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pamelah · Apr 17, 2003, 02:35 AM

Hi everyone. I'm new to the mac...17" PB to be exact with a 23" cinema display. I'm not a "gamer" or anything. But I get a kick out of games like donkey kong and super mario bros. and the like. I was wondering if anyone knew if there were games like this available for the mac so I can kill some spare time? (Yes I know they are *chick* games...and I am a *chick*

lol)

Would you mind sending some suggestions my way? Do they make donkey kong or mario bros. for the mac? Last I understood it was a nintendo thing?

juanvaldes · Apr 17, 2003, 03:04 AM

Sounds like you want classic console games. Hit up SNES9x & RockNES for SNES & NES emulators.

This will get you started. http://emulation.net/

Aside from what what kinds of computer games are you into? First person, simulation, strategy, card?

exca1ibur · Apr 17, 2003, 04:56 AM

And dont forget MAME for the actual arcade games.

Other goodies are here also Classicgaming

pamelah · Apr 17, 2003, 03:38 PM

thanks guys!

Yeah, I guess you could say I'm into classic games. Grew up in the 80's with my nintendo...lol. I really don't have a lot of time to play games but I like to have one installed (esp. since summer is coming so I'll have some spare time) so I can fool around.

nobitacu · Apr 18, 2003, 02:32 AM

Nice... hehehe, I'll be getting some myself now. ^_^

Ming

ApeInTheShell · Apr 20, 2003, 10:10 PM

Pamelah...you'll need to find a system rom which includes instructions for the nintendo console you are emulating. The game roms are difficult to find to because some pages with them either point you around in circles are do not work.
Good luck though

mac freak · Apr 20, 2003, 10:48 PM

Typically, SNES and NES rom sites work. Just search Google and the first 20 results or so should suffice. It often helps if you include the game you want in your search (ex -- if you want to find Star Fox, search google for: snes roms "star fox").

It gets hard when you're searching for N64 stuff.

And remember kids, if we're being lawful here, you can only possess roms of games of which you don't own legal copies for 24 hours.

pamelah · Apr 22, 2003, 03:50 PM

Ok, I'm a little confused. Never done this before, nevermind with a mac!

I go to this site and download something called an emulator for NES and SNES? Then I assume I install it just like a program? Do I pay, is it "legal". Is this a very normal thing to do?

Then what happens? I need something called a system rom? What is that? Is that the actual game? Will all these games run from my computer or do I create a disk for them?

What about resources like kazaa?

Sorry I sound like an idiot. I catch on VERY fast though, I swear

DeathMan · Apr 23, 2003, 04:05 PM

Okay, so how it works is:

To play old nintendo games (or arcade games or whatever) you have to have two things.

1) Emulater - this is a program for your mac that pretends to be the actual nintendo hardware, so that it can trick old nintendo games to actually run under them. Its emulating the nintendo system.

2) ROM - a ROM is basically a sort of data-capture of the ROM on the cartrige. Each cartrige has this little peice of memory that stores the game on it. Every game has its own ROM.

You usually won't find Emulators (or Emus) and ROMs together on the same site, because that will usually cause problems and get the site shut down.

You see, it is illegal to distribute ROMs to people who don't legally own those games.

Getting Emus is easy enough, and there are plenty to choose from. You have to look a little harder for ROMs. Websites make you do a lot of clicking and searching, and even then you'll have a lot of trouble. If you know any foreign languages, that's usually helpful, because a lot of the distributers are foreign (harder to shut down)

Some good places to look for ROMs are, IRC, Kazaa, gnutella, you can find them on the web, I don't know if direct connect has that kind of stuff.

Its pretty common for people to have ROMs illegally. I sort of justify that if I can find the game used, I can buy it, but nintendo doesn't get that money? so what do they care if I buy it or find it?

anyway, that's sort of the short and long of the whole Emus/ROMs thing. MAME is for arcade games, and there are other ones for different things. My current favorite are the Emus that let you use your dreamcast as a nintendo or SNES. awesome.

pamelah · Apr 23, 2003, 04:09 PM

Cool wicked awesome deathman. Got it.

So when I do a search on Kazaa how do I know the game is in the right format and what words do I use to search?

would it be like "donkey kong rom"

oh yeah, and how big are these files usually? (I know it would depend on the game, but for like a donkey kong or mario bros?)

pamelah · Apr 23, 2003, 04:38 PM

hey i figured it out on my pc...sweet!