---------------------------------------------------------------- Arcade Emulation for Newbies FAQ by Moose O'Malley moose@move.NOSPAM.to.SPAMMENOT Version : 1.5 Date : 23-Jul-2002 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Introduction : This FAQ has been put together rather quickly by me from the emailed help I have given to many dozens of people concerning the problems they were having running various arcade emulators. The information below is for people who are *NEW* to emulation. The purpose of this FAQ is to reduce the number of emails asking basic questions about running emulators, make it less frustrating for new people trying to get their emulators running, and to enhance everyones enjoyment of these great programs. I don't know how far I want to go with this FAQ, and how much more work I want to put into it. However, if people want me to add in other questions / answers, then please Email them to me, and I will add them in as soon as I can. A "Changes History" is at the end of this FAQ. Mike "Moose" O'Malley _________________________________________________________________ Moose's Shareware & Emulation Valley - Established July, 1996. WEB: http://move.to/moose Email: moose@move.NOSPAM.to.SPAMMENOT _________________________________________________________________ ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. What is Arcade Emulation ? A. Arcade emulation is all about getting your PC to act like one or more of the real arcade machines in order to play original, unmodified, unconverted, and unchanged arcade games right on your own PC. This is achieved by writing a program, called an emulator, which causes your PC to act like the CPU, sound, graphics, memory, and other hardware of the original arcade machine. Once you have the emulator, all you need are image files of the original ROMs of the machines and Bob's your Uncle !! (i.e. you are ready to go !!) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. What are ROMs ? A. A ROM is a small Read Only Memory chip inside a computer or arcade machine or similar device. A ROM can be read using a special EPROM Reader and the resulting data dumped to disk. Arcade machines generally have a number of ROMs so a complete ROM image set for a game may have quite a few ROM files. The ROMs for an arcade game are needed, along with the emulator that supports the particular game, before you can play the game on your PC. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. Who would want to play 10 or 15 year old arcade games any more ? Modern games are so much better, aren't they ? A. Well, you would be surprised ! Some people prefer the simplicity and playability of the early arcade games, and many people still enjoy playing the old games. By playing the old games, people can re-live some of the fond memories of their School or University days when, perhaps, life was simpler and happier, when people were friendlier, when the breeze blew a little less coldly, when .... (Oh shut up Moose !!!). Also, many believe that these old games *must* be preserved. Due to Bit Rot, ROM Decay, and general wear and tear, the older arcade machines themselves might not be around much longer. Also, many machines are actually designed to fail after so many years. A case to prove this is "Suicide Batteries". (Also see "What are Suicide Batteries" below). The original companies (Sega, Nintendo, Stern, etc) no longer sell or support these old games. So, emulation is the only sure way of preserving these games. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. What are "Suicide Batteries" ? A. "Suicide Batteries" are batteries that erase a decryption key, or part of the program code when they die. Capcom, Sega, Seibu, Orca, UPL, and others have used them on some of their game boards. This was a system of copy protection, to prevent "bootleg" games. Copy protection was needed for arcade games, to prevent copying the ROMS for a fellow arcade owner down the street. They designed systems that made simply copying the ROMS useless, since the decryption chips or encrypted processors only came with the purchased version of the boards. Another reason for the battery, was to make reading the keys with dumper devices useless as well, since it would disable the chips. Capcom used them on their pre-CPS, CPS1, CPS2, and CPS3 boards. Sega used them on their encrypted System 16, 18, 24, After Burner HW, and Out Run HW games. Seibu used them on some of their Raiden games, and on their SPI Motherboard (Raiden Fighters DX, Battle Balls, etc). UPL used them on their Rad Action game (Sound CPU). Orca used them on some of their early games. OK, so what is the problem ? How can "Suicide Batteries" harm the preservation of arcade machines ? The problem is that all current batteries - including "Suicide Batteries" - go flat. i.e. lose their charge over time. When the batteries are flat, then the decryption chips they power lose their information - meaning that the game can no longer be unencrypted as it runs, making the game completely unplayable. Worse still is that when "Suicide Batteries" grow old, they can leak their acidic contents onto the surrounding chips and motherboards. What this means for owners of the arcade machine is that the machine has a very finite life - maybe 10 years or so - and after that the machine is junk and no amount of money or care will be able to get the machine working with the same PCB again. The machine that might have costed you $100,000 dollars or more when brand new will be completely dead and useless. You cannot replace the "Suicide Batteries" - because they are soldered / fused to the chip they "protect", and any loss or surge in current will erase the chip - again making the machine useless. What is even more shocking about this is that the arcade machine manufacturers designed the machines to fail and they refuse to support their old arcade machines. So, if you purchased a Capcom CPS2 game, then 10 or so years down the track the "Suicide Batteries" will go flat, and the machine be be useless and Capcom will not help you get it going again. Your only chance might be to buy another PCB for the game - from a second hand dealer - you cannot buy them brand new !! - and hope you get another year or so out of it before it's battery goes flat as well. If it wasn't for the efforts of Arcade Emulation enthusiasts then the games in these arcade machines would be lost forever once their "Suicide Batteries" went flat. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. Surely, only a bunch of sad old gits would want to play 10-15+ year old arcade games ? A. NO !!! There are some sad young gits as well ! ;) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. OK, how do I get my grubby little hands on these emulators ? A. Many pages (growing daily) on the Internet offer these emulators for download. Some pages have additional information on the emulators and authors. Some pages also have additional information on the arcade machines, screen shots, sound / music files, etc. Check out the "Links" section on my WEB page : http://move.to/moose ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. Do the arcade emulators cost anything ? A. Many arcade emulators are free ware, so you can use them as long as you like for free. Other emulators are Shareware, so you need to register them (and send some money) in order to keep using them. Other emulators are commercial products and need to be purchased. e.g. Williams Arcade Classics. Please be very considerate when using these emulators. The brilliant emulator authors have worked very hard, under very difficult conditions, and with very little in the way of documentation or specifications on the original machines. If the authors are nice enough to release the emulators as freeware, then that is terrific. But, if the emulators are shareware OR commercial, then please do the right thing and purchase them. Please follow the author's guidelines and respect their wishes at all times. In ALL cases, however, it is completely illegal to pirate these emulators, rip copyright messages out of them, and/or distribute / sell them without the author's permission. If you do this, then you are an arsehole, and (at the very least) you will wind up on my "Hall of Shame" page ! There are also legal issues about the Arcade ROMs - see below. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I have downloaded emulator XXXX, and I have got XXXX.ZIP (or XXXX.ARJ, or XXXX.TAR, or XXXX.LHA, XXXX.ARC, etc), but what do I do next ? A. You need to decompress this file into a directory where you want your emulator to reside. If the file is a ZIP file and you are using Windows, download the shareware version of WinZIP (a great ZIP / UNZIP utility) from : ftp://ftp.cica.indiana.edu/pub/pc/win3/util/ You will download an EXE file which you run to install WinZIP on your machine. Now you are ready to UNZIP the emulator. Double click on the ZIP file in File Manager / Explorer If you are not using Windows, then a similar procedure is still required to the above. But get InfoZIP (a free multi-platform UNZIP utility) from : http://quest.jpl.nasa.gov/Info-Zip/ http://quest.jpl.nasa.gov/Info-Zip/Info-Zip.html If the file is an LHA, ARJ, ARC, TAR, or some other compressed file, then you will need a different decompression utility. These can be found in the "compress" directory on any SimTel site, such as : ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/Mirrors/simtel.coast.net/SimTel/ http://ibmpc.wit.com/mirrors/simtel/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I have downloaded emulator XXXX, and UNZIPped and installed the emulator, but have not got the ROM images for the games it supports, how do I get them ? A. You need to read the EPROMs of your arcade PCBs and rename them to the file names and move them to the directory(s) required by the emulator. Also, check out the "Links" section on my WEB page : http://move.to/moose Bewarned, that you must NOT download / use ROMs images unless you are legally entitled to do so. Also, note that selling the ROMs / distributing the ROMs is highly illegal. If you do this, then you are an arsehole, and (at the very least) you will wind up on my "Hall of Shame" page ! ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I have downloaded emulator XXXX, and UNZIPped and installed the emulator, have not got the ROM images for the games it supports, but 1 or more games don't work. A. Read the documentation that comes with the emulator (usually a readme.txt file or similar), and make sure that the file names / directory(s) for the games matches that specified in this documentation. For Sparcade, it is best to view the .RAT files in an editor and make sure you are using the correct file names and directories. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I tried running emulator XXXX and got a blank screen when I try and run games. A. There may be a problem with the support for your systems video card. Read the documentation that comes with the emulator and see if there are any workarounds or command line switches that you can try to get things working. If you are running under Windows / Windows 95, try booting into pure DOS and running the emulator again - a small number of emulators don't like running under Windows. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I tried running emulator XXXX and Direct/X errors. A. If the emulator is made to run under Windows, it may need Direct/X to be installed and fully supported by your video card. Make sure that the latest version of Direct/X is installed and set-up properly on your PC. Also, download and install the latest drivers for your video card. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I tried running emulator XXXX and got the error message "Load error NO DPMI". How do I fix this error ? A. You need a DPMI driver loaded if you are not playing in a DOS windows under Windows 95 for some - not all - emulators. Only some emulators need DPMI loaded. or via FTP : (* denotes the latest version) ftp.simtel.net:pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2misc/csdpmi*.zip Simply UNZIP the file into the same directory as the emulator you are trying to run, or any of the directories in the PATH (specified in your AUTOEXEC.BAT), and all will be OK. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I tried running emulator XXXX and got the error message "Stub exec failed: dos4gw.exe No such file or directory". How do I fix this error ? A. You need to get hold of DOS4GW.EXE and put in the same directory as the program you are trying to run. DOS4GW is a popular 32 bit DOS extender used in many DOS games and emulators. DOS4GW comes with many games (such as Quake) and various emulators. Do a search on DOS4GW.EXE on your harddrive and see if it is already there, if so, just copy it accross to your emulation directory. You can get DOS4GW.zip from one of these sites : ???? ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I tried running emulator XXXX and got the error message "This program requires a memory manager with EMS enabled". How do I fix this error ? A. This error should only occur if you are running an emulator from pure DOS, as Windows 95 should allocate memory of any type as required. If you are running from Windows 95 and you see this error, right click on the XXXX.EXE file and check the Properties. On the "Memory" tab, all memory options should be AUTO. If you are running from DOS, you need to edit your "config.sys" in the root directory of your boot drive. If you boot from your C: drive, then edit a file c:\config.sys In it, you should have something like : DEVICE=c:\windows\himem.sys DEVICEHIGH=c:\windows\emm386.exe auto DOS=HIGH,UMB :::: etc And other lines could follow this as well - CD drivers, etc. The key here is to make sure EMM386 is loaded and that the "auto" flag is set to enable it to allocate XMS and EMS as required. Now you should be ready to Rock'n'Roll. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I have downloaded emulator XXXX, and UNZIPped and installed the emulator, but don't get any sound. A. Make sure the emulator supports sound for the particular game you are playing (by reading the documentation that comes with the emulator). If the emulator is a DOS / Windows application, then see if your sound card is setup and working in other DOS / Windows programs / games. If it is, then read the documentation that comes with the emulator to see what sound cards it supports. It it doesn't support yours, then you may be able to reset your card as a different type that is supported by the emulator - usually Sound Blaster is the way to go. On my El Cheapo OPTI930 sound card, I do this in my Authexec.bat with the line : C:\OPTI930\sndinit /b If you don't get sound in other DOS / Windows games, and the card is Sound Blaster compatible, then make sure the following lines are in your autoexec.bat : SET BLASTER=.... SET SOUND16=.... SET SOUND=.... Refer to your sound card manual / help for what to put in place of the dots "....". e.g. For my El Cheapo Opti930 Sound Card, I have : SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T4 SET SOUND16=C:\OPTI930 SET SOUND=C:\OPTI930 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I have downloaded emulator XXXX, and UNZIPped and installed the emulator, but am having problem XYZ. A. Do the following in this order : 1. Read the documentation that comes with the emulator (usually a readme.txt file or similar), and make sure that you have read it fully and tried all the things suggested here before emailing the author or others about the problem. The authors for emulators are generally very good at providing trouble shooting and other information in the documentation for their emulators. 2. If all this fails, read this FAQ. 3. If you still have a problem, then Email the people on the correct Mailing List (See "Q. How can I find out more ?" below). It is important to realise that probably more than 500 people have used the emulator already, and may already have encountered / solved your problem. If you email the author with problems that have already been solved, then their work on further emulations will be slowed down. If everyone did this, their work would stall completely. 4. If you still cannot solve your problem, then - and only then - Email the author of the emulator. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. Is it illegal to download and use ROM Images ? A. You are legally entitled make a personal back-up of computer software that comes on tape and disk. However, nobody can give me a definitive answer on whether you can backup software that comes on ROM chips inside a video arcade machine for use in an emulation running on a completely different machine. Some say "Yes", others say "No". I tend to agree with the people who say that it isn't completely legal. So, even those people who use ROM images for emulation - and own the actual arcade machine - may not be doing things completely legally - however, it is extremely unlikely that anyone will ever have legal hassles for doing this - seeing they own the machine anyway. If you own a commercial emulator (such as Williams Arcade Classics) that contains the ROM images already is some form (such as compiled within an EXE file), then using the same game's ROMs with other emulators is perfectly OK. This does not apply to conversions of the game for another platform - which do not contain the original ROM code. However, if you do not own the arcade machine or a commercial emulator that supports the particular game(s), then using the ROM images *is* definitely illegal. However, as long as you are not selling the ROMs for your own profit (on a CD say), it is fairly unlikely that you will receive any legal hassles over just using them. The Arcade ROM Site maintainers put the "Do Not Download unless you are legally entitled to" messages on their sites to cover themselves in case of legal action. Nobody can possibly say that they are promoting piracy now. If the ROMs were available to legally buy on a CD (say) then most people would buy them. However, no arcade ROM copyright holders seem to want to sell the rights for personal use of ROMs to individuals (even though this would be money for old rope). And the vast majority of arcade ROM copyright holders don't want to develop emulations of their games. Without emulations, the great games will soon be lost and forgotten - due to Bit Rot, ROM decay, and general failure of the old machines. Emulation really is all that stands between the great games and oblivion. So, until A) commercial emulators are available or B) the arcade ROMs are available to legally buy for personal use, then many people really have no other choice than to download the ROMs and use them without really having the right to do so. It is a tough situation, but I would rather preserve the games than just give up and wave goodbye to them forever because of short sighted companies. Hopefully these companies will soon realise that there is a viable market for selling emulations and ROMs. As long as you are not selling ROMs or openly distributing ROMs, then using the ROMs for your own personal use should hopefully not get you into too much trouble. The worst you are likely to get (at least initially) is a cease and decist letter from some lawyer. I cannot condone piracy, but I definetely will condone preservation any day of the week. At the end of the day, what you do is up to you. Also see "What are Suicide Batteries" above. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. Can I email an arcade game company for permission to download an emulated game from the internet ? A. You could - but this is NOT advisable - but read below first ! For starters, there is a very good chance that this email will be ingnored, and even if it wasn't ignored, I do not believe that they would give permission readily. Indeed, such an email might aggravate the issues of copyright and the old games. If we are to get the copyright holders to sell or release the rights to the old 15+ year old games to the public domain, then we need to be very careful how we approach them. Once people get a bad impression or get their "nose out of joint", it can be very difficult or even impossible to repair / retrieve the situation. I would recommend that you leave the contacting of the companies / copyright holders to people who have excellent communication skills, a full awareness of the potential issues, concerns, and problems, surrounding the arcade machines / roms, and who have the right "tread very softly" approach. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. What does "Attract Mode" mean ? A. Attract Mode is the mode an arcade machine is in when nobody is playing it. i.e. there might be a demo of the game, displays of the title screen, high score screen, etc. There might also be music and sound. Basically, the machine is trying to attract people and put a coin in the slot to play. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. What are DIP Switches ? A. Dip Switches are small on / off switches (a bit like a tiny light switch) inside the arcade machine - usually on the motherboard. These switches are set by the operators of the arcade and can be used to control the difficulty of the game, the number of lives, bonuses, etc. A growing number of emulators support Dip Switch setting, which can simply mean toggling one or more values on one of the set-up screens for the emulator. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. How can I write an Arcade Emulator ? A. Refer to the excellent "Arcade Emulation How To" or ("How to Write an Arcade Emulator") FAQ maintained by Michael Adcock. You can get this from the "Arcade Emulation" section at : http://move.to/moose ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. Is the Play Station emulated ? A. Sorry mate !! This FAQ is all about real arcade machines (with coin slots). You will have to look elsewhere for this sort on information. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. Is game XXXX emulated ? A. Check out the "Links" section at : http://move.to/moose If the game is emulated, it will be mentioned here. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. Why doesn't everybody just come together and concentrate on one good emulator (like for the SNES, NES, Genesis, instead of writing many emulators that just support 1 game or a few games ? A. People do collaborate a lot on the arcade machine emus. The problem is that the various video arcade machines are so different - different CPUs, different memory, different graphics, different co-processors, different numbers of processors, different design, different game sizes, different game controls / inputs, different screens, etc, etc that one emulator to run all games would be very difficult to write. The SNES is only one machine with one design for CPU / graphics / etc. So, one great emulator for the SNES is possible. Each video arcade machine, however, could be as different as the SNES is from the NES, or the Apple ][ is from the SNES, etc. So, generally, different emulators are needed. With that said, however, some very clever emulator authors have developed a range of different cpu / graphics / etc drivers that are called when they encounter games that require them. Dave Spicer's brilliant Sparcade ran games with 8080A, 6502, 8085, Z80, 6809, and other CPUs very well. Other emulators have also been developed using similar methods. For example, MAME runs many dozens of games from vastly different arcade machines as well. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. Why do some games have multiple sets ? e.g. "set 1", "set 2", etc ? A. There are slighty variations in some games and sometimes the company releases bug fixes or improvements to the game. For many games the differences are hard to see or are not noticable at all - except to maybe hardcore fans of the game. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q. How can I find out more ? A. Check out the "Links" and "Arcade Emulation" sections at : http://move.to/moose Mailing Lists : See above WEB pages. News groups : comp.emulators.misc rec.games.video.arcade.collecting Message boards : http://www.mame.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- Changes History : ----------------- 13-Apr-97 V1.0 First Public release. 17-Apr-97 V1.1 Add in answer to question "Is it illegal to download and use ROM Images. 23-Apr-97 V1.2 Add in answer to question "Why doesn't everybody just come together and concentrate on one good emulator ? 10-May-98 v1.3 Add in "What is a ROM ?" question and answer. Update various WEB links, provide more answers to a few questions. 22-Jan-2001 v1.4 Add in "Can I email an arcade game company for permission to download an emulated game from the internet ?" 23-Jul-2002 v1.5 Tidy up some links and info above. Add in : What are "Suicide Batteries" ? ---------------------------------------------------------------- Mike "Moose" O'Malley _________________________________________________________________ Moose's Shareware & Emulation Valley - Established July, 1996. WEB: http://move.to/moose Email: moose@move.NOSPAM.to.SPAMMENOT _________________________________________________________________ EOF.