Help me complete my library.

Thebullfrog · Post by **Thebullfrog** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 7:26 pm

Okay, so I've decided to start a bit of a pet project. I have a couple of younger siblings that are too young to remember or have played all the wonderful games of the past. So the quest I'm embarking upon is developing as complete as possible a library of games and emulators.
Right now I have ZSNES and a pretty much complete collection of U.S. release ROMS. I also run NEStopia with a complete library. I'm going to be adding Kega Fusion and trying to dig up the ROMS again (ick, wish I had a backup from my old comp). My question though is about the PS1 and Saturn. Are there decent emulators for these systems that can run enough games well enough to be worth it and which ones are they? Also, do ROMS of the "important" games from these systems even exist? Think along the lines of Panzer Dragoon Saga, Xenogears, Final Fantasy Tactics/ 7, Castlevania SoTN etc. you get the idea. No, I'm not asking where to get the ROMS, just confirmation that they do exist and can be had for free. I'm mostly looking for advice on which emulators to grab though.

bobthebuilder · Post by **bobthebuilder** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 7:34 pm

Honestly the whole experience was about playing the games on the actual console. Go to a flea market and get the systems if you want them to appriciate the systems. Also why get all the releases if they will never play them all???

I.S.T. · Post by **I.S.T.** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 7:40 pm

Almost complete collections of PS1/Saturn are available, and all major games are easily found. Right now, Saturn emulation has just started to really get good. I'm not sure of the specifics, however. PS1 emulation is rather good, with pSX and ePSXe being the two current stars, so to speak.

The main problem is file size. a 100% complete US PS1 collection will run into the 100s of gigabytes compressed. Uncompressed it'd probably be around 1.5-2 terabytes!

Another big problem is there are a lot of bad copies of games around, and there's no real tosec/Good tools style set for either PS1 or Saturn. It's very possible to download a game and to have it only work on emulators, or it won't work at all!

In the end, unless you have a shitload of big drives, or a few really big drives, I would not attempt this.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 4:04 am

As far as emus...
pSX and SSF.

http://psxemulator.gazaxian.com/
http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/~phantasy/ssf/

Thebullfrog · Post by **Thebullfrog** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 5:36 am

Actually I suppose I should have been a bit more specific. As for the PS1 and Saturn I have NO intention of trying to get all of them. Not worth it. Really just a few of the better releases. As for getting the original hardware it just isn't worth it. Too much time/money invested into it to get hardware that may or may not last. I do own a SNES still, but getting games is a PITA and not worth it when I have them all on my HD. I need the money for other things, like trying to buy a house. Also I'm not going to be giving them all of the ROMS. Again just the good ones that I think they'll enjoy. The complete libraries is more for my own personal desire to have them. This project is really a twofold deal where I want to have a catalogue of the classics and want to share with them some of the better examples of classic gaming.
But yeah, I'll go look into psX and SSF. Thanx.

bobthebuilder · Post by **bobthebuilder** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 10:23 am

Good idea not to give them all the roms, this would overwhelm them. They may end up playing some crappy games and end up hating the systems. I still own and use my old systems primarily to play games with my younger relatives, but when I am lazy I use the emulators. Prior to blargg's filter I used my computer that was hooked up to the TV to show off some SNES and NES games, but now I just use blargg's filter instead (I am really lazy and hated having to change the primary monitor)

.

P.S. If KEGA got the filter I could retire my sega cd/32x/genesis/(Power Base Converter and SMS) in one stroke. It is a pain having to set them up and they are kind of an eyesore

.

Post by **grinvader** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 10:41 am

Thebullfrog wrote:Okay, so I've decided to start a bit of a pet project. I have a couple of younger siblings that are too young to remember or have played all the wonderful games of the past. So the quest I'm embarking upon is developing as complete as possible a library of games and emulators.
Right now I have ZSNES and a pretty much complete collection of U.S. release ROMS.

If you accept suggestions, I advise you also include japan-only gems that were fan-translated. There's a good lot of them, and missing on them would be a pity.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 10:52 am

bobthebuilder wrote: P.S. If KEGA got the filter I could retire my sega cd/32x/genesis/(Power Base Converter and SMS) in one stroke. It is a pain having to set them up and they are kind of an eyesore .

Aww, the Sega Frankenstein is an awesome beast.
32x/PBC swapping would get kind of annoying, though.

Thebullfrog · Post by **Thebullfrog** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 5:29 pm

I am looking into some of the Jap-Translated games, and have already had quite a few of them for some time (Star Ocean etc...). The ones I enjoy I already have but am looking into others down the road to check them out. I now have a pretty much complete Genesis/32X library up and running. Need to dig up some Master System games yet.

Now, ePSXe. How the Hell do you use it? I can't get it to run squat. It's set-up and I have a couple ISOs (FFT and SotN) but can't get them to run. I've tried various plug-ins, but no matter what combination I use I get a black screen and, well, that's it. Nothing. Which plug-ins do you guys generally use? I can't get the thing to do anything other than run the BIOS. (yes, I do have the SCPH 1001 BIOS before you ask). I've never had a problem figuring out an emulator before.

Post by **Agozer** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 5:37 pm

Thebullfrog wrote:
Now, ePSXe. How the Hell do you use it? I can't get it to run squat. It's set-up and I have a couple ISOs (FFT and SotN) but can't get them to run. I've tried various plug-ins, but no matter what combination I use I get a black screen and, well, that's it. Nothing. Which plug-ins do you guys generally use? I can't get the thing to do anything other than run the BIOS. (yes, I do have the SCPH 1001 BIOS before you ask). I've never had a problem figuring out an emulator before.

I use Pete's OpenGL2 for graphics and SPU Eternal for sound. You get a black screen if you try to run the emulator without either a disc inserted or an image mounted.

Thebullfrog · Post by **Thebullfrog** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 5:46 pm

Yeah that's the video plug-in I'm currently using, and the ISO is indeed mounted, but it seems like the emulator doesn't know where to find it. Is there a particular CDrom plug-in I should be using, or how do I get it to look in my virtual drive? I'm using PowerISO BTW and have my virtual drive as "Z"

That sound plug-in does sound WAY better too thanx. At least in the BIOS anyway since that's all I can get to run LOL.

King Of Chaos · Post by **King Of Chaos** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 5:52 pm

*cough* Kega has the filter, and it works.

Thebullfrog · Post by **Thebullfrog** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 6:02 pm

Okay, tried running it off of a Cd ROM and it still gives me the same result.

Post by **Agozer** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 6:56 pm

Did you set ePSXe to read from the right drive?

Thebullfrog · Post by **Thebullfrog** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 7:20 pm

Yeah I found the setting that lets me choose either D for the CD ROM or Z for the ISO. It does the same thing either way. Just black.

Thebullfrog · Post by **Thebullfrog** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 8:06 pm

Okay, so I got it to run. I got SotN and FFT to run, but in ePSXe the timing is WAY off. It's in fast forward all the time with no sound in the intro videos. I tried running them in PSX however and that Emu ran them fine the first time with no hiccups at all. Strange. I think I just need to use pSX instead of ePSXe.

DancemasterGlenn · Post by **DancemasterGlenn** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 9:31 pm

pSX works awesome "right out of the box", so to speak. ePSXe does require some tweaking, but the additional features you get from it (depending on plugins) is preferred by some. Either way, properly configured, you have a solid playstation emulator.

King Of Chaos · Post by **King Of Chaos** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 9:52 pm

I've been out of the PSOne scene for a long, long time, is there any frontends for pSX yet, or is it still command prompt-based?

I.S.T. · Post by **I.S.T.** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 10:23 pm

King Of Chaos wrote:I've been out of the PSOne scene for a long, long time, is there any frontends for pSX yet, or is it still command prompt-based?

Uh... it's always had a GUI.

At least, it's had one since 1.6, which came out over a year ago.

King Of Chaos · Post by **King Of Chaos** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 10:25 pm

Yea, I wasn't around much a year ago, or the year before that.

Thanks for the information.

I'll be checking it out indeed.

Thebullfrog · Post by **Thebullfrog** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 5:29 pm

So PSX is goin smoothly. SSF is giving me troubles though. It may just be the image I found, but Panzer Dragoon Saga will only play the opening intro, then it bounces back into the BIOS. I also have the program freeze up and throw out error messages a lot.

Other than that I've completed the Master System library and am working on GBA as we speak. VBA and finding some ROMS. Most games on there suck, so I'm really just picking out the good ones on there. This is becoming an obsession LOL. There any good Turbograffix 16 Emu's out there? Oohh, I gotta get MAME again.....

Post by **Agozer** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 5:42 pm

Thebullfrog wrote:There any good Turbograffix 16 Emu's out there?

Turbo Grafx-16

Yes. Magic Engine. The real problem is that there's not too many good games for that system.

Thebullfrog · Post by **Thebullfrog** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 5:52 pm

1 "F" and no "I" really? Damn I've been spelling that wrong my entire life then

I know the games mostly suck, but now that I'm this far, I just can't seem to stop myself.

_willow_ · Post by **_willow_** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 12:07 am

I thought of online ROMs storage, when the emulator can download\cache the requested ROM or Patch or description or whatever directly from network. I hope to see that kind of collection once.. What do you think about this idea? It might be interesting because the end users do not need to actually store the cart dumps on their harddrives.

King Of Chaos · Post by **King Of Chaos** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 12:48 am

Isn't that what ROM sites are already? Besides, it's easier to download an entire GoodSet (depending on if it's a 16-bit or less console system) and burning it on a DVD.

ZSNES board

Help me complete my library.

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