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Post by Haz on Oct 23, 2010 15:21:08 GMT -5
I think it was around late '99-early 2000, when I was bored as hell looking around the internets for random game sites and such. Then I suddenly stumbled upon a site that had download links to a Game Boy emulator and a couple of homebrew roms (I specifically remember one of them being Poke Mission '98.) I thought you couldn't get official stuff until my sister had checked out a British site (which isn't around anymore as of 5 years ago) which had a bunch of official GB/C releases and I promptly grabbed Grand Theft Auto, Donkey Kong '94, a Harvest Moon game and some others. It was pretty mind blowing knowing we could do that stuff on the computer at the time, and I ended up losing a lot of sleep. Then I discovered NES emulation with RockNES X, which was the first emulator whose name I remember, and promptly made all 6 Megaman games my bitch. I also spent lots of time on Super Spy Hunter. After I had gotten SNES9x, though with Megaman 7, "Rockman and Forte" and bunch of DBZ and Sailor Moon games, it all spiraled out of control from there, as I had eventually ended up getting an emu for every damn mainstream console under the sun including StellaX (2600) Gens (Genesis), MEKA (SMS/GG) and ones for Intellivision and Colecovision. I had also tried N64 and PS1 emulation with ePSXe and Project64 (I think) but Snowboard Kids 2 ran like shit on my old PC. The former would've worked but we didn't have any PS1 discs in the house and on 56k dial-up it'd take a million years to download an ISO. Forgot to mention: among the SNES games my uncle included on that CD was a bunch of public-domain games, including the infamous "Rape Games." Terrible game. iirc, was it the game where the last "level" was with the executioner chopping the chick's head off who's giving him head at the end, or am I thinking of something else? 'cause that might be the game I've been looking for again for ages.
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Post by Sac (a.k.a Icaras) on Oct 25, 2010 9:32:42 GMT -5
I came across emulation due to Final Fantasy 7.
Partly this was because the game was hyped like crazy back in the day, but the other reason was that a mate of mine at school, in my Computer Graphics class, had FF7 on the PSX and was looking up stuff about it all the time. We came across a "Mr t vs FF7" webcomic and got a big laugh out of it.
When I went searching for the game myself, I stumbled across a page about emulating the original Final Fantasy 1 for the NES and set out to download it (Zipped across many floppys, as I only had access to the net at school at the time, lol)
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Post by TheChosen on Oct 25, 2010 16:16:09 GMT -5
This disk-usage reminds me of little irony: When I got my new computer and it didnt have a internet access, I had to download roms with school computers. I didnt even have a USB memory stick at one time, so I had to use my MP3 player at the beginning.
Some things never change.
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Post by Lash on Nov 1, 2010 2:11:07 GMT -5
The first game I went for emulated was Mega Man X3 because I couldn't find a copy anywhere.
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mress
New Member
Videogame Ninja
Posts: 6
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Post by mress on Nov 18, 2010 13:35:24 GMT -5
My first encounter with emulation was with NESticle and Genecyst. My computer was an AMD 800, pretty good at that time, but without internet connection is was kinda hard to get roms, so I used to go to cybercafes to download roms and save them in a floppy disk to play at home.
Everytime I went to the cyber I read about MAME. So I decided to buy a 256mb pen drive (!!) to download the emulator and roms. Later, I put internet at home and thats when I become a totally fanatic of emulation.
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Post by personman on Nov 18, 2010 17:07:47 GMT -5
I can't remember the exact time, might have been like '02 or '03. I was in a tech class and we were to research something on the net and of course I did no such thing and instead looked up things about video games. Found a website that was selling vintage game systems and somewhere there was mention of emulation and I was all "Super Nintendo games on MY computer?"
We got our first pc shortly after (seriously) and I jumped at the chance to find out more and discovered Edge Emulation (which I think is still around today) and went nuts. I can't remember what game it was first but it was probably one of the Megaman X games (probably 3.) I even got involved in the forums there an learned how to behave in such an environment the hard way, haha. Memories.
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Yuan
Full Member
The Original Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles Yuan
Posts: 248
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Post by Yuan on Nov 18, 2010 23:38:04 GMT -5
1997, Nesticle, Ninja Ryukenden, REVELATION DAY
I used to draw the Super Metroid maps and items from the manual on Paintbrush, and that's how I learned how to make game graphics. I also had many (incorrectly) made dumps of my games, and regularly looked for a way to run them at least partially.
When I downloaded that strange program and one of my favorite games, I simply could not believe I was playing a pixel perfect reproduction that I could study.
I then made some NR maps via print screens. From there I've always tried to keep myself updated with emulators, although I prefer to play with real hardware.
But yeah, Paradise Lost day to me...
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Post by Lee on Nov 19, 2010 14:56:22 GMT -5
It was MAME. I remember playing Dungeons and Dragons at the arcade and falling in love with it. I patiently waited for the PSX port, but then it never came around. After this heartbreaking revelation, I started researching MAME32 and roms. After some trial and error I had the game running smoothly on my mom's old desktop. I was so happy. Arcade emulation remains my favorite type, because so many sweet games never got a proper port or one at all.
After I got back from military duty a few years ago, one of the first things I bought was a D&D CPS2 arcade cabinet!
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Post by beach1 on Nov 25, 2010 18:16:55 GMT -5
I first found out about emulation in the summer of 2002. I couldn't believe that there was such a thing and felt so amazed by it. It felt like I had a whole store full of games available to play, which I guess it was. I started playing Ys 4 and Romancing SaGa 3 for the SNES. It was awesome.
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Post by shelverton on Nov 26, 2010 19:33:32 GMT -5
I don't remember exactly what year, but it must've been at least 10 years ago. I heard about "emulation" and shortly thereafter I downloaded NESticle with literally hundreds of games. I couldn't believe my eyes. First game I played was Ninja Gaiden 3 cause it was never released in Europe. NESticle opened up a whole new world for me and TOTALLY made me the somewhat nerdy, somewhat hardcore gamer I am today. But my strongest memory of emulation was the day I found out that you could emulate SNES games too. I don't remember what emulator I used, but I do however remember immediately typing "Seiken Densetsu 3 emulation" in Google (or whatever I used back then) cause I had been thinking about it ever since Squaresoft cancelled the english version in 1995 (was it?). I forced myself through the first few hours of the game until I gave up. Couldn't understand a damn thing of what was happening on screen. Later I found out that the game had been translated... rest is history
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Post by akumajobelmont on Feb 20, 2011 16:02:45 GMT -5
My firsts were KGen 98, Genecyst and ZSnes back in 1998.
KGen98 is still host to my absolute fave UI in an emulator ever... those colours, the menu layout... everything... it was truly beautiful.
Genecyst had better compatibility, and was closer in reproducing some of the raster effects and other graphics, but the sound was a little off to my ears.
ZSnes blew my mind too... all those graphic filters!!! I used to sit for hours trying to find the best balance between filter and framerate... they looked mighty pretty back then, and were something of a goal for me to get running smoothly on my Pentium 200 MMX; it's funny how that now I can run all the filters I would ever want to, but don't anymore. Because, you know, they're U-G-L-Y...
I kinda wish there was a KGen98 front-end for Kega... I'd hit that again in a heartbeat!
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jcc
Junior Member
Posts: 52
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Post by jcc on Feb 22, 2011 19:03:24 GMT -5
Early '99, I searched the net for Colecovision info as I had sold it (and the 2600 and the NES) a few years earlier and had missed it. Found out you could play the actual games on your computer and went buckwild downloading those and 2600 roms, as they were the easiest to download on 56k. I think the website I downloaded the roms from had decapitated Grover (from Sesame Street) heads as the background image. The Holy Shit This Is Amazing moment for me, though, was DLing Nesticle and Legend Of Zelda. When the title screen and theme came on I got chills.
It's embarrasing how into this ("the emulation scene") I got, frequenting plasticman.org, vimm.net, emux. I remember there was a flame war between Emulationists/rom hoarders and Neo Geo hardware owners.
I get back into gaming hardcore through this period of emulation. Before that I had dismissed video games as kid stuff and had stopped playing during my high school years.
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Post by lanceboyle94 on Mar 13, 2011 21:17:42 GMT -5
I can't exactly remember when was it that I discovered emulation, but I believe it was in 2001. I had gone to a friend's house. He had ZSNES. I didn't know anything about emulation, but back then for me seeing SNES games on a PC was mindblowing. We played plenty of games. Killer Instinct, Super Mario Kart, Biker Mice from Mars, many others. He later got a disc filled with Genesis roms that included Genecyst and KGen. Some people I know/knew also had that disc. For a guy that back then still had his Genesis it was fucking awesome, and I loved to see many of the games that I had on a PC. Another memorable emulation anecdote of mine was the PS1 pirate CD Family vs. Sega, which had both an NES emulator and a Master System emulator (which may have surprised those who expected Genesis games, since it's known as "the Sega" around here) on one disc filled with tons of roms. Then I discovered MAME, again, thanks to a CD with tons of roms. It was some version from '99, but it was still amazing. It wasn't until 2005 that I started downloading emus and roms (I was rockin' games like Virtua Cop 2 and many of the NFS games), and I think that the very first emulator I ever downloaded was NeoPocket. Me and my brother used that emu A LOT. The Metal Slug titles, KOF R2, Bust-A-Move and the Card Fighters Clash games (the second having the English translation patch!). And then in 2006 we downloaded LOTS of emus (including an INTELLIVISION emulator!). So, yeah, emulation was and still is awesome. My firsts were KGen 98, Genecyst and ZSnes back in 1998. Coincidentally enough, those were the first emulators I had ever used (although it was the DOS KGen) PD: I do remember speed-clicking through those voting sites with hentai ads. Good times.
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Post by taizou on Mar 14, 2011 11:42:28 GMT -5
Around 98, via NESticle, on my grandparents' computer - I remember getting SMB1, 2 and 3, Zelda 1 and 2 and Street Fighter 2010 for some reason(?) from some random site with about 10 roms and a terrible background. that was both my first experience of emulation and my first experience of NES games - now I get nostalgic for NESticle's dodgy sound emulation :D
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Post by Feynman on Mar 14, 2011 21:24:15 GMT -5
The very first game I emulated was Elevator Action on Mac OS 7.5.3, roughly a trillion years ago. I don't remember the year, but emulation was just starting to become A Thing, and AOL + 56k modem was something tons of people still used as opposed to a laughingstock.
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