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FCE Ultra is a console emulator I use quite often. I am a huge fan of the NES and grew up sitting next to one, every... single... day. FCE Ultra has been in development for a while, with its latest update being from 2004. Have no fear. The reason for the lack of updates is the simple fact that they are not needed. As it stands, everything works great.

The Linux version of FCE Ultra does not have a GUI, therefore everything from configuration and loading of a ROM needs to be done by command prompt. However, there is a frontend called GFCE Ultra which I recommend if you don't want to deal with the command line. That includes me.

GFCE makes it easy to configure your keyboard or gamepad for use with the game, up to four controllers. You can also quickly enable OpenGL mode as well, although I've never noticed a difference with using it. Full screen mode does the opposite. If you have smoothing enabled, it will be disabled in full screen. I am unsure why, but I had the same problem when I used to use FCE via command line. Full screen mode will show the game as you would see it on the original console.

I have never had a problem with this emulator, although I never managed to run it in full screen where it actually stretches to fill the black space. Hopefully you will have better luck than me, if that's your goal. Without a doubt though, FCE Ultra is your one stop shop for playing your favorite NES games.

• FCE Ultra - Official Site
• GFCE Ultra - Official Site

The Super Nintendo was one of the first 16-bit consoles, with its primary competition being the Sega Genesis. That console had been available for a years already but was lacking any real hold on the market. The SNES launched in 1991 with a few launch titles, two being stellar: Super Mario World and F-Zero. It didn't take too long before more titles showed up that really grabbed peoples attention.

Earthbound, Star Fox, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Clay Fighter, Mega Man, Zelda: Link To The Past and about 740 other games made this one of the best selling consoles of all time, selling 20 million alone in the US. Needless to say, if you are a gamer over 10 years old, chances are you spent some good time with this console.

By far the best SNES emulator still in development is the multi-platform ZSNES. Key features of ZSNES is the ability to configure 'til your hearts content. There are many different video modes and settings to choose from, to make sure your game looks good and that it performs well.

When opened, it mimics an OS-like environment where all the necessary menus are at the top. Once a ROM is loaded, you can simply CTRL + Enter to go full screen. This is one emulator I have to say performs exceptionally when in full screen mode. On my 20" LCD widescreen, it looks crisp and clean, even while stretched.

Other notable features are internet play, Game Genie support, quick saving, screenshots, audio saving and the ability to speed up or slow down gameplay. ZSNES is one of the best console emulators ever created. Do yourself a favor and download it.

At a time when Nintendo were chugging away with their 8-Bit console, Sega releases their mega-powerful 16-bit Genesis, known as the Mega Drive outside of North America. The Genesis was Segas best-selling console, with almost 30 million units sold. The successor was the Saturn and then the Dreamcast, both of which sold only 33% of what the Genesis mustered.

In 1989, the graphics displayed on the console were no short of amazing. While the NES had a palette of 48 colors, the Genesis offered a staggering 512. Of course, the eye candy was a huge draw to the console, but luckily for gamers, there were numerous titles that enthralled us.

Sonic the Hedgehog, Phantasy Star, Strider, Moonwalker, Earthworm Jim, Columns, Shadow Dancer, Altered Beast, Streets of Rage, Shining Force, Ecco the Dolphin were just a few of the games that helped sell the console well into the mid-nineties. The last year to offer a slew of titles was 1995, but the last few were finally launched in 1997.

Remember kids. Genesis does, what Nintendon't!

The most popular, and reliable Genesis emulator for Linux is Gens. Yes.. it's called Gens. It's quite feature-rich though and should allow you to get your game on fast. Upon opening, you will simply see a small game window and the menus.

I should mention that Gens does not only play Genesis games, but Sega CD and 32x as well. I never did own either, so I didn't have a means to test it out. It's nice to have so much support in a single application though.

The first spot I hit up was the controller configuration, which allows you to choose configurations for 3 or 6 button gamepads. I ran into a few problems here, but you may not, depending on your gamepad. With my 360 controller, whenever I attempted to redefine the keys, the entire process would fly by, as if I was holding a button down. It was virtually impossible to configure that controller. My Logitech RumblePad 2 was much better. I was able to properly configure the buttons, but then I ran into a different problem. All of the buttons I configured worked great... -except- the D-Pad. So, I was essentially unable to move my character, but was able to kick and punch.

Luckily, you can use the keyboard as a last resort, through the same controller settings. I hate not being able to get a gamepad to function, but I intend to shop around and find another potential candidate. If anyone out there uses Gens and has a gamepad that works well, please let me know and I will update this article.

Like FCE Ultra, Gens allows you to clean up the textures and sprites of the game, to offer a far smoother looking experience. You of course can opt out of this if you want a more authentic experience. Me on the other hand, I love me some smooth sprites.

For whatever reason, I wasn't able to find a way to set a custom resolution. You have the ability to double the original size (which is incredibly small), but that's it. You can of course go full screen, which looks great and performs well.

One thing I have to say about this emulator is that it produces amazing sound. All of the games sounded very good, softer and less chimey than the actual console.

Other notable features include a Game Genie built-in and also net support, though I have yet to figure that one out. Another useful Genesis emulator is called Generator, but I didn't find it half as impressive as Gens, in all regards. I couldn't immediately find gamepad support either, so I recommend Gens be the first Genesis emulator you give a try.

The MSX computer was born in the early 80s, around the same time that the NES was released. Yes, the Console vs. PC Gaming war has been around for quite a while. Many well known games were released on the MSX before other consoles, such as Metal Gear and Bomberman, although other games could be found here as well, like Contra 2, Dragon Quest and Gradius. Its graphics were great at the time, but fell behind the NES when it was released. There was a later model of the MSX called the MSX 2 which took care of that.

By far the best MSX emulator is openMSX, which is still in development today. As you could probably gather from the name, it's completely open source and their team is always looking for new developers.

Like many emulators, openMSX is completely command line based, but you can grab their GUI subproject Catapult. Since openMSX does not support a huge range of customization like other emulators may, the command-line is probably the easiest method. I have found Catapult to be a finicky application in the past.

openMSX touts their emulator as being one that aims for perfection, and its no doubt been on the right path for a while. Its support is incredible, as you can see on their features page. Opening a game is as simple as openmsx carta path, so it really could not be easier to use.

• ePSXe - Official Site
• NG Emulation - ePSXe Plugins
• padJoy - Plugin Homepage

The PS1 was Sonys first foray into the game console market, and who knew it was going to quickly become a legendary system as it had? The console had a September 1995 launch and quickly became one of the most popular consoles on the market. Support for it only recently ended, with American games released up to 2003. Other parts of the world had continual releases, with the last few games being released in 2005 in Japan.

Towards the end of its life cycle, the Playstation and PSone variants sold over 100 million units, becoming one of the top selling consoles of all time. Do I really need to mention the reasons for its raging success?

Final Fantasy, Crash Bandicoot, Gran Turismo, Tony Hawk, Wipeout, Jet Moto, Tekken, Tomb Raider, Castlevania, Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil, Twisted Metal, Metal Gear Solid, Spyro The Dragon... to mention just a few. Not to mention that it was virtually the only console on the market to offer up the most titles for RPG fans. No other console came close, thanks in part to great support from Squaresoft and Enix.

In the early days of Playstation emulation, game support was horrible and performance of the application matched, often laggy, if it worked at all. Happily, we have come a long way since the likes of Bleem!, with ePSXe being my personal favorite PSX emulator. If you are skeptical about running a PS1 game on your computer, you might be surprised to know that ePSXe gives you the ability to play any Playstation game, NTSC/PAL/JAP, at full speed and without many side effects.

Because this particular emulator requires a little more attention than the others in the article, I will be devoting an entire page to it. There are many tutorials out there that tell you how to get it up and running, but I want to make sure you are left without confusion.

Installation of ePSXe on Gentoo was simple because it was available through the software repository, but you will need to perform a little more work if you are in a different situation. Head on over to their download page and grab the Linux executable file. Extract it to some directory where you want to keep it, as the file contains all the required binaries. /home/user/programs/epsxe is one option.

Once finished, you might be able to start the application. I say might, because you might not have all the required dependencies. Running the program through the command line would tell you what you are missing, if anything. Reading their forums might be a good place to look if you are having a hard time with installation.

At this point, the emulator is useless. Reason being, you need to load a BIOS file that the real Playstation 1 uses. Obviously I can't link to sites that house the file, but it isn't hard to find them. The BIOS you will want is SCPH1001.BIN, which is what's found in US consoles. For PAL, you will need SCPH7502.BIN and for JAP you'll need SCPH1000.BIN. You will want them all if you are planning on playing some imports.

When you have your BIOS file(s), you should copy it to your ~/.epsxe/bios folder, which should exist if you have begun the application under your primary user. Then click the Config menu and select BIOS and search for it.

If you installed ePSXe manually, you might not have a single plugin available yet. A good place to start for the graphics is Petes MesaGL Driver 1.76, which works great. You can find a link at the bottom of this page to a site that offers downloads for a slew of plugins. Once the plugin is installed, you can load up the configuration to see the options below, which can be somewhat overwhelming at first. The sound (P.E.Op.S. ALSA Audio Driver 1.9) options are basic, and I didn't find myself needing to change anything.

You will notice a lot of game fixes in the bottom right-hand corner of the GPU config, which you may need to use for certain games. In FFIX, I had to enable the 01 in the list in order to stop the menus from flickering. Most games I have tested work fine right out of the box though.

Spending a lot of time on this screen will do you good. I had to try a variety of different settings before I stumbled on one I liked. Using this driver though, I was unable to get the full screen video working properly. Nothing would display, although I could hear sound. Luckily, Pete has another plugin called Petes XGL2 Driver 2.8. The configuration here is quite similar, but with it I was able to play the game full screen and it looked fantastic.

The default gamepad screen is less than desirable, as it focuses on using the keyboard. If you can use a keyboard just fine with a Playstation game, then kudos to you. I personally require a gamepad for maximum enjoyment.

That's where another plugin comes into play, called OmniJoy. This plugin is again available for both Windows and Linux, with the Linux version being slightly different. Ideally, if you have a gamepad in similar design to the actual Playstation controller, then configuration will be simple. I am using the Xbox 360 controller though, so I set the back two trigger buttons (Z-Axis) for the L2 and R2 buttons.

The downside here... is that I don't believe there to be a way to have the analog sticks function in ePSXe reliably. Apparently, it is an inability with the emulator itself, and nothing else. There is another emulator called PCSX which -does- allow use of the analog sticks using the padJoy plugin. However, I have not found that emulator to be that reliable. It's quite a bit slower than ePSXe on my machine.

My experiences with ePSXe have been amazing. Although it takes a little tweaking for it to work ideally, I very rarely ever run into an issue that can't be fixed quickly. All the games I have played ran smooth, without a hint of lag during gameplay. Occasionally I will hear the sound skip, but it's not that common. ePSXe is well supported, so there are a few plugins floating around that you can try if you are not happy with the one you are using.

It also offers up to five quick-save states in case you need to leave but don't want to wait for a save spot. Other times, you can save to the virtual memory card. Probably one of the largest benefits of ePSXe is that you can play from either the actual game CD or a off a backup that you copied to your computer.

If you are a fan of the Playstation and want a reason to haul out some of your games, ePSXe is it.

It's hard to believe that arcades used to be prevalent, but nowadays you are hard pressed to stumble upon one... ever. Arcades used to represent the ultimate hangout for gamers, and it's sad that they are all but rare now. Even in my small city, I grew up with two different arcades, both now defunct. If you want to rekindle fond memories of your arcade addiction, your best bet is to head on over to Japan where they are still popular. Might as well get rid of your Pachinko craving while you are at it.

Luckily, most of the arcade games you grew up with are likely available online. MAME is the multi arcade emulator and handles a variety of machine emulations. This single emulator can handle games from the early 80s and even games in present day. If you played a game in the arcade, it's likely playable through MAME.

The most popular MAME emulator for Linux is AdvanceMAME, which hasn't had a new release in close to a year. The latest version of AdvanceMAME utilizes MAME 0.106, while the latest official version of MAME is 0.115. I am unsure the process of upgrading AdvanceMAME to utilize the latest version, but it might be worth searching for information if you are having problems running a game.

Once AdvanceMAME is installed, it won't take long to set up. Running advmame will tell you to set up a configuration file, which you can do with advmame --default. Once done that, you can to edit your ~/.advance/advmame.rc file. Under the dir_rom entry, you can change the directory if different than default, which is ~/.advance/roms/.

Starting up a game is as simple as advmame romname. As long as the ROM you want is in the right directory, it should start up quickly. At first, the navigation might seem a little complicated, but you will get a grasp on it quickly. Once inside, you can push your TAB key to open up a menu which allows configuration of all kinds, video, input, audio and so on. Luckily, gamepads are supported, so fun is only a few minutes away.

• AdvanceMAME - Official Site