Does XBox gamepad emulator software exist for the PC?

Question

What I'm hoping to do is use a second keyboard and/or mouse in the place of a gamepad for games that require a gamepad to enable multiplayer gaming. I've noticed a few games that are XBox ports have this requirement so was hoping someone could point me to some software.

Asked by dlanod

Answer

To the best of my knowledge such software does not exist. Most of the hacking work in the area is in making gamepads do keyboard like things, rather than emulating gamepads with keyboards.

Answered by Patch

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Is it possible to play Outpost on a modern OS?

Question

I have fond memories of playing Outpost in the windows 95 era, and I pulled out the CD recently and discovered that it will not install on XP and above. I believe the problem is that it utilized DOS running underneath windows 9X. It won't install on a DOS emulator, however, because it uses the windows installer.

Is there an updated version of this game anywhere, or a way to emulate the environment it needs to install and run?

Barring that, can anyone suggest any newer games with similar gameplay? E.g. semi-realistic space colonization simulation (without combat).

Asked by sjohnston

Answer

You could set up a virtual machine running Windows 95 using Virtualbox or VMWare or Windows 7's built-in Virtual PC. The only thing you'd need is a Windows 95 CD and installation key.

I have no idea how it will play out - graphics and sound may both be an issue, and require additional drivers - but I'd say it's worth a try.

Answered by Pekka

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Gameboy emulator to play Pokemon 1st gen on? (PC)

Question

I recently sold my Gameboy, but I now regret it because I want to play Pokemon :P. I have no clue where I could find an emulator though... I want to play Pokemon 1st gen if it matters, could anyone suggest an emulator?

Asked by garrett

Answer

So linking to ROMs is not allowed since they are illegal pirated copies. However, as far as an emulator, I would recommend Visual Boy Advanced. It is for Gameboy Advanced games, but Gameboy games will play on it as well.

Answered by Ktash

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Why doesn't the cpu full load to make PCSX2 (PlayStation 2 emulator) run game faster? [closed]

Question

My CPU Q6600 (QuadCore) only loads 50-70% when I run PCSX2 (PlayStation 2 emulator) and only has fps around 30-50 when I disable speed hacks. See picture :

I wonder why the cpu doesn't load more to make it run faster ? Or it has been bottle-neck at VGA card or RAM ?

My specs :
Mainboard GA-P35-DS3 (rev. 2.0)
CPU Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q6600
2 x KINGMAX DDR2 800 PC6400 1GB
GIGABYTE GV-RX26P512H Radeon HD 2600PRO 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16

ps : I use GDSX video plugin with DX10 and SSE3. And I also enable MTVU (Multi-­Threaded microVU1).

Asked by JatSing

Answer

Because not all code is parallel (i.e. able to take advantage of multiple cores) and because PCSX2 is very much a work in progress. I had the same model CPU and about the same sort of performance. Keep in mind that the PS2 has some very exotic hardware, so emulation is necessarily complex.

Looking at your hardware, though, an upgrade to your RAM would definitely help your PC's performance in general, and so would a GPU upgrade, if you do a lot of gaming.

Also, you are not meant to disable all of the speedhacks most of the time, the lesser settings are quite compatible.

Try using a GPu monitoring utility to see how much load it is under, it could help identify the bottleneck.

Your plugin selection can also make quite a bit of difference. Try looking for GPU plugins that support SSE3 and DirectX 10, and play around with the settings.

Answered by kotekzot

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How can I get my copy of Murder to play?

Question

I've got a ROM of Rabbit Software's 1983 classic, Murder. I've got it as a .t64 file, what do I need in order to play it?

Answer

You will need a ZX Spectrum emulator, a quick Google search lead me to this page which list multiple emulators by platform. I can't tell which emulator is better, but your can check their stat page and see what's popular by platform.

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Amiga emulator for Mac?

Question

Does anybody know of a working Amiga emulator for Mac... and how to set it up?

Also, are there any good sources for games for it?

I'm getting nostalgic!!

Answer

The UAE Amiga emulator for MacOSX:
http://stran.yssimo.com/index.php/siti-strani/e-uae-tutorial.html

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Is there a GBA Emulator for R4?

Question

I am trying to find out if you can get a Gameboy Advance emulator for the R4 flashcart?

Thanks.

Answer

No. You need a Slot-2 adapter (for example the EZ-V 3-in-1) in order to play GBA games. It is not possible to run GBA code from the Slot-1 adapter.

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How do I run “Frogger 2 - Swampy's Revenge” on newer Computers

Question

Someone gave me this game as a birthday present. Unfortunataly the installation does not even start under Windows 7, Compability Mode does not help with that. It is a Windows 95 game. How can I get it up and running again.

Answer

The installation for Frogger 2 is likely a 16-bit application, which are not supported on 64-bit versions of Windows.

Unfortunately, this only leaves you two options: Find if someone has written a 32-bit or 64-bit installer (this has happened for Grim Fandango and a few other games) or use a Virtual Machine.

Having said that, Virtual Box's Direct3D support was limited to DirectX 8 and 9. Unfortunately, this means that older titles do not work on it.

VMWare Player appears to support DX7 and earlier, but it has a somewhat intrusive signup process even though it's a free app, which involves them annoyingly sending you an email newsletter.

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Why is it so difficult to emulate PS2 games in a PS3?

Question

I know that PS2 games can only be played in a 'fat' PS3 with the right hardware to run it. But why is so difficult to emulate a PS2 game in the PS3 without that hardware? Is the processor, the architecture, both? Thanks in advance.

Answer

Short Answer

PS2 games were made for an older CPU. They cannot run on the CPU designed for the PS3.

Long Answer

PS2 games were created to work on Sony's Emotion Engine CPU and their Graphics Synthesizer GPU. This CPU/GPU combo was put in all PS2 units and in the first variants of the PS3 (the NTSC 20GB and 60GB models) to make them backward-compatible. These models can play almost all PS2 games.

The 80GB Metal Gear Solid IV bundle had the GPU as well, but replaced the Emotion Engine chip with software emulation of the chip. It can still play most PS2 games, but support isn't as good as the earlier models with the actual EE CPU.

Models since the MSG:IV bundle had neither the CPU nor the software emulation of the CPU required to play older games.

Sony has a knowledgebase article that explains which three versions can play PS2 games. They also have a compatibility tool that you can use to see if specific games can play on those specific models.

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How do I play an old Net Yaroze game?

Question

I used to really enjoy the game Super Bub Contest that was given away on a few Playstation magazine cover discs.

It was a Net Yaroze game, for the original PS.

I no longer have the discs, or a playstation. How can I play this game again? Preferably on some modern console (PS2; Wii; Xbox 360) or on a MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard?

EDIT: I'm not asking for locations of pirated material. The author has made the game available on his website

EDIT: Here's a Youtube video to show gameplay.

Answer

First google hit for "Super Bub Contest": http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/70649-ps1-homebrew-super-bub-contest/ is by the game's author, linking to the homebrew file and mentioning it should run fine with epsxe.

_{The only thing you still need to aquire is a PAL BIOS file, but due to the legal issues involved with that I won't elaborate how to obtain that...}

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Crash and Reboot When Running mame.exe (MAME Emulator)

Question

I downloaded the latest version of the MAME Emulator (version 0.142 - mame0142b.exe) from the address below recently:

http://mamedev.org/release.html

Unfortunately, when I execute the mame.exe file from the command line it just crashes (screen goes black for a second, then PC reboots by itself - no error is shown). I've tried running it without any ROMs, but still got the same problem.

I have the latest drivers installed (275.33) for my NVIDIA GeForce 6100 nForce 405. I am using Windows XP Home SP 3.

Could you please advise how to get the emulator to run without crashing?

Here is the error I received (after disabling automatic restart):

Technical Information:

STOP: 0x0000008E (0xC0000005, 0xBD1B1642, 0xB1078658, 0x00000000) nv4_disp.dll - Address BD1BD1642 base at BD012000, DateStamp 4dd7387f

Answer

A video driver bug is the most likely culprit. Try running mame in a window instead of fullscreen with the switch -window. You could also try -video gdi.

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Emulators or external tools that support backtracking like in Nestopia

Question

In Nestopia emulator you can put the time in reverse and "backtrack" invalid move. It feels like aggressive auto-save with convenient loading. For example, you fell into Bottomless Pit, then press backspace. Music starts playing backwards, you fly up from the pit and start walking backwards until press '\' and resume normal playing. This prevents you from forgetting to save or saving in the wrong place.

What other emulators also support this feature? Can it be added to an arbitrary game with some external tool?

Answer

I believe that's the only emulator that will reverse time in a game. NES games are special in that they're completely deterministic, which means any perceived randomness is just a matter of when you pushed the button. This may have a lot to do with why it's possible to do it in Nestopia.

As far as adding it to the arbitrary game externally, I'm not sure what you mean. If you're talking about any game that you have on your computer, it would be theoretically possible but not practically. If you're talking about an emulated game, it's a matter of someone coding the emulator to perform this task. Even in an emulated game, the feasibility is likely dependent on the deterministic nature of the console as noted above.

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