Questions re: Emulating Classic Computers

[Argos]

As an American whose first memories of PC gaming after Reader Rabbit were with Windows, I've been slow to pick up on the wealth of history it has to offer. Coming from emulating consoles, though, it's a bit more difficult to suss out what's worth my energy.

Basically, there were so many competing standards with games being widely ported between them that it seems like there will be diminishing returns with each computer emulated. I currently have DOS and Commodore 64 emulated (along with Atari ST but that's only a few games so far) and I'm looking into building MSX, Amiga, ZX Spectrum and maybe Apple II libraries right now. What else should I be looking into, or are any of these basically redundant? Is there any reason to look into Amstrad emulation if it's not something you grew up on, for example? Are there any post-MSX Japanese computers worth checking out if you only speak English? Sorry if this is too broad of a question, but I'm hoping that a newfound excitement for diving into a realm I'm not familiar with won't lead me to spending too much energy where it's not needed.

[Lordmonkus]

This is obviously a very subjective opinion but my thoughts on it are this (just my personal thoughts). The MSX, ZX Spectrum and Apple aren't really all that compelling to emulate, they are very primitive and difficult to get into playing the games on them. I also never had or played on any of these systems growing up so I have no attachment to them at all.

The Amiga however is very much worth emulating and there are some very well done guides on the forums. @Zombeaverdid an amazing video tutorial you should look at. One Japanese computer worth checking out is the X68000, lot's of great games and near arcade perfect ports on it. It was basically the PC that Japanese game developers used to make many of the games we played back in the day. I have done a written tutorial guide on emulating this system using MESS.

[Zombeaver]

I feel pretty similarly to @lordmonkus on this. Many of them are either fairly redundant or just not that compelling unless you have some kind of preexisting childhood attachment. I do think it's worth getting into a few of them though.

C64 - It has an absolutely massive library of games and of those that are cross-platform between various 8-bit computers, the C64 versions are often the best. I will admit to a certain degree of bias as it's my first experience with video games and was a huge part of my early childhood, but I honestly think there are quite a few games for the C64 that still hold up well today. I think the ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, Apple II, and Amstrad CPC can be ignored in lieu of the C64. There are a number of good choices for emulators - Hoxs64, WinVice, and CCS64 are all good. CCS64 is my emulator of choice because of a few unique features but they're all good.

Atari 8-bit - This was actually a bit before the C64 and doesn't seem to get talked about much. While the C64 was technically superior, there are some great games on the system that make it something worth emulating - probably most notably the early Lucasarts (at the time called Lucasfilm Games) games like Ballblazer, Koronis Rift, and Rescue on Fractalus. Those were actually some of my favorite games on the C64, but somewhat to my shock they're actually better on the Atari 8-bit, likely because that's the platform they were originally created for. Atari 800 is the emulator I recommend for this.

Amiga - In the era of 16-bit home computers, the Amiga was king. While I have a small library of Atari ST games that I emulate, I actually think the Amiga renders the ST mostly irrelevant. There's very little on the ST that isn't also on the Amiga, and of those that are on both, nearly all are better on the Amiga. I like the Atari ST, don't get me wrong, but in many ways I think it's a poor-man's Amiga. Like the C64 before it, it also has an absolutely massive library of games with many really unique and interesting games that are definitely still worth playing today. I have a fairly exhaustive video tutorial that you can find here that covers basically everything you need to know in order to emulate it and integrate it into Launchbox.

X68000 - A powerhouse of a machine that was released only in Japan, the X68000 has some unique games in its library and thankfully, despite some of them being in Japanese many of them are totally playable without any Japanese comprehension; and somewhat surprisingly, there's actually a large number that are in English. There are a lot of great shmups and arcade games on it. I would say that if you like shumps, in particular, it's something you should look into. If not, it might not be worth your time - setting up MESS+Launchbox to emulate it works but isn't the most intuitive thing in the world and can be a bit time-consuming.

DOS - This one's huge. Some of my favorite games of all time are DOS games; which I guess isn't that outlandish considering you're talking about a 15-year span of games. RPGs, Adventure games, the birth of the FPS (yeah, I know Maze War was way back in '74 but when people talk about the earliest FPSs they're talking about Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, or Duke Nukem 3D, not Maze War)... with a massive library of great games spanning a wide range of genres, DOS is definitely one of my favorites.

C64, Amiga, and DOS are the biggest ones for me, but I think the Atari 8-bit and X68000 are still worth looking into. I think these should cover just about everything you'd want covered for this period.

[Argos]

Thanks a million for giving such detailed responses to such an open question. It's especially good to know that going through the effort of emulating Amiga is worth it, I was wondering whether most of the stuff worth exploring wasn't already ported over to DOS at some point. One of the reasons I chose Launchbox in the first place was because of the tutorials, and your Amiga one might be one of the best for such a tough subject. I think I'm still going to try and get into MSX emulation because I think there's enough there that interests me, but it's a relief not to have to deal with the Spectrum considering that I'm already not a fan of its graphics. I knew that it was pretty central to UK gaming at the time, but I suppose all the best stuff was ported to the C64 and such?

Hadn't even thought about Atari 8-bit and X68000, as someone who likes shmups (despite being terrible at them) and classic Japanese games in general I'll definitely go through the effort to emulate the latter at some point down the road.

[Zombeaver]

15 minutes ago, Argos said:

It's especially good to know that going through the effort of emulating Amiga is worth it, I was wondering whether most of the stuff worth exploring wasn't already ported over to DOS at some point.

Some stuff was ported to DOS, yes; but depending on when the game was made the Amiga versions are sometimes better. This is especially true in the late 80's titles. Later on there was pretty close parity between the two - 386's/VGA was becoming pretty standard by the early 90's and that's where the gap was mostly closed. There's a good deal of stuff on the Amiga that wasn't ever released for DOS as well though.
 

24 minutes ago, Argos said:

One of the reasons I chose Launchbox in the first place was because of the tutorials, and your Amiga one might be one of the best for such a tough subject.

Thanks! I hope you'll find it useful. If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the video discussion thread.
 

26 minutes ago, Argos said:

I think I'm still going to try and get into MSX emulation because I think there's enough there that interests me

The MSX is one that I've honestly never delved into. I've got some interest in it, I just haven't gotten around to it.
 

28 minutes ago, Argos said:

it's a relief not to have to deal with the Spectrum considering that I'm already not a fan of its graphics

Some people love the Spectrum, but I'm not one of them. I just think the C64 blew practically everything else in that period out of the water. The Atari 8-bit does have some worthwhile stuff, and like I said even a few cases of better versions (though this is fairly uncommon, in my opinion) but even it doesn't have the kind of library that the C64 has (in fairness, basically nothing else does either). Games are still being made for the C64.
 

42 minutes ago, Argos said:

I suppose all the best stuff was ported to the C64 and such?

In general there's a lot of crossover between the various 8-bit home computers, yeah. The number of games in the C64 library pretty much dwarfed everything else though. There were over 10,000 commercially released titles with the total number breaking 25,000 when you include non-commercial (homebrew) games. It's kinda crazy...

[roy1975]

On 11/15/2016 at 1:31 PM, Argos said:

Thanks a million for giving such detailed responses to such an open question. It's especially good to know that going through the effort of emulating Amiga is worth it, I was wondering whether most of the stuff worth exploring wasn't already ported over to DOS at some point. One of the reasons I chose Launchbox in the first place was because of the tutorials, and your Amiga one might be one of the best for such a tough subject. I think I'm still going to try and get into MSX emulation because I think there's enough there that interests me, but it's a relief not to have to deal with the Spectrum considering that I'm already not a fan of its graphics. I knew that it was pretty central to UK gaming at the time, but I suppose all the best stuff was ported to the C64 and such?

Hadn't even thought about Atari 8-bit and X68000, as someone who likes shmups (despite being terrible at them) and classic Japanese games in general I'll definitely go through the effort to emulate the latter at some point down the road.

Late response but I would absolutely recommend getting into MSX emulation, if for no other reason than because of Konami's games. If you like their NES output, you kind of owe it to yourself to look at what they did on the MSX, especially games like the Knightmare trilogy, Vampire Killer (very early Castlevania game that initiated a lot of ideas that popped up in later games), the Metal Gear games, and Space Manbow. There are other very interesting games on the system as well. Major downfall is that it doesn't do side-scrolling very well.

I've actually tried to get into Spectrum emulation a couple of times and bounced off badly each time. It's not getting games to run that's the problem, it's what the heck to do afterward that stumps me. I can't make heads or tails of the keyboard it used.