Game Emulators on Symbian S60 3rd Edition devices

[krisse]

Krisse delves into the murky world of game emulators and demonstrates all the things that become both possible and playable....

Read on in the full article.

[amazon.bass]

Ok, I'll give you that there are many MSX apps and games in Japanese, but even so its English titles outnumbers Game Boy's, Game Gear's and other less-than-thousand application platforms.

In addiction, I tried FMSX/S60 on my E62 and it is a eye-candy bit of SW. Installation was very straight-forward and it runs very smoothly, although there are some pops in the sound.

For these two reasons I encourage all you S60ers (mainly the E62ers) out there to try fMSX/S60). I'm very happy with it - my MSX is now on my pocket!

regards,
Danilo

[krisse]

Originally Posted by amazon.bass

Ok, I'll give you that there are many MSX apps and games in Japanese, but even so its English titles outnumbers Game Boy's, Game Gear's and other less-than-thousand application platforms.

I couldn't find any english-language MSX games, just Japanese releases that also had some english text. If you can provide a list of english-language MSX games I'd love to see it.

Also, as far as I know the MSX never had significant sales in any english-speaking countries. If you can provide some evidence to the contrary I'd love to know about it.

Originally Posted by amazon.bass

In addiction, I tried FMSX/S60 on my E62 and it is a eye-candy bit of SW. Installation was very straight-forward and it runs very smoothly, although there are some pops in the sound.

The installation is more difficult than other S60 emulators. You can't run fMSX straight out of the box, you have to go searching for the system ROMs and then place them in the correct directory.

[Kazutoyo]

gpfce is possibly the best NES emulator for S60 3rd, and it's free too.

picodrive is a great free Mega Drive / Genesis emulator too.

The emulators are attached to the linked posts, but it's needed to register on the my-symbian forum to download them.

[krisse]

I'd heard about Picodrive, it's been around for years, but I didn't want to put any emus on here that lacked a proper site of their own.

Does anyone know why Picodrive is a members-only thing? Is the author connected to my-symbian?

[Menneisyys]

Originally Posted by krisse

I'd heard about Picodrive, it's been around for years, but I didn't want to put any emus on here that lacked a proper site of their own.

Does anyone know why Picodrive is a members-only thing? Is the author connected to my-symbian?

The original site (see the links at http://www.finalburn.com/mobile/pico.html ) no longer exists.

[Menneisyys]

BTW, great article! Will surely mention it in my next Misc news or Games / Emulator News article. (I'm the author of all Windows Mobile emulation & interpreter Bibles and particularly interested in emulation on Symbian / BB / other mobile platforms as well; see http://www.pocketpcmag.com/cms/blog/%2A/Emulators if interested.)

Incidentally, do you plan to add an interpreter section on, for example, ScummVM ( http://scummvm.org/downloads.php ; also see my related Bible at http://www.pocketpcmag.com/cms/blogs...asarts_etc_adv ; it's WinMo only but has a lot of multiplatform remarks on games, recommended articles etc.)? Interpreters can be really nice.

[Kazutoyo]

Originally Posted by krisse

I'd heard about Picodrive, it's been around for years, but I didn't want to put any emus on here that lacked a proper site of their own.

Does anyone know why Picodrive is a members-only thing? Is the author connected to my-symbian?

Those emulators are open-source projects originally developed by others for another platform.

Anotherguest who ported those emulators for S60 have a website here but for some reason he doesn't those emulators there, but instead other ports. I'm not sure why he only upload them to my-symbian. Best way to know why, would probably be to send him a PM on my-symbian and ask or by using the email on his website.

Anotherguest is also the guy who port ScummVM to S60/UIQ, but that port is hosted on the official ScummVM website.

[BitRabbit]

Actually, MSX was fairly supported by western publishers. You cite Rare (formerly called Ultimate) and Codemasters, both of them ported their games to the MSX. It was quite easy since it had the same resolution as the Speccy and had the same Z80 inside. We could also add Ocean, Mastertronic, Mirrorsoft, US Gold, Level9, Anirog, Gremlin Graphics, Software Projects as UK companies, but US ones like Activision or Epyx as well. On the French side, Infogrames, Loriciel, Ere Informatique and Cobrasoft had some of their games ported on this platform. And the excellent and very prolific Dinamic in Spain ported all its games to the MSX as well. The list could go on and on... The list is far from being exhaustive.

[krisse]

Actually, MSX was fairly supported by western publishers. You cite Rare (formerly called Ultimate) and Codemasters, both of them ported their games to the MSX.

I wouldn't say it was well supported in the West.

There might have been some titles ported but the number of releases were tiny compared to the C64 or ZX Spectrum.

There were also (as far as I know) no MSX magazines in the West, which indicates the active MSX userbase in the West was very small, as even the Amstrad managed to have about half a dozen magazines for several years.

[luarvique]

Originally Posted by krisse

The installation is more difficult than other S60 emulators. You can't run fMSX straight out of the box, you have to go searching for the system ROMs and then place them in the correct directory.

You can, just download the fMSX-Symbian version off http://fms.komkon.org/EmuSymbian/#fMSX.

[Nomad0404]

The MSX in the UK had at least 2 if not 3 mazines including MSX User.

I had three of them including a Toshiba and a Panasonic.

I would say the MSX in the UK probably had about 400 games released on it maybe more I have no idea of the actual number.

First and foremost of those games would be the Konami Cartridges - such games as Nemisis, Roadfighter, Metal Gear etc - because they were on cartridges they were phenomenaly good for their time.

However, I agree MSX emulation is a pain even on a PC far easier to play something like Advance Wars via a GBA emu.

Phil

[gradian]

thanks alot for information

[Kazutoyo]

Seems like DOSBox is on it's way