How long have you been emulating games?

[Yousef]

introduced me to the concept of emulation with a GBA emulator and later I learned how to work with PSP ISO

ME TOO!!! Although I was the “older sibling” hahahaha. My first psp iso was gta VCS actually. It’s the only 3d gta without a modern re-release. Playing it again after a 14 year break genuinely blew my mind. There’s something really nice about a game being “just as good as you remember it” except for me it was even BETTER than i remember it. (I’m the gta freak for a reason don’t be surprised lmao)

 

[OmegaKatanaXIII]

Personally I first started with an emulator called VBA advance due to wanting to play the fan translated verison of SRW J. Then I started playing gba/GB series of games then moved to the nes then snes then genesis then the arcade starting with Winkawaks then mame then the flipping playstation with epexe the bios took a while to get used to then the dreamcast. All of this from the early 2010s.

 

[RetroLaw]

N64 had no footing, and having to turn down almost every request on the system bothered me immensely... as a new writer coming into the scene I really couldn't afford to do that. The only games I could review were Pilotwings 64, Banjo-Kazooie and Pokemon Stadium 2. And I actually did a playthrough of the first two to compensate.

Not being able to play the Goemon games broke my heart back then.

 

[RageBurner]

Probably the very.late 90s..

 

[Yousef]

Probably the very.late 90s..

Which system was the easiest to emulate? (And hardest?) from where you first started

 

[WHEREISTHECAKE]

I got my start back in 2012 on the PS1 emulator ePSXe. The first game I emulated was my favorite video game of all time, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

I started emulation with SNES and Sega Genesis games in my first computer a looong time ago. Amazing how things change. Back then, when using Windows XP things were so hard to find in the Internet, you know, create a collection, but today these files are so small and easy to place anywhere, that sometimes I want to get back to be a boy again with the PC I have today. haha

 

[ladyerrant]

Which system was the easiest to emulate? (And hardest?) from where you first started

For me, my computer was crap (486DX2 66Mhz) so gameboy/mastersystem was the best I could do comfortably. I think some SNES games would work, but only a handful. It wasnt just the machines, but emulators back then were primitive and not well optimized like they are today.

 

[Yousef]

I

For my, my computer was crap (486DX2 66Mhz) so gameboy/mastersystem was the best I could do comfortably. I think some SNES games would work, but only a handful. It wasnt just the machines, but emulators back then were primitive and not well optimized like they are today.

I see. I asked because i always wondered about that forum post in 1994 that said snes emulation (at the time) would be impossible and I always wondered the validity of the claim cuz I heard it mocked a few times (could be cuz of people looking back on it I’m hindsight)

 

[CanicheSlayer]

Probably between 1997 or 2000 (can't remember the exact year). I think It started with the first emulators for the Super Nintendo. Final Fantasy VI...with a LOT of bugs or strange problems

 

[mariokarthero]

Around the early-mid 2010s via modded Wii and some older Android tablets/phones. Gpt more serious about it arpund the 2020s once I started watching people like RetroGameCorps and Mr Sujano.

 

[ladyerrant]

I

I see. I asked because i always wondered about that forum post in 1994 that said snes emulation (at the time) would be impossible and I always wondered the validity of the claim cuz I heard it mocked a few times (could be cuz of people looking back on it I’m hindsight)

It probably seemed like it at the time, but nobody expected CPU performance to grow so rapidly.

 

[WHEREISTHECAKE]

Around the early-mid 2010s via modded Wii and some older Android tablets/phones. Gpt more serious about it arpund the 2020s once I started watching people like RetroGameCorps and Mr Sujano.

I used to have a modded wii. Unfortunately, that is not the case anymore due to time complications. I want to experiment wii emulation through Dolphin, but I need more time for that. I believe I still can use the wii sensor bar for emulation on Dolphin.

 

[Idioms]

i was emulating the very moment i was able to remember what i ate for breakfast (around 2008). my dad got us a pc and it had an N64 emulator with a lot of mario games and I played the ever living shit out of those

 

[WHEREISTHECAKE]

i was emulating the very moment i was able to remember what i ate for breakfast (around 2008). my dad got us a pc and it had an N64 emulator with a lot of mario games and I played the ever living shit out of those

Good times... When you were trying to beat the shit out of bowser in Mario 64 with a broken controller stick. How to rotate the bastard and throw him in one of the bombs around the arena... I had this issue with one of my N64 controllers.

 

[Gorse]

I must have been about 12, so… I guess nearly 15 years ago, nightmarishly! At the time, if you wanted to play original Gameboy or NES games, you didn’t even need to download anything — some sites just had the emulator and the games embedded directly into their webpages. I remember specifically playing Kirby’s Dreamland 2 through to completion in an 800x600px window. Me and my friends would try to race through the original Super Mario Bros. on one of those sites, too.

Also, as I’ve mentioned before, my cousin gave me a CD-ROM containing emulated versions of Donkey Kong Country, one of the Donkey Kong Land games (I believe 2), and Super Mario Bros when I was maybe 6 or 7. I have extremely nostalgic memories of playing all those games on dark, rainy afternoons over a gently-humming PowerMac.

 

[E0N]

Probably around 2007-ish. One of my friend introduced me to emulator and emulation in general. Played a ton of Pokemon Green on a GB emulator (forgot the name unfortunately). Those were some good times that I will never get back (sigh)

 

[RageBurner]

Which system was the easiest to emulate? (And hardest?) from where you first started

The Mega Drive/Genesis ran really well using Genecyst if you booted into DOS to emulate. The SNES too if you used ZSNES. Anything below that was trivial even on a weak machine of the time because many of those earlier emulators were so well optimized and written in pure assembly.

 

[stealthRUSH]

Since the early 2000s, somewhere around 2003 I think. SNES, GBA early on.

 

[χKai]

About 25 years. I started when I was a kid, preteen, and AOL was still everyone's main form of internet service.

 

[Stingy Perry]

About 10 years ago I started emulating 8-16bit consoles on my android phone.

 

[χKai]

About 10 years ago I started emulating 8-16bit consoles on my android phone.

Please hit me up if you ever want tips, pointers, or a nod in the right direction.

My computer stopped working over a year ago and I've had to cope by learning to use phone applications to patch all my ROMs. Dying to pass on some of this useless knowledge.

 

[DanCalibur]

Since 2002, we still didn't have internet here at the time, so we needed to go hunt for emulators and roms in the real world

 

[Cheela]

i am nearly 25 years old soo probably close to 26 years emulating (just kidding)
My dad emulated the NES with Nesticle back in 2003, that how i was introduced to games in general.
Then my cousins installed KGEN and i got introduced to the Sega Genesis my beloved.
My first conscious emulation was back in 2006 when i emulated GBA games with VisualboyAdvance.

 

[Zerpina]

To be Honest, i couldn't tell you.
Long enough to have, a personal collection of 2500+ games.
But since the early 90's at-least. Use to Rent games and Rip them to .Iso, sometimes bin&cue

 

[jankusanagi]

Since 1998~99 or so, with Nesticle, ZSNES and some NeoGeo emulator (Maybe NeoRageX? Not MAME yet)