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Great, been waiting for that for ages. So now we might finally get those original GBC colors for GB games in emulators (and especially the coloring for Metroid 2!). For reference, if anyone is interested, here's the story how the original GB ROM got dumped by decapping the chip holding it and reading out the values with a Microscope: http://www.cherryroms.com/forums/copier-and-hardware-forum/manually-extracting-rom.html?page=2 (two thirds down the pge, the post by nevikisti from Wed, 05/18/2005 - 10:26). Thread itself deals with how they tried to dump the SNES DSP1 chip, but ultimately failed to do so. Currently there's some effort underway by the creator of bsnes to do the same thing: http://byuu.org/

FCEUX is a port of FCE Ultra that runs on the Xbox. It is quite nice, but you can't use original NES controllers and the resolution differences cause aliasing and/or bluring even with the best video settings.

An even better method of playing downloaded NES and Famicom ROMs is a new console being developed by Kevin Horton, which is cycle perfect. While most NES emulators do an OK job of emulating popular NES games, they are not perfect. Kevin's console will be perfect down to the last CPU cycle, as he is recreating the circuitry of a real NES and the associated cartridges using an FPGA. The system will even be able to use NES and Famicom peripherials, such as the game controllers, R.O.B. the Robot, and even the imfamous Power Glove!

It will be able to be hooked up to a TV or computer CRT, and you can load ROMs off of standard SD flash memory cards, so the entire console is solid state, just like the original NES. Most modern emulators run on PCs or consoles that use fans and CD drives, which are noisy and take away from the NES experience.

Note with the link that the URLs used in the thread might have to be copy-pasted to a new browser because the linked to server doesn't like people directly linking to images.

It is not for sale yet, but if you are a serious NES or Famicom fan, keep this one on your future gift list. Also pick up some NES controllers, lightgun, etc off of Ebay, so that you can use them with the console once it is released.

The infamous NES on a chip is far from pixel perfect. There are documented graphical and sound inaccuracies with regards to a real NES. Just because you use the original game ROM does not mean that the game is "pixel perfect". You also need to recreate the original system correctly (in software or hardware) or you could just burn ROMs to carts and use them on a real NES. The problem with the NES is that each cart has special memory mapper and co-processor chips. This means that making a universal flash cart (like the popular gameboy advance flash carts) is very difficult, which is why it has yet to be done.

HOWEVER, there is a guy, Kevin Horton aka Kevtris, that is currently recreating the NES (check out the pics), and not just a pixel perfect recreation, but also a sound perfect and even "cycle-perfect" recreation of the entire Nintendo Entertainment System and all of the mappers for the system!

Hence this re-created NES will be able to play any NES or Famicom game, and it will be exactly identical to the original... not just close to the original like software emulators of the NES. Compare a real NES and any software emulator of the NES. It doesn't take long to learn to be able to tell the difference, even ignoring the controllers you use to play the games.

Kevin's recreation of the NES will be just like the real thing down to the CPU-cycle and it will be able to use the original NES peripherials such as the original controllers, Zapper lightgun, paddles, spinners, power pad, power glove, and even R.O.B. the Robotic Operating Buddy! Kevin's recreation will be a must own for NES fans, as you will no longer have to worry about blowing on carts and managing a large library of carts: every game could be placed on a small flash card. You also won't have to worry about buggy, inaccurate software emulators running on a large noisy $2000 PC.

The casual NES gamer will be satisfied with the inaccurate software emulators, as they have probably never played a real NES or haven't done so in a decade. Hardcore NES fans will prefer to own Kevin's recreation... well, in addition to the real thing and a room full of real carts, but it will be allot easier to manage thousands of games stored on a postage stamp sized flash card.

Emulation is NOT better than the original system in many aspects. I emulate allot of systems on my Xbox, but if I had an option to go with the original system via a flash cart or backup system, then I would much rather use that than an emulator. Emulator often times fail to recreate the game that the designers intended. Colors are off, as well as aspect ratios, sounds, music, and even slight timing differences in gameplay.

Many systems also don't have good controller adapters for using accessories on a PC. The N64 is the only exception, as it there is a USB device known as the "Adaptoid", which supports every N64 peripherial: controller, memory modules, force feedback modules, etc... The PS1 and PS2 come in second place, as they have some quality USB adapters which allow the use of a controller but not all peripherials.

For the NES and SNES, there are no good USB adapters that support peripherials other than the game controllers. No Zapper or Super Scope support, no Power Pad support, no R.O.B. support, etc... You gotta go with the real thing for that. Personally, for he SNES, I use a Flash Cart, which lets me transfer games from my PC to a SNES cart which I can play on a real SNES with all of the standard peripherials. That beats ZSNES and SNES9x any day!

Most emulator-gamers don't know these things because they never compare their emulator to the real thing, or have long since forgotten what the real thing is like.

With regards to the NES, there will soon be a solution, as a guy is recreating the NES from the hardware logic gate level. Hence it will be a cycle-perfect recreation, yet will be able to play games from flash cards (MMC or Smart Media or something like that). It will also be able to use the original peripherials of the NES and Famicom (Jap NES). Depending on how you look at it, this new retro-console system can be viewed as a recreation or as an extremely low-level perfect and accurate emulation.

My beaf is with inaccurate emulation. If it was perfect emulation that allowed use of native system peripherials, I would have no beaf.

One last thing, that Legend of Zelda speed demo that has been floating around is crap. A buggy emulator was used to make it. I saw the guy not getting hurt by his own bomb exploisions and numerous other bugs. Pretty lame because those bugs don't exist on the real system... but then again, like I said, more and more people these days are starting to forget what the real game is like because all they know is the inaccurate emulation of it.

It's going to be great if Woo sticks even a little to the game. I haven't played the original NES I or II, but Metroid III got me hooked. I remember I could never beat the game when I was younger, but thanks to ZSNES and other emulators, I finally beat the game the other day with 89%. It's a very addictive game.

You can get ZSNES here.

You can get the super metroid rom here.

To see some amazing game play action (100% at 1 hour), see here.

they revealed that Namco is developing Star Fox 2.

Bit late, aren't they?

as long as they don't bother us anymore, I don't care what they call themselves.

It's quite playable, although some of item names and such are still scrambled, at least in the version I downloaded a while ago. You can get the original Japanese rom from Cherryroms and the patch from Zophar's Domain I'm honestly not sure whether or not that's the most current version, but like you said, Dejap's down at the moment. Personally, I think it's worth downloading for the cheesy Star Trek rip-off in the intro alone...

The fact that they leave a site like Cherry Roms alone after the first letter is complied with says to me that, unlike the RIAA, these guys are either incompetent or smart enough to not bother sites with unprotected copyrighted material.

Ask anyone in the Emulation community - the IDSA has been doing this for years but they certainly aren't heavy-handed - they demand you remove things that they have copyrights to and nothing more (unlike the RIAA, which doesn't discriminate).

Clearly, they investigate many sites and just have a list of copyrights they hold. Now, it may be that the IDSA is right and the redistribution rights of, say, the Frogger license, mean that the licensee (ie/ the game producer/publisher/author) do NOT have the right to redistribute the game for free. This has not been explained by either the original letter or the response.

Of course, Occam says that the IDSA just has a bunch of interns searching Google and Top50 sites. :)

I am only speaking from experience and I am always willing to hear different opinions and experiences people have had with the IDSA...

In case you weren't aware, that's a clone of Bust-a-move