Emulation Help

Here, we will try to answer some of the frequently asked questions about emulation, emulators and roms. If you have a question or need help on a topic which isn't covered on this page, you can contact us or make a post in our emulation help forum.


What is emulation?

Emulation is having a computer act as another computer or console. This is done using a program called an Emulator, and means one can emulate say a Super Nintendo on a PC, or a Nintendo on a Dreamcast, allowing these consoles games on the PC or Dreamcast via computer files called Roms.

In short, emulation is the act of playing another system's games on your home computer or console.


What is an emulator?

An emulator is the program which mimics the other system. These emulators usually work like this: they translate or interpret the original program code of the original game and make it work on your PC, Apple Mac or other system. The games, demos or programs are usually stored in a ROM file.

You can download a large selection of emulators for various operating systems in our emulators section.


What is a ROM?

Most classic games are stored on cartridges (example: NES, Super Nintendo etc.). On those cartridges are special computer chips called ROM chips (Read Only Memory). Interfacing such a cartridge with the PC is not very easy so people have invented devices which can download the contents of such a ROM chip (the game software and data files) to a special file: a ROM file.

There are also a lot of games and programs which are produced by independent or amateurs, these are released for free and are known as 'home brew' or 'public domain' ROMs.


How do I use an emulator?

The best place to start if you are new to emulators or you are having trouble running one, is to read the emulators read me file which should come with most emulators.

If you have problems and need some help, you can you can make a post in our emulation help or emulators forum, where someone is sure to help you.


What do the codes in a rom filename mean?

These codes are just extra information about the rom, usually the country of the original game and sometimes other information about the rom dump. Below are a list of some of these codes and what they mean.

Country Codes
(B) - Brazil
(C) - Chinese
(E) - Europe
(F) - French
(G) - German
(I) - Italian
(J) - Japanese
(S) - Spainish
(U) - USA (UK) - United Kingdom
(W) - Worldwide
(Unl) - Unlicensed
(PD) - Public Domain

Universal Codes
[a] - alternative rom
[b] - bad dump
[f] - fixed dump
[h] - hacked rom
[o] - overdump
[p] - pirate version
[t] - trained version
[!p] - Dump pending
[!] - verified proper dump
(NG-Dump Known) - No Good Dump Known
(REVXX) - Revision Number (00 is earlist)

GoodGBA codes
[hI] - hacked with Intro
[hIR] - Intro removed
[hIR00] - Intro removed and replaced with 00 values
[hIRff] - Intro removed and replaced with ff values

GoodGBx codes
[C] - Gameboy Color version
[S] - Super Gameboy version
[BF] - Bung Fix

GoodGen codes
(1) - Japan
(4) - USA
(5) - NTSC
(8) - PAL
(B) - Brazil
[c] - Known bad checksum
[x] - Thought to have bad checksum

GoodNES Codes
(PC10) - Playchoice 10 version
(VS) - Verses version
[hFFE] - Copied from Far East Copiers

GoodSNES Codes
(BS) - Broadcast Stellaview ROM
(ST) - Sufami Turbo
(NP) - Nintendo Power exclusive

More Help

If you have a question or need help on a topic which isn't covered on this page, you can contact us or make a post in our emulation help forum.

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