How did you find out about emulation?

[Isegrim]

I think I posted in a similar topic like this one. I'll just repeat it adding a bit more details that I remember just now.

Sometime in 1998-2000, I can't remember the year exactly, I was wandering through the computer section of a local mall in my country infamous for bootleg or counterfeit items especially with regards to PC and console games. I saw a bootleg CD with the label King of Fighters 94-whatever the latest KOF was. I was more of a Capcom fan those days and was just getting into KOF after watching people in the arcade duke it out in KOF 97 and 98 and seeing the amazing gameplay and combos of the local regulars. I already bought KOF 97 (and subsequently, 98) for the PS1 and really liked it even with the atrocious loading times. I was also buying games for my Dreamcast from Hong Kong and the U.S. like King of Fighters 98 Dream Match, KOF 99 Evolution and paid a lot of money to have it imported in my country.

Now back to that CD, since I paid so much for those importing those KOF titles, I couldn't believe what was in those CD's as possibly true. I actually ignored those CD's for a time and on a whim, bought the CD one day which cost less than a hamburger-soda value meal.

I got home, found a program called Neorage X, some roms...and after fiddling with it...amazed the games worked great on my computer.

They worked even better when I bought a cheap PC controller and hooked it up. I couldn't believe my eyes. I was playing a Neo Geo game, a title that cost hundreds of dollars for one cart working right there in my computer. And after I spent all that money on importing those KOF titles and here it is, working nearly as good as the ones I bought...notwithstanding the very slight frameskips...I think. (But to be honest, the imported games did have some things emulation didn't have like arranged music, Athena's song being sung with vocals, Extra Strikers not available in the Neo Geo version of 99 and 2000, gallery mode from SNK artists that gave insights on the characters personality, ingame drama and so forth)

When KOF 2001 was released, I already found a CD with the ROM in it at the same time our local arcades brought it out. I suppose this could have been one of the reasons why SNK went bankrupt the first time but I did import the Dreamcast game for KOF 2001 as well so I paid my dues for that one.

Anyway, that's how I learned about emulation. And it was good timing too since Capcom vs SNK 1 and 2 was about to come out and I got to learn all about the earlier KOF games and other Neo Geo titles just in time to see the references and moves they were lifting the SNK characters out from.

 

[Advil Lavs]

I think I watched a video about Vimm's lair back in 2020 and decided to check it out. And the first thing I played was Super Mario Bros, I think.

 

[petran79]

My pal had Callus 95 on his PC back in the late 90s and I was amazed that we could play Final Fight, Captain Commando and all those amazing CPS1 beat-em-ups.
As I had internet back in 1997-98, I searched about emulation and discovered Raine and Neo Rage X. Downloaded as many games as I could and we played many sessions together
Back then MAME was still in its infancy and not as popular.

 

[d0beye]

I'm a young boy compared to everyone else lol I wanted to play Pokemon Red in 2016 with my friend after playing Go and downloaded a GB emulator on my phone. I remember trading with my friend and being like "this can do that??" I was mindblown to say the least.

 

[SoThankful]

My friend introduced me to VBA. Good times.

 

[secreto7]

I think around the end of the millenium someone gave me a CD full of Sega Genesis games and the emulators Genecyst adn KGen.
It was really good.

 

[Tonberry]

I've told this story here before but my dad's friend gave me a CD of snes9x and a ton of roms when I was like 7.
I probably still have the CD somewhere.

 

[Juiceala]

Bro, I'm literally a SPERM compared to the answers here

A sperm with a pfp of Yumi ;)

 

[CheesyExplosive]

brothersoft

 

[Cardboardtubeknight Cardboardtubeknight]

I knew about zsnes during the limewire days though I never used it since I still have the same snes I had 30 years ago. I just shared how to get it with friends.

 

[Jayonnaise6105 Jayonnaise6105]

Around 2004-2005, my mother and I would visit some friends of hers every so often and they had a computer with a Super Nintendo emulator on it.
No idea how or why they had one, but I played it every opportunity I got. I remember loving some very rough fan translations of Dragon Ball Z: Super Saiya Densetsu & Sailor Moon: Another Story.

 

[W4SD]

The first emulator i ever played was project 64 on my dads laptop in 2007 iirc, and i played quest 64 on it
There was also a SNES emulator but i cant remember the name, i used to play super mario kart on it alot

 

[MasterEn]

i think and vaguely remember it being because of brawl minus. i asked a friend of mine to mod my wii after getting a few chances to play brawl minus in between classes at college. i was looking up stuff and finding out that there were programs to play nes, snes, n64, gb/c, gba and gamecube games on my wii.a and from there, i then started playing games on my windows 98 laptop, then my psp, and then my last 3 laptops; with my newest one being the strongest so far; being able to play switch games and probably wii/u. haven't checked on that yet; i keep playing pikmin 1 and 2.

 

[Soupmancer]

I was a teenager running a Pokemon battle page on Facebook and I found out about ZSNES and VisualBoy Advanced through my coadmins when I offhandedly mentioned wanting to play Fire Emblem. Eventually I found out a out DesMume and played pirated, untranslated Pokemon BW2. Yes, even with the anti-piracy slowness. Good times.

 

[Mr.Yes]

My father brought ePSXe home via USB flash.
Rest is history.

 

[blanchiesmett]

2022-ish? I was around thirteen and really wanted to play Silent Hill 3 on my school laptop. :)

 

[NotABot165]

NESticle, Genecyst, and Callus... the Bloodlust Software trifecta of early emulation is what got me started. My interest waned until I found out about RetroAchievements.

 

[Zergling666]

I remember getting a r4DS in 2007, while figuring out how to use it, I discovered DS homebrew. The rest is history.

 

[DjQuick2008]

probably some obscure website that i was able to get a snes emulator from had it set up on my all in 1 PC in 2017 till the motherboard crashed. once the handheld market got good i started bigtime now ive learned to set up systems myself.

 

[R66-Y]

When i was like 8 years old someone downloaded the ZSNES with a bunch of roms in the family PC and that open me the door to a new world, in that time this emulator interface got me thinking it was a full operative system apart, like Windows but specific made to play cool games

 

[MegaDrive1987]

Around 2001 when we first got a family desktop, one of my mates in school who also had a PC (and AOL dialup) told me about it, 13 year old me was blown away when I was told you could run GameBoy games on your PC. I found an emulator then downloaded Pokemon Red and was shitting myself for about a fortnight thinking I was gonna get arrested for downloading a ROM of a game I didn't own hahaha!!

 

[MajesticSiN]

I visited one of my friends at the time and he was showing off his computer with a bunch of nes games on it.
I was instantly hooked on the idea of emulation then.

 

[chxshire22]

i can't find the tech now but back then i was desperate to play pokemon games on my phone, it was the era of sliding sony ericsson phones.
somehow i got gbc running on it and i cld play pokemon yellow

later on, as smartphones entered the scene, gba was available and somehow we cld also use bluetooth for trading pokemon and battling so the whole school started playing pokemon firered/leafgreen/emeral/ruby/sapphire again. this was like 2011-2013 or something.

 

[Judgment System]

I was visiting family in the Caribbean when I was a little kid and the living room computer had a snes emulator with a ton of games loaded. The first one I picked was Super Back to the Future II and then Dracula X. I loved it so much my uncle burned the files onto a dvd but I was so young I didn't know what to do with it when I got back home. For many years after that I had the image of Dracula X clear in my mind but no clue what game it was.

Had a Ratatouille moment the day I fired it up and saw that town on fire again.

 

[ScriptorFaust]

I think around 2004? I didn't have a computer back then but a friend of mine showed me a Dragon Ball game running in a tiny window which was enough to get me invested :D I installed ZNES on many school PCs afterwards...