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The Emulators: . .

 

There are severial major emulators available. Most do a descent job at emulating games graphically, but when it comes to sound, only KGen and Genecyst makes it worth your while. So, is it worth all the trouble you will more likely have to endure? It all depends on what type of PC you have. If you have a speedy Pentium, preferably a Pentium 100, then you should have no trouble at all, in the sense of speed. But, if you have anything slower, then the game play will be too jumpy and unbearable at times. Genecyst is everyone's favorite, Genem is dieing in popularity, and KGen is rapidly gaining respect in the Genesis emulation areana.


Genecyst by Bloodlust Software Last Version: x.xx [Homepage] | [ScreenShot]

 

 

From the makers of Nesticle: the best NES emulator to date, comes the latest entry to the Genesis emulation arena. If the author of Nesticle makes Genecyst just as good, then this should be a killer emulator! So far, the emulator runs a some games that Genem fails to run, but fails to run some games that Genem can. The emulator is much faster the Genem. On my P100, Sonic the Hedgehog 1's animations display and move just as good as the console unit gets. Most games will play at or near the same speed as they do on the Genesis: no faster, no slower, thanks to its speed limiting code. (It can be altered to make games run faster or slower under Settings/Timing... ) Sound support has just been added, and it has been improved with each release. The FM synthesis is great, thanks to Genecyst's supurb digital FM emulation! The digital sound sampling(PSG) playback has been fixed so the digital audio no longer takes center stage as being the loudest noise coming out of your speakers! But this added feature of sound does not come for nothing: it takes I noticed that the animation in most games became more jumpy with sound enabled.
Many features found in NESticle are found in Genecyst. Some features which are found in NESticle are not found in this emulator, like a Genesis movie recording support. But, other features were added, like an oscilloscope like visual sound output, which only proves that the author has still not finished or has not given-up on his work.
One thing to note: the format in which the save state files are saved in are incompatable with version saved with .20 (pre-sound support release). Therefore, you will not be able to use them. The savegame format for games after that version are compatible with KGen.
There is currently no working homepage for Genecyst. Just click on the link above.
For DOS

Genem by Markus Gietzen Last Version: 0.19 [Homepage] | [ScreenShot]

The first lean, mean, speedy Genesis emulation machine! This DOS based emulator doesn't run too many games, but the games that it does run operate (graphically) nearly bug free! It supports sound emulation, but don't except much, because its not that impressive. It now supports more sound channels but the sound is still lousy. (Early stages.) So far, Sonic 1 is the only game that I played where you can hear the sound. I was told that Michael Jackson's Moonwalker also plays sound, but I haven't gotten that game to work properly. (Must be me I guess.) It does, at least, give you some thing to listen to. The emulator has great game speed speed if you have a good video card and a Pentium based PC.
The latest new version(0.19) runs about the same number of games .17 did but I noticed that the background graphics in Sonic 1 has "holes" in it.
You will noticed that when you download the emulator, you get two .EXE files: Genem.exe and gennew.exe. Gennew will run more games the the other version, which is based on non-assembly code, but some games will work the genem and not on gennew because the assembly engine that the emulator is based on is not yet complete. Therefore, both EXE. are included for compatibility. If it happens to work on both versions, use the program on the later version, because it run faster.
Note: command line to run emulator MUST be in lowercase, not UPPER CASE. If you don't, the emulator will tell you that the game you want to run is damaged, even though it may actually be fine.
Example:
genem sonic1.bin
NOT
GENEM SONIC1.BIN

One last note: the project has just been shutdown (again :[ ) after just being restarting a month prior to its cancelation. Why? It has been said that the author of Genecyst lied to him that he was not making a separate Genesis emulator when asked. They were both working together on Genem.
Oh, wait a sec. As of 8/16/98, the auther has decided to restart the project! Exept this time, the author will only work on Lynx port.
For DOS, Win 95 and MacOS and Lynx

KGen98 by Steve Snake Latest Version: V0.4b [Homepage] | [ScreenShot]

(Formally KGen.) Unlike most emulators projects, the author of this emulator waited until the emulator was somewhat finished before posting a release to the public. Written in 100% assembly, the emulator is faster Genecyst. (Try running Sonic 3, if not faster. The author claims that most ROMs will now work with the emulator. Infact, he requested people to make a list of non-working games instead of a list of games that work.
The emulator's digital sound playback (PSG) is near perfect, with FM sound is as accurate or a bit less then Genecyst. Some features include, screen shot capability,

'Zone Choice

auto speed-down adjustment, joystick support, in-play volume control, a mouseless GUI, and a savestate option, where the savegame files are compatible with Genecyst savestates files. ( A HUGE plus.) The author has been hard at work latly updating the emulator. The biggest change that I have seen is the absence of the annoying long pause of the emulator initializing when executed. If you have a fast PC, can live without all those GUI extras and want one of the most perfect Genesis emulators avalible with a no BS interface, then this is the emulator of choice for you.
For DOS

Kyoto by Michael Kikuta Last Version: none [Homepage] | [ScreenShot]

This emulator is JUST starting out. Programmers (assembly only) should contact Michael Kikuta if they are interested in joining the project. The emulator is named after Haruki Ikeda home city, Kyoto Japan. Haruki Ikeda started the project out in 1996 and died in a tragic car accident while on vacation in India? The emulator project is being continued in his honor. Though there is no release out, the webpage will provide a vast amount of information about the operations of the Genesis.

Apperently, no one wished to continue Haruki Ikeda work. After Michael setup his webpage which asked for people to continue the Kyoto project, Genecyst, KGen and several other Genesis emulator projects were started. They were all started a month or so after this webpage was created. It appeared that no one really cared to continue the Kyoto project or carry the Kyoto name. The webpage containing this emulator project is now gone. It's safe to say that this emulator project is over.

MegaDrive by ??? Last Updated: 0.0.5 [Homepage] | [ScreenShot]

Another Dos based emulator. I never really bother with this emulator too much because has too many graphical bugs. It's also extremely slow and has no frame skipping option to make it run faster. It also lacks support sound, but it does have joystick support. The author of the emulator had a hard drive crash and lost his source code. Therefore, he says he has abanded the MegaDrive project. I'm not posting the emulator on my page because, when unzipped, the emulator is 1.7 megs, and also because it's way to slow!!

NextLEVEL by Christian Fowler Last Version: Not yet Released [Homepage] | [ScreenShot]

An "all SEGA console system emulator under one roof" project! The goal of this emulator project is to create an emulator that will run any game from ANY SEGA console unit. Currently, the SMS/GameGear emulation aspect is nearly complete. Work on the Sega Cd aspect has been halted due to lack of technical information, and the Genesis/32X part of the package is in the works.
For DOS


st0rm Melody Software ELDA Latest Version: Alpha v0.013 [Homepage] | [ScreenShot]

This emulator is just getting started. Expect to see something from this emulator project soon.
For DOS

Virtual Genesis by Jason Meehan Last Version: 0.14 [Homepage] | [ScreenShot]

This emulator is has pretty good sound support and runs many games. It is not, however, as compatible as Kgen or Genecyst. One thing this emulator has that, so far, no other emulator has is preliminary Sega CD support. Right now it can only display the bios screen, but hey, you have to start somewhere.
For DOS



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Screen shot comparison of all emulators.]

 

 

Last modified: juin 28, 2012