Emulator Tips: Last updated:
08/29/99  


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  • Emulator Operation Tips

    1. SPEED!
      If the game runs too slow, try lowering the frame rate. For Genem, use:
      genem sonic1.bin -frame = 6
      Remember: the higher the number, the faster it will run, but the more choppy the animation will be.
      As for Genecyst, go under SETTINGS/TIMING and increase the Virtual Frames Per Sec (FPS) to a higher number. It won't speed-up the emulator for all cases, but its an easy and quick way of speeding things up.
      If it is STILL to slow, tinker around with your computer hardware by over clocking you CPU by switching the jumpers on your mother board to fool it into thinking you have a faster CPU then you really do, or eliminate as may wait states as possible. ONLY TRY THIS IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING or you may permanitly screw-up your PC.
      If all else fails, get a new PC. Not 100% brand new, but a new mother board and CPU. This will cost you about $500, depending on what chip you will be using. I'd go for the K6 for price/performance.

    2. The Magic of Vesa 2.0
      If possible, load the Vesa 2.0 driver for you video board. They can either be found with the software that came with your video board or PC or they can be found at the video board manufacture's website or BBS. If one is not available, (typical for older video boards), then download the universal VESA extender from Sci Techsoft at www.scitechsoft.com. You'll have to register the program.
      The point of going though all this is that with a VESA driver, you will be able to use the screen resolution of 320X224, which will allow you to play a genesis game at about full screen without losing any lines. Besides more available video resolutions, the VESA driver can usually speed-up the performance of the video board, making games run faster!

    3. No joystick?
      As I said before, if you want perfect game pad support, get the "Rockfire" controller or any other programmable game pad. They'll tames even the worst keyboard layouts. Most game pads nowadays have REAL 6 or 8 buttons, not a 8 button game pad where 6 buttons do the same exact thing.
      Or, you can get the console cable. This device allows you to use you SNES, Genesis, etc. controller on you PC! Fully programable!
      If the game does not have joystick support or if the joystick support is lame (2-buttons), these are your only real alternatives.

    4. KGen takes too long to load. Any way to speed it up?
      Even with a P200, KGen takes a good 10 secs to "initialize". I am not aware of any ways for speeding-up this "initialization". Well, maybe you could try to create a RAM disk and then copy and run KGen from there. But this would not work, since its not a disk read problem, but an execution delema. I'm sure the author is aware od this matter. (Why else would he have a "Initializing --- Please wait awhile..." message?) My only remendation is to grin and bare it. It used to be worse with the older versions of Kgen: you had to reload KGen each time you decided to switch ROMs.

    5. How do I combine Sonic 2 and 3 with Sonic and Knuckles?
      I can't believe you missed it. Info on how to do this technique is on this page. Click here to jump to that location.

    6. Format unknown??
      Most files are in .bin. If it isn't, use UCON to convert it to a .bin format.

    7. They say it will run, but I been having no luck. :(
      Is the image legitimate? Test it out with Ucon141. If it is legitimate, then are you typing the command line in lower case, not UPPER CASE? Some emulators fails to load games if the command line is in UPPER CASE.
      If your using Genecyst and the screen goes red after about 5 sec, goto FILE/FIX ROM CHECKSUM. Reload the game and it should work now.

      If none of these steps work, then it is probably a weird bug in the emulator that allows the game to run in certain conditions and not in others. The solution: wait for the next version of the emulator or get the exact same copy of the ROM that everyone else has.