES (Super Nintendo), GameBoy, Genesis, Master System, and TG16 emulation.  This guy is pretty good about reporting the latest for these game systems.

Go to Project UnReality for N64 (Nintendo 64 bit) emulation.  This is the home page of the emulator writer himself!

Go to Emu2K for Sony PlayStation emulation.  This, also, is the home page of the emulator writer himself!  There is another guy working on another PlayStation emulator, but Emu2K is further along, I believe.

ARCADE GAMES:

Go to Atmospherical Heights; this is it the best site I've found for old arcade games like Galaga and Mrs. Pac-Man and DigDug.

QUICK & ROUGH INFORMATION (as of Feb. 8, 1998):

Here is a quick summary of where emulation stands so far in the different systems.  This section does not have any links to emulators or games, but is simply information about some of the systems that are out.  Also, this information is not kept very current; for reference, this information here was last updated on Feb. 8, 1998.

NES (NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM):
The best emulator that I know of is Nesticle.  It emulates the Nintendo very well, and can run on almost any machine.  Sound is supported, and it runs almost perfectly.

SNES (SUPER NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM):
Keep in mind that the better a video game system is, the harder it is to emulate it.  It has taken a long time for SNES emulation to get to the point where it is today.  It is difficult to find an SNES emulator that supports sound AND can perform the complicated graphics effects such as transparency and color addition/subtraction.  At the same time, it is also difficult to write the program with efficient enough code to emulate at a decent speed.  The best emulator I know of is called ZSNES, and is very excellent.  If you have a VESA 2.0 graphics driver, then you can even see the best of SNES's graphics effects.  :)

N64 (NINTENDO 64 BIT):
Well, many people didn't think that it could be done, but a normal PC (which is 32-bit) CAN emulate a 64-bit system like the N64.  Speed, as it turns out, will not really be all that bad of a problem, because many N64 functions are really 32-bit.  Since the N64 has not been out very long, and since it is such a complex beast, no one has yet written an emulator that can run a real game such as Mario 64, but believe me, there is one guy out there that is working hard on it.  Project UnReality, as far as I know, is the only N64 emulation project under way.  He believes that games will be playable in the middle of the year.

SONY PLAYSTATION:
I don't know too much about this, because I don't own a PlayStation and the only game I play on one is Final Fantasy VII.  There are at least two main emulators for this system, but the better of the two is PSEmu (Emu2K's emulator), I believe.  Final Fantasy VII does not run on it yet, but I think there are a few PlayStation games that you can manage to play with it.

ARCADE GAMES:
The MAME emulator can play hundreds of arcade games on your PC that are exactly like the original.  There are many others, too.  Just go to Atmospherical Heights (discussed above).

OTHERS:
I don't know anything about the other systems.

This page was last updated on Feb. 8, 1998.
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