KatC's Emulation FAQ originally posted by KatC at her website, http://www.sailorjedi.com/skatc/ ***What are 'Emulated Games'?*** Emulation is a way of imitating one type of system on another. For example, imitating console systems (SuperNintendo, Genesis) on a PC or MAC. You can even emulate a MAC with your PC, but here I'm just going to focus on console systems. In order to run SNES or Genesis games on your computer, you need to first run an emulating program, called emulator, which acts just like the desired console system. Then, you can use the emulator to run your games, which are in ROM (read only memory) form. ROMs are copies of the data from cartridges that have been modified slightly for use with emulators. So, emulated games are games for console systems (like Super Mario Brothers for NES), except you play them on your computer. ROMs can be downloaded from the internet, and traded online, so of course this poses some legal issues. ***Are they illegal?*** I have heard many different takes on the legality of ROMs and emulation. In North America, the saying goes that it is okay to download and keep ROMs for a 24 hour demo period. After that, it is illegal to keep a ROM unless you already own the cartridge, and are using the ROM for backup or playability purposes. Now there is the matter of games from places like Japan that have never been translated into English and released in North America. It is difficult, and perhaps impossible for someone in NA to get a hold of these games by perfectly legal means. Also, the Japanese version of the SuperNintendo (called SuperFamicom) is slightly different, and you need to buy an adapter to play their games on an SNES system. This isn't hard to do, but it raises the price and lowers the number of Japanese import games available in North America. I look at it this way: if the only way you're going to be able to play an old SNES game is to find a copy at EBay for $130US, then emulation is a definite consideration. By the way, if you are interested in buying the actual cartridges, check the first bunch of links on my Moonchandise page (in the Venus section). You can find most of the newer games at those stores, including the games for Playstation and PCEngine which are not available in ROM form. ***Which emulator should I use?*** Since 11 of the 15 ROMs on my site are for SuperFamicom (the Japanese version of SuperNintendo), I will only talk about SFC/SNES emulators here. On the downloads pages, I've listed two emulators for each of the games from other systems (ie Gameboy). I haven't tested them, so just pick one and try it; if it doesn't work, try the other one. For SuperFamicom and SuperNES (they are basically the same system), I do have a favorite emulator: ZSNES. (http://www.zsnes.com/) It is freeware, has a nice interface, and works without a glitch with all the sailormoon SFC games. I have tested all the games with ZSNES version 0.953c, but can't make any guarantees about later releases. WARNING: ZSNES v0.963c in particular will not run some of the games! The other great SFC/SNES emulator is SNES9X. (http://www.snes9x.com/) Try it if you have trouble with ZSNES. I suggest using the MS-DOS version over the Windows one, since it works better in many ways, and has some functions that the Windows version does not. If you're using Unix or MacOS, you can also find links to emulators for many console systems at the Emulation Zone: http://www.emulationzone.org/consoles/snes/snes.htm ***How do I run the games?*** To play an emulated game, you need: a) the game, and b) an emulator. First, go get a copy of the emulator you are going to use, for example ZSNES, and unzip it to a new directory. Then, download the game(s) you want to play from my downloads section, and unzip them to the same folder. The ROM will have the extension .FIG, .SFC, .SMC, .GB or etc, and double-clicking on it shouldn't do anything. So do not double-click on the ROMs themselves. Instead, run the emulator (eg ZSNES) and choose "load game" then select the game file you want and click "load". This will be a little different for each emulator, but in most cases it should be pretty obvious how to do it. All the emulators use the keyboard as the default input. Certain keys represent the "A", "B", and "start" buttons. Please read the documentation that came with your emulator to find out which keys are which by default. In ZSNES, you can easily re-program the keys, or change to use a joystick instead. Just look in the config menu. If you have any difficulties with your emulator, please read the documentation and consult their website for help. If you are still having trouble, check the Troubleshooting FAQ. The Troubleshooting FAQ! ***Problem! I click load, then the screen goes black...*** In SNes9x: Running a file that is either not a ROM, or is an incomplete ROM, in Snes9x will cause the screen to go black (press ESC to go back to the menu). Make sure you didn't get any errors while unzipping the ROM, then check that the ROM size is correct. If all else fails, try running it in ZSNES. In ZSNES: Running an incomplete game usually causes it to quit with an error. However, one of the newest versions of ZSNES, v0.963c, just won't run a few of the ROMs. The game goes black after you load the game, and so far I don't know why. My suggestion is simply to avoid v0.963c for now. (use v0.953c instead) ***What does zipped mean??*** ZIP is a type of compression used to shrink files down, or squish a lot of little files into one big one. My space online is limited so I zip most of the large files. Zipping files also shortens download time and makes it easier to download programs with many pieces. Also, most free webspace providers only allow certain file extensions, which includes ZIP, but not EXE or SMC. After you download the emulated game ROMs, you have to unzip them. You need a compression program such as Winzip to do this. If the computer you are using already has one, you can just double-click on the file you downloaded and it will unzip automatically. If you need a copy of Winzip, you can get a free trial version from their website at www.winzip.com. Depending on your web browser, you may be able to get a plug-in which unzips files as you download them. You can usually stop this from happening by right-clicking on the file link and choosing "save as" instead of left-clicking on it. The newest version of both ZSNES and SNES9X emulators have built-in ZIP decompression, so you can load ZIPped ROMs from inside them. This is useful to know if you don't have much space on your computer, but you're still going to need Winzip to unzip ZSNES or SNES9X in the first place. ***You still haven't answered my question!*** If you're still having trouble, you can post your question on the FAQ forum, and I will try to find an answer. [Kotetsu's note: KatC's forums are located at http://www.sailorjedi.com/skatc/info/forum.html] Please make sure you mention which version of which emulator you were using (eg ZSNES v0.953c), and which game(s) you tried. Most problems are with the emulator, not the ROMs themselves.