Post by TASManiac

Posted: 9/7/2011 3:27 PM

Post subject: When did you first use an emulator?

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Yoni_Arousement

He/Him

Joined: 5/1/2007
Posts: 294
Location: MD

Back in March 2004, when I was in 4th grade, I somehow found out about emulators. The first emulator I ever used was an embedded NES emulator. It had a black background, and I remembered playing Dragon Warrior and Super Mario Bros. 2. I could tell by playing the latter that the speed was pretty slow. If I recall correctly, the webpage of the emulator also mentioned something like "You'll have to search for an emulator you can download". One of the first ROMs I downloaded was Metroid. Since I didn't have an NES emulator at that time, I wondered how I was supposed to play it. Do I use command prompt? No. While I don't remember exactly how I found my first downloadable emulator, my second one was NESter. The first rom site I visited had mostly NES and SNES roms. As for the SNES, I used to prefer ZSNES as opposed to SNES9x. 2004 was also the first year I knew that bootleg games existed. With emulators, we got to revisit a few Genesis titles we used to have, including Streets of Rage 2, and Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (Not to be off-topic, but why do people prefer the SNES version? That version is missing one speed setting, Expert Mode, Score Challenge, and bonus artwork when you beat the game without losing a round. I can understand the sound is better, especially in the SFC version.). So yeah, getting to play console games on PC was pretty fun.

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Posted: 9/7/2011 3:40 PM

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nfq

Player (93)

Joined: 5/10/2005
Posts: 1204

2002-2003 I used emulators for the first time. A genesis emulator I think. It didn't emulate correctly, until I used a better emulator (Gens), then it played flawlessly. I might have tried some emulator a little at a friends house some time in the last millennia though. As for the Street Fighter, you answered your own question: the reason people like it better is probably because of the better sound.

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Posted: 9/7/2011 4:43 PM

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Dwedit

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Joined: 3/24/2006
Posts: 692
Location: Chicago

Summer of 1997. I was at a computer camp, someone was playing Super Mario Bros. 3 on a computer, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. It was Nesticle for Windows 95, probably version 0.32. Things like Sprite priority and Scrolling hadn't been completely figured out at that point. Mushrooms appeared on top of Question blocks. The status bar was screwed up in the water levels where the water waves up and down.

Posted: 9/7/2011 4:47 PM

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Derakon

Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960

Not to mention that the default Genesis controller doesn't have enough buttons to handle all inputs correctly; you need six buttons plus the D pad. I doubt most people had the extended controller.

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Posted: 9/7/2011 5:21 PM

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (297)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

I'm not really sure, but I can look at my files. Let's see for evidence... Evidence is made a bit difficult because in 1997 I accidentally updated the timestamp of all files in my system, essentially depriving me of any timestamps older than 1997 unless they were packed in an archive or written in a file. -- My oldest SND-S3M conversions are dated oct 1998. SND files were produced using iNES. -- In feb 1998 I tried to create a NES emulator of my own, using iNES documentation. -- In autumn 1997 I was playing with Nesticle. I know this because I remember where I was and who I was with. -- In feb 1997 I created a screenshot of Castlevania 2 using iNES. This is very near the first experience. -- There is no record of the first experience, but presumably it was not earlier than 1997, assuming that the feb 1997 timestamp is real and was not one of the victims. WOW. Was TASVideos (or nesvideos) really launched in 2003? Seems so short time since then and so long time before then. I must have really concentrated at the site.

Posted: 9/7/2011 5:31 PM

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MarbleousDave

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Player (13)

Joined: 9/12/2009
Posts: 1559

I think it was about 1999 or 2000 I played emulators for the first time. It was on SNES9x, played Zelda LttP, Super Mario All-Stars, Super Mario Kart, Secret of Mana, and NBA JAM. It was played on a 486. I even played NO$GMB. It was mainly Pokemon, but I also played Tetris. The Pokemon games were: Red/Blue/Yellow, Gold/Silver (Japanese), Pokemon GO! (hack of Smurfs Nightmare), and Pokemon Diamond (hack of Telefang: Power Version) The latter 2 was in 2001.

Posted: 9/7/2011 6:37 PM

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AngerFist

Active player (437)

Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

fceu (Blip's version) 2004.

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I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it

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Posted: 9/7/2011 6:54 PM

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feos

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Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
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2009 J-NES lol.

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Posted: 9/7/2011 7:01 PM

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Aglar

Expert player (3641)

Joined: 11/9/2007
Posts: 375
Location: Varberg, Sweden

Used Nesticle for the first time in autumn 1998, at school.

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Posted: 9/7/2011 7:16 PM

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mmbossman

Experienced player (828)

Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong

An SNES emulator for my old iBook (I believe it was snes9x), and it introduced me to Crono Trigger. It was at least 2001, possibly 2000.

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Posted: 9/7/2011 7:22 PM

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NitroGenesis

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Editor, Experienced player (556)

Joined: 12/24/2009
Posts: 1873

Nesticle in around summer 98. I played Athena.

YoungJ1997lol wrote:

Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.

Posted: 9/7/2011 7:29 PM

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Randil

Skilled player (1826)

Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden

I also played Nesticle back in the days (I remember playing Final Fantasy). I think this was around 1999.

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Posted: 9/7/2011 7:37 PM

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sgrunt

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Emulator Coder, Former player

Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind

Right at the start of 1999, inspired by the just-recently-released Game Boy Color and several back issues of Nintendo Power the family had at the time, I stumbled across NO$GMB - through it, I was introduced to the Wario Land series and Link's Awakening DX. Later, looking to play LADX's immediate predecessor, I discovered Snes9x... which I eventually gave up on, as at the time it didn't emulate some of the graphics of Link to the Past correctly. I came across ZSNES shortly afterwards (this was, by sheer coincidence, mere days before someone in my classes at the time decided it was a good idea to install it on the class computer, resulting in many a fulfilling lunch hour), eventually followed by Nesticle.

Posted: 9/7/2011 8:13 PM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden

Second half of 1997. Like many others here it seems, it was Nesticle. I remember Tennis being a favourite at our school.

Posted: 9/7/2011 8:35 PM

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SwordlessLink

Experienced player (504)

Joined: 1/12/2007
Posts: 682

About 2000 or 2001, I think. A Game Boy emulator, probably VBA. I also remember trying a version of Project64 around this time and being frustrated at how slow it was on my computer.

Posted: 9/7/2011 9:20 PM

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Flygon

Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria

1997-1999. It was a DOS based Game Boy emulator.

Posted: 9/7/2011 9:27 PM

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SXL

Joined: 2/7/2005
Posts: 571

SNES96 in... 1996, before it became SNES9x. Used it to play zelda (wooot) but since transparency was not emulated back then, had to manually switch 1-5 layers to play dungeons or see rain. Marat Fayzullin was the god, might have played with his VGB even before. Also, Bleem! in 99, but never payed for it.

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Posted: 9/7/2011 9:38 PM

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Dada

Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands

NESticle back in 1997. It was the first good non-commercial NES emulator, as I recall it. Allowed me to play NES games with decent accuracy on my 60 MHz computer.

Posted: 9/7/2011 10:35 PM

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ALAKTORN

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Former player

Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy

I think it was either Snes9x or MAME late 90s or early 2000, introduced to it by my older brothers I never heard of this NESticle, sounds like fun

Posted: 9/7/2011 10:46 PM

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CoolKirby

Editor, Experienced player (570)

Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4036

I grew up pretty sheltered with respect to video games, with my parents not buying me a console until 2004, and even then it was only a PS2. They wanted me to spend my childhood doing "creative" things like reading books and drawing. But one day in 2008, I was looking for a program to let me play my PS2 games on my computer on vacation, and found a PS2 emulator, but uninstalled it because it ran really slow. Around the same time, a friend introduced me to MAME and Vs. Super Mario Bros. I decided I wanted to play the original game, and so I downloaded an NES emulator and SMB1-3. In 2009 I downloaded Project64 and Super Smash Bros., and through that game's Meet the Characters mode, I found out about all the great franchises like Mario, Zelda, and Kirby, and immediately downloaded multiple emulators and games from those wonderful franchises. Eventually, exposure to games from those franchises on emulators spurred me to buy several classic Nintendo consoles and the Wii, so my first time using an emulator was pretty important since through them I learned what the NES and SNES were and it basically sparked my interest in video games.

Posted: 9/7/2011 11:45 PM

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BigBoct

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Editor, Former player

Joined: 8/9/2007
Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH

A friend introduced me waaaaaaay back in 1996 or 1997; I then proceeded to spend tons of dial-up bandwidth downloading as many ROMs as I could. I also raged super-hard at some weird interactions between KGen savestates and games with SRAM which resulted in the savestates being unusable.

Previous Name: boct1584

Posted: 9/8/2011 8:30 AM

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (297)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

SXL wrote:

SNES96 in... 1996, before it became SNES9x.

Wow, you're right. I totally forgot about SNES9x. I did indeed use SNES96 before it became SNES9x. But that was not before 1997. My savestates are dated from 1998. And true about the transparency. I think mr. Fayzullin's iNES was still the first emulator for me. I also found that I exchanged a few emails with him in feb 1997, concerning iNES v0.5.

Posted: 9/8/2011 10:25 AM

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Dada

Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Oh yeah, I also used ZSNES on my 60 MHz computer. Unlike Snes9x, it could actually play FF5 and Chrono Trigger at a decent enough speed with 16-bit colors. On just 60 MHz! Had to boot into pure DOS mode to get a few extra FPS out of it, though. And it wasn't 60 FPS, more like 30-20.

Posted: 9/8/2011 10:29 AM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away

boct1584 wrote:

A friend introduced me waaaaaaay back in 1996 or 1997

It's the case for me as well, but I think the year was 1998 or 1999. I think it was ZSNES.

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Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.

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When did you first use an emulator?