You may be wondering what an emulator is. Emulators allow your computer to act as a console system such as the Apple IIe or Atari 2600, which are used to emulate the hardware of a variety of classic arcade games.
Are all classic arcade games emulated? No, but games made before 1992 are. Not all systems are easy to emulate.
Why is it necessary to emulate classic arcade games? There are three main reasons why:
1. Popularity: If the system is popular, even if it is classic, more effort is put into emulating it.
2. Availability of information: if the system contains a lot of information, it will be easier to emulate. If a game has never been emulated before, it will require a lot of reverse engineering, which can be frustrating at times.
3. Technical obstacles: the hardware limits the restrictions that are difficult to avoid. For example, it took quite some time before the Atari 7800 was emulated, due to the encryption algorithm that prohibited loading games. Also, newer systems may lack the sheer power to get the game running at playable speed and faster.
Although emulators are difficult to run, especially if it’s your first time, you should download an emulator and unzip it. If you are not familiar with the procedures, you should read the documentation carefully.
Emulators are composite pieces of software. Most emulators may not perfectly emulate the capability of the system you are trying to copy. Imperfections in some emulators may be minor, sometimes sync issues can occur. Some emulators will not run games at all or worse, have some display issues. Some emulators may be lacking in joystick support, sound, and other important features.
When writing an emulator, you will go through a difficult process that requires getting the precise system information and figuring out how to emulate it with software code.
There are two different types of emulators. The first one is single system or single game emulator. Examples of these are an Atari 2600 emulator, an NES emulator, and an Apple II emulator. These emulators can only emulate one type of game or system. The second type of emulators are multi-emulators. The best example of this is the Multi-Arcade Machine Emulator or MAME. MAME can emulate hundreds of arcade games, although not all arcade games can run on the same type of system. That’s a huge generalization, but the reason why multiple emulators require more resources compared to single system emulators, in most cases.
The onset of emulation has opened up many opportunities for companies to leverage their resources. Why spend a lot of time recoding or porting classic arcade games to a new console when you can easily write a vertical emulator? Emulation is the solution to these problems and gives gamers an exact replica of the classic games they love and want to own.
