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Console Emulation:
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Est. April 1st, 1998

Sites on Retrogames:

  • 1-UP - 1-UP: Multi-Emu Frontend!
  • ARCADE FLYERS - The Flyer and Poster Archive for MAME/RAINE
  • CARTLIST32 - If you have console roms, you need this.
  • CHEAT - Pugsy's MAME Cheat Page.
  • CINDER - Cinder's Wallpapers.
  • CRASHTEST - More than JUST arcade screenshots!
  • CPS2SHOCK - CPS2 Resource Center.
  • DOCSHOCK REPAIR - Console Repairs!
  • FABLOW - Final Burn Save States!
  • GAMEBASE - Arcade Games list!
  • GIGO & HII'S SITE - Official site for G-NES/TNES/G-NSF/TGB and more!
  • G-MAX STUDIOS - EmuLand 1.0 -- AMAZING!
  • HUBERT - The Web Page
  • IMPACT EMU - Awesome 3D Arcade Emulator!
  • IR PINBALL - Original and Ported Pinball Tables for Visual Pinball!
  • MADRIGAL - Madrigal's Simulators
  • MAME - The Official Site!
  • MAME ROM INFO - MAME Rom sizes/CRCs/filenames/etc !
  • MAME WORLD - The ULTIMATE MAME support site!
  • MARP - Action Replays!
  • NGMC - NeoGouki's MUGEN creations!
  • NONMAME - Games Not Yet Emulated By MAME.
  • NonMESS - Systems Not Yet Emulated by MESS
  • OVERCLOCKED - Daily emu/gaming comic.
  • POCKETNES - Play NES games on your PocketPC!
  • RETRO RADIO - Official Retro Radio mirror.
  • RIPS-R-US - Cool Sprite Rips!
  • SASS - Speak & Spell Simulator!
  • SCREENMANIA - 20,000+ Screenshots!!
  • SPACE INVADERS - Space Invaders Fan Site
  • TKMAME - The Coolest MAME Frontend!
  • TOSEC - DATfiles for everyone :)
  • THE REVIEW CENTER - Reviews, Reviews and Reviews!.
  • .TZX VAULT - Huge ZX Spectrum game vault!
  • X-MAME - Official X-MAME site. - Cool Sprite Rips!
  • SASS - Speak & Spell Simulator!
  • SCREENMANIA - 30,000+ Screenshots!!
  • SPACE INVADERS - Space Invaders Fan Site
  • TKMAME - The Coolest MAME Frontend!
  • TOSEC - DATfiles for everyone :)
  • THE REVIEW CENTER - Reviews, Reviews and Reviews!.
  • .TZX VAULT - Huge ZX Spectrum game vault!
  • X-MAME - Official X-MAME site.

  •   Pocket PC Emulation

    Welcome to Prophet's Pocket PC section of Retrogames! This section of Retrogames is dedicated to these wondrous devices and the emulation projects available for them. You'll find many interesting related links here as well, so look around. And if you don't own a Pocket PC, get one!

    HP Jornadas, Casio Cassiopeias & Compaq iPaqs!

    Huge thanks go to Pocketgamer.org and it's superb webmaster, Mike Wagstaff, for many of the links I've gathered here. If you know of new/other Pocket PC emulation projects, PLEASE let me know and I'll report it on our news page and add it to this list ASAP. :)

    Note: All emulators listed below are free unless marked as *commercial*.

    Update History:

    07/05/01 - Added brief reviews of MAMEBoy, Microsoft Arcade Pack, CE/gg, NES CE & PocketGB!

    07/11/01 - Added my Interview with Larry Bank, plus several more emulator/retrogaming links and/or brief reviews courtesy of my friend WorldRave (thanks!) - see iMAME, Lighthead, Game & Watch, Pocket II3, PocketNES. Also mirrored Larry Bank's serial gamepad driver - read the interview for more info.

    07/12/01 - Opened the Retrogames Pocket PC Emulation Message Board!

    Arcade - Computer - Console

    Arcade Emulators for Pocket PC:

    AEmu - Boris' arcade emulator for the Compaq Aero (older Pocket PC), dedicated to old z80 and 8080 based games like Space Invaders. Although the author now owns a Casio 505f, he has made the source code available for any interested developers.

    iMAME - Gandalf's Compaq iPaq specific build of MAME. Binaries and sources are available, however updates seem sparse..

    This Emu also uses slightly older roms and uses older samples sets before they switched over. However the only games that are included (or should we say SWITCHED ON,others are still there with some programming experience) play almost perfectly or at least around 28-30FPS with sound at 44khz, that was the reasoning behind they playlist choice of games. Highly recommend this for those iPAQ users out there!!! -WorldRave

    Laser - Lopantu's Laser arcade emulator was ported to the iPaq. However, I can't seem to find the file... (?)

    MAMEBoy - Marconelly's MAME build fine-tuned for Cassiopeia EM-500, E-125 and E-115. Be sure to visit the Official MAMECE3 messageboard hosted here at Retrogames - Marconelly is a regular there. :)

    Overall Rating: B+

    Since I have a 150Mhz Casio EM-500, Marconelly's MAME port seemed the best one to try first. Here is a brief history of MAMEBoy according to Marconelly himself: "Mameboy is derived from Darren's MAMECE E10X, not MAMECE3 (With a lot of Darren's help :) Darren's version is derived from the initial Ben's MAMECE." As Johnny Carson used to say, I did not know that. :) I downloaded the normal 1.3 build and tried a few games like Frogger, Galaxian, Pooyan and Donkey Kong. Keep in mind the current MAME ROMs aren't all compatible with MAMEBoy, so you might need to find older 0.35 ROM sets for some games. But the four I mentioned should work fine.

    Setting up the executable is easy; one simply copies the entire MAMEBoy directory (for your specific model) to memory. The user interface is simple and functional. You can turn sound on or off before launching a game, filter your game list and a few other things. My one gripe with MAMEBoy is that you must use the "record" button to exit a game to the menu. But it also brings up the Notes application, forcing the user to exit Notes to get back to the MAMEBoy menu. According to Marconelly, if one remaps the button to the Start menu, because it's a WinCE 2.11 app, the emulator will cleanly exit back to the MAMEBoy menu. But I kinda like using it for record...

    Performance-wise, MAMEBoy delivers a very playable experience with sound off for all the games I tried. Here are some average approximate speed examples: Frogger 17fps, Donkey Kong 25fps, Galaxian 17fps, Pooyan 23fps. Those numbers reflect gameplay speeds at 100% or close to it. Demo screens and intro displays often clock higher, but even at 17fps gameplay looks surprisingly smooth. With sound on, speeds take a dive. And the sound support appears to be experimental anyway - it's often incomplete or sounds odd.

    Definitely give MAMEBoy a try if you own a Casio. Overall it's amazing that MAME is even available on a PDA! And the Casio screen and controls make it a pleasant experience. -Prophet

    MAMECE3 - Techmaster's famous port of MAME for Pocket PC's! Builds are available for every Pocket PC CPU, and there are also "MEGA" builds with many enabled games added. :P Once again, check out the Official MAMECE3 messageboard here at Retrogames, moderated by Techmaster himself.

    MAMECE 10x - Darren Fink's MAME build for Casio Pocket PC's. The web page appears to be down however. :(

    Microsoft Arcade Pack - A wickedly fast *commercial* emulator written by none other than coding king, Larry Bank! You might recall Larry's terrific free PC emulator HiVE - well, this package was actually derived from that project. While only 3 games (Pac-Man, Ms.Pac-Man & Dig Dig) are included, the quality is rock solid. Hopefully more work from the BitBank will show up on Pocket PC's soon. Also, check out the Developer's Corner with Larry Bank at the superb Brighthand.com if you're inclined to learn Pocket PC game programming techniques.

    Overall Rating: A

    This emulation package costs $30. As stated above, it includes only 3 games, but at least they're good ones: Pac-Man, Ms.Pac-Man & Dig Dig. No doubt that's not many games. It would've been ideal if Galaxian & Galaga were also included since Microsoft apparently has excellent licensing relations with Namco. Had there been more games in the package, I would have scored it an A+. But the price and number of games is the only negative - everything else is fantastic!

    Larry Bank is a true master at squeezing performance out of Pocket PC's. All 3 games run at 100% speeds, and they quite simply look, sound and play like they do on the real arcade machines. Except you can carry your Pocket PC around with you. The user interface is attractive, with a seperate motif for each game and the ability to setup several options like free play, scoring, lives etc. And yes, there is full save state suppirt as well.

    For me, the money was well spent. These are real classics, and they've been emulated perfectly on my Casio! Hey, I'm happy. :) -Prophet

    Arcade - Computer - Console

    Computer Emulators for Pocket PC:

    AppleCE - Erik Chong's Apple II emulator.

    Comeback64 CE - Dato & Fitie's Pocket PC port of this Commodore 64 emulator. Note: the site's gone, but the files are still available there for download.

    CoPilot CE - A *commercial* Palm OS emulator by Conduits. It's reportedly slow and doesn't work with all Pocket PC's. However, it's a good indicator of Palm emulators to come, no doubt. ;) As a Pocket PC fan, I won't say what I think of Palm OS devices, but I think it says quite a lot when one PDA platform can emulate the other, but NOT the other way 'round...

    Euphoric (English link) - Oric emulator for Casio E-105 by Fabrice Frances. En Francais.

    Palmtop Spectrum Emulator - Sinclair Spectrum emulator by TomTom. NOTE: This emulator is actually for Handeld PC's, NOT Pocket PC's. It might still work, but I'm not sure. So I've included it here just in case...

    Pina - An Apple II emulator by Kitaro based on APPLEWIN 2.0 Project.

    Pocket II3 *commercial* Apple II emulator.

    Pocket IIe - James Lee's Apple II emulator.

    Pocket Atari - Atari 800 (5200 etc.) emulator by Vasyl Tsvirkunov. Available for all 3 major CPU's!

    PocketDOS - A *commercial* PC DOS emulator.

    XT-CE - Ian Dean's *commercial* PC DOS emulator.

    Arcade - Computer - Console

    Console Emulators for Pocket PC:

    CE/gg - Erik Chong's super fast Sega Master System & Game Gear emulator.

    Overall Rating: A+

    CE/gg was the first emulator I tried on my 150Mhz Casio EM-500, and in a way, that's a shame. Why? Because Erik Chong's CE/gg is so darn good! This emulator ran EVERY single SMS and GG game I threw at it, most of them perfectly. Using a frameskip of 3, I also had full sound and very smooth gameplay. Save states are fully implemented and make games like Phantasy Star a true portable pleasure to play. Sadly Erik has stated he no longer intends to work on CE/gg, but as it stands, it's near perfect anyway. If you have a Pocket PC, go download CE/gg immediately. -Prophet

    Game & Watch - Not really an emulation, but a simulation of those Nintendo handheld games like Octopus and Popeye.

    GNUboy CE - Nintendo Gameboy emulator. The only free one right now. :-/ Also, check out PocketFun's pre-compiled binaries of GNUboy CE.

    iTARI - A Compaq iPaq-only Atari 2600 emulator by Carpediem, originally ported by Stuart Russell.

    Lighthead - Not really an emulator, but simulates old handheld games like Autorace, Basketball, Football, Football 2 etc.

    M-Boy - Henrik's Gameboy emulator!

    NeoGeo Pocket - Mic's NeoGeo Pocket emulator. I *must* try this soon since I own the real thing and love it! :)

    NES CE - Kevin's Nintendo NES emulator. *Casio only*

    Overall Rating: B-

    NESCE is a very decent NES emulator, but it's still in a preliminary state. Initially you're presented with a nice looking image of a NES game pad, and you must map your keys there. Unfortunately the mappings don't seem to be saved, so you must do this each time you begin. There are no save states either. The very few games I tried played well enough with sound off, but with sound on performance dropped big time. Hardly surprising. Overall this emulator is worth trying, and could develop into something great if the author gives it more attention. I hope he does! -Prophet

    Pocket Coleco - Stuart Russell's Colecovision emulator.

    Pocket Engine - Domenico Dato's PC-Engine / TurboGrafx-16 emulator. *iPaq only*

    Pocket FC - Alex Zhu's Nintendo NES emulator. *iPaq only*

    Palm GB - A *commercial* Nintendo Gameboy emulator.

    Pocket GB - Aaron Oneal's *commercial* multi-console emulator. So far it emulates Gameboy, SMS/GG, NES and eventually PCE/TG-16!

    Overall Rating: B

    PocketGB is actually several emulators in one. I purchased the Gameboy module for $20. It supports Gameboy and Gameboy Color games, and also gives you full use of a preliminary (i.e. VERY slow) NES emulator. There is also a Sega SMS/GG module for another $20, but I'm quite happy with CE/gg.

    Honestly I was a bit disappointed with PocketGB. The version I have is 1.35, and my registration is good up till version 2.0. So there is hope that things will improve. Had this been a free emulator, I would've rated it much higher, but when you pay for something, you expect more...

    Overall all it's a good package. The user interface is very well done and attractive. Unfortunately, it's also a bit buggy. The emulation seems rock solid, running every Gameboy game I threw at it. With sound on, you must use a lot of frameskips to get good speeds, especially on more complex color games. With sound off you'll still need to use quite a few frameskips, though not as many. Overall gameplay was decent. RPG's and puzzlers are great, but scrolling games can get a bit choppy. I had expected a bit better performance, but it's still pretty good.

    The author is currently working on a TurboGrafx-16 module, one of my favorite systems. I'd love to see that, but I'm not sure my 150 Mhz Casio will be fast enough. Time will tell. You can actually download PocketGB now as shareware, but you'll only get 3 minutes of playtime - not really enough to gauge the product in my opinion, but you can at least try it a little that way. The good news is that PocketGB is an active project, and hopefuly the author can squeeze out more performance in future revisions. -Prophet

    Pocket Genesis - Domenico Dato's Sega Genesis emulator.

    Pocket Lynx - Domenico Dato's Atari Lynx emulator port of handy.

    Pocket NES - Richard Rice's Nintendo NES emulator.

    The best NES emu i've used yet!!! This emulator so far has played all the games I own , and pretty fast. Supports Save States! Save states DO come in handy! Highly recommmended emu. Uses vitual buttons and joystick also in combination with the buttons to make it playable for all systems. -WorldRave

    Pocket SNES - Darren's Super Nintendo emulator.

    Pocket SNES9x - Bradford Snow's Pocket PC port of SNES9x.

    Pocket VCS - Stuart Russell's Atari 2600 emulator.

    TP - Sukon's PC-Engine / TurboGrafx-16 emulator. In Taiwanese.

    TWSFC - Sukon's Super Nintendo emulator.

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