Introduction to Emulation and ZSNES

Today gamers have to make a decision: should I play PC games or a certain video game console… or perhaps both? For many it boils down to money. Consoles are cheaper than PCs, but PCs has other usage's and the games usually cheaper. Plus some consoles may go obsolete very fast, like Sega's Dreamcast. Even though older systems, like Super Nintendo all the way down to the classic Atari 2600, can still be used for you old games, frequently they get boxed up and forgotten. But certain people who know how to program computers made a new option: emulation. Emulation is a computer software term: A program that simulates an operating system for software made for that operating system to by run on the operating system you have. For example, ZSNES is a SNES emulator that runs like a Super Nintendo on your PC. This program uses file images of cartage's, known as ROMs. Used together, the game's image is 'fooled' into thinking it is being run on a console system.

Foreign Software => Emulator => PC => User
Nintendo Game => ZSNES => PC => Gamer

This quickly brought up a number of law suits due to piracy. The decision of the courts is the following. If you own the actual game, you may use a ROM image being played through an emulator. It has always been legal to have back-up copies of your software for your own use. However, if you never owned a particular game, the ROM image is classified as shareware. What this means is you may play it up to 24 hours, after which you must delete it. If you play it beyond that point, you are using the image illegally.

Many people do hunt out a legal copy of the game to own, particularly on EBay, even though they will continue playing it via emulator and not on the console system. Many good emulators have additional features that make the gaming experience better than playing it on the console. Plus, many hackers like to make translations of games never released in another part of the world and distribute the translation... but not always with the ROM itself. This enables many people to play games they perhaps never had a chance too. The 24-hour rule still apply, but many either wave it ("I'll delete it when I beat it… they should had released it in the U.S. anyway!") or, if they are more conscious about the law, make a large effort to buy the game in its native language.

When you want to play a game via emulation, you must do three things before you can actually start enjoying it.

1. Find an emulator
2. Find a ROM image of the game
3. Fiddle with the emulator with the game (preference sittings, for example)

After this you may look at any additional features for the emulator and explore what else you can do, like cheating by hacking into the runtime memory, which I will talk about in a latter time. I am going to use ZSNES as an example. A similar process can be done with other console systems.

ZSNES

The first step, find an emulator, may be a simple or hard task. There may not be or incomplete emulators available, or there may be several to choose from. Most are free but some you have to pay for. Finding ROM sights will help in this quest (see below). In the case of Super Nintendo, the most popular is ZSNES.

Go to this website. Here you can download the emulator in DOS, Windows, or Linux, the last I checked. Once you have the emulator, unzip it, and look what you got. You can't actually use it, you need a game first!, but you can examine what it is like. When you unzip it I recommend you create a new folder within your hard drive names 'zsnes', like this:

C:\zsnes

Also, the first time you start it, it will tell you a quick, one-time message.

Super Nintendo ROMs

The next big problem is finding the actual game to play with. Finding a good website that offers a range of ROMs can be a pain. Thankfully SNES games have several. The two I recommend the most is QualityRoms and this Russian site.The first are hosted by ArchNacho and Tortilla Godzilla, two Norwegians. Nerds like give themselves names like that. They review all of their games but are a bit… um… whacked. Also they had to remove many ROMs, but the reviews remain, due to their hosting service policies; the piracy issue. The second has a wide range of games, but no reviews. If you see a removed ROM on AN&TG site, look for it in the other or use a search engine.

Browse around those two sites. Now download any ROM image you think you'll like. If you can't decide, I personally suggest Chrono Trigger, what many consider the best RPG for the SNES. Download your ROM image.

Your First Game

First of all, I recommend putting all your ROMs in a subfolder within the folder your ZSNES is located. Create the folder, name it 'roms', and unzip your game into this new folder. So you directory setup should look something like this:

C:\zsnes
C:\zsnes\roms

Now start ZSNES. Load should already be highlighted, so press enter. Double-click your ROM directory. You might want to choose "SNES Header Name" on the bottom if its available on your ZSNES version. Double-click whatever game you downloaded and the game should start.

Now is a good tome for you to view some ZSNES menu options before actually playing the game. When you are at a good stopping point, press 'Esc' to pause the game and bring up the menu. Go to Config > Input 1 to set your keyboard to SNES controller buttons. Click the box and press the desired key to set. Here is my recommended setup, but feel free to set it up however you like.

• - Up, down, left, and right are the arrow keys
• - Start is the Enter key
• - Select is the Spacebar
• - A button is the X key
• - B button is the Z key
• - X button is the S key
• - Y button is the A key
• - L button is the W key
• - R button is the Q key

I assigned the A, B, X, etc. buttons to be grouped together like that on my keyboard so it would be similar to the layout on the SNES controller.

Also on the Config menu is options, video, and sound, and add-ons. Options have a lot of things a novice shouldn't need to worry about. If curious, check ZSNES documentation. Video changes how the game looks like. I prefer either of the 800x600 resolutions. The sound menu contains some more things a novice shouldn't need to worry about except if they want it on or not and if they want it in stereo. Note that you may have to restart ZSNES to notice any change. Choose add-ons if you downloaded a game that requires the SNES mouse or Super Scope.

The other menu options are more advanced. Check ZSNES documentation if interested. Yes, ZSNES can help you cheat, but I will cover that in the future. The far left arrow shows you the most recent ROMs you played with.

Now get back to your game by pressing 'Esc' again and then press 'F3'. This opens the saved states box. Saved states are moments in the game saved on your hard drive. You can have up to 10 with ZSNES and you select what save state number you want with this box. Press 'Esc' and then 'F2'. You should see "State 0 saved" on the bottom of the screen. Do something, like go someplace else, and press 'F4'. The moment you saved earlier is reloaded. You can still save games like you can if you're playing the game on SNES, but many rather use this since it is more useful and flexible. This can also be done from the File menu.

All keys, F5 on, turns various sound channels off and on. Handy if you are forced to listen to an annoying sound or music. The number keys, 1 to 5, turn different background layers or the sprites, on and off. Pressing 6 turns them all on again. The other number keys do their own thing, which is displayed on the bottom.

There is one optional thing I want to mention, something many are not aware of because it isn't set to anything. One of the menu items is Misc > Game Keys, which displays the above items I just mentioned among others. One is the "Rewind Key", grouped with the "Misc Toggles". I assign this to the Backspace key on my keyboard. Each time you press it, ZSNES backs up to a certain point in the game, sort of like an autosave state. Useful if you do a boo-boo or in a *really* tough area without saving and reloading over and over again your save states, and risk saving something you don't want!

That is all you need to know. Enjoy!

Other Pursuits

How about other console systems? QualityRoms has links for Genesis and NES. You can download the emulator and ROMs on their site. The only other system I am familiar with is Atari 2600. I recommend AtariAge.com. You can download ROMs here. For an emulator, there is StellaX.

As mention before, there are also games never released in the U.S., mostly RPGs. Here is a list of some SNES games never released you can hunt for:

• Final Fantasy V
• Seiken Densetsu 3
• Tales of Phantasia
• Dragon Quest V and VI

Finally, I recommend GameFAQs for seeking helpful guides and cheats.

Future Additions

Later, I don't know when, I want to write up how to cheat with ZSNES. I am holding off on this for it takes a lot of explaining and involves knowing how to hack into the game as it is running. This will be its own document and will not be part of this one.