The real savior of video games and how the video games survived


The real savior of video games and how the video games market survived


Video games keep getting better and better each year. The video games industries have expanded beyond the expectations and it became cultural phenomena. Nowadays, millions of dollar was spent to develop and produce AAA games titles such as Grand Theft Auto, and Final Fantasy series. Games have become giant industry like Hollywood and some universities such as Digipen even taught programming specialized in game making

Now imagine if the video games that you happen to love and know disappear right even before you were born.

The culprit was the video game crash during the mid of eighties (it was 1983 to 1985 to be exact). At that time, video games have lost their appeal in the market. With many bad quality titles still being unsold, most of the big player in video game industry like Atari went bankrupt. Accordingly, the recession and the lack of interest, video games was about to disappear eternally from the earth (enter sad music here)

It all went hopeless until (enter Xenogears’ “flight” theme here) Nintendo Entertainment system arrives in the scenes. The hero was a game named Super Mario Brothers, a colorful side scrolling plat former featuring a plumber with mustache. The players’ objective were to guide Mario reaching the next castle while avoiding harmful traps and enemies along the way

The addicting game play and high quality graphics (at that time) turned the public attention to the new Nes and video game industry slowly revitalized.

 

Learning from the past mistake of video game crash, Nintendo created a licensing system to check the quality of the games that appeared in the console. The new licensing system was made so that the next games would get a quality control before entering the market place

If Nintendo did not make appearance in 1985 and revitalized the industry, maybe we could never know game titles like Skyrim, God of Wars, Call of Duty and the other games. And for that reason, it is no exaggeration that some people considered Super Mario Bros as the best video games title of all time





Source of article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

Posted by hendyable on Tuesday, May 27, 2014 | Tagged | 0 comments

Installation of video games emulator for Android phone user


Installation of video games emulator for Android phone user

The emerging of smartphones gradually changes the way of people interact with others and doing their jobs. Nowadays, millions of people visit website, create office documents, check money currency, and even sell applications through the small wonder called smartphone. It is no brainer that with the popularity of the smartphone makes many software developers create applications dedicated to the smartphone operating system. 

As gaming has become more and more portable, we should rejoice that many of the emulator developers ported their software inside the ponsels.

Android as one of the smartphone operating system has become another viral phenomena in smartphone users. And with millions of user, we could expect video games emulator keep coming left and right in the google play store.

Here are the lists of emulator that I have tested using my android phone and I have tested some of the emulator that work decent in my device. My phone processor is Cortex A7 –quad core processor with the speed of 1,7 Ghz. My operating system is Android 4.2.1 Jellybean

Nes – Nes emu free. Price tag zero
Free and already with safe state support. It should work with no problem.


Genesis – MD emu / MD emu free. Price tag 5$ for the premium version

The premium version work well in my phone. I have tested the MD emu free version but there are black border in the screen.

Super Nintendo - Snes9x EX. Price tag free
It is a free emulator with decent graphic, save state and load state supported.

Gameboy advance – my boy! Or my boy free. Price tag 5$ for the premium version

The premium version supports save and load state but the free version still works flawlessly although you can't do the save state in those fire emblem games ( I expect your characters to die a lot without the safe state : p)

PSX – Epsxe. Price tag 5$

From the maker of epsxe comes epsxe for android, a very good playstation emulator. It could find the cover of the PSX CD automatically and arranged the game like a library. The user interface was top notch.

PSP – ppsspp. Price tag free for the normal version

This is the PsP emulator. Yes you heard it right. This is the emulator of playstation portable for the android device. You wont believe that there is a free version and it has the same capability with the paid version (the paid version has gold colored theme). Using my current spec, I could not play the three-dimension game at full speed. Yet, I managed to play visual novels and some rpg like Lunar and Tales of the world Radiant Mythology 2 at decent frame per second.


Nintendo DS – Drastic 

This is the number one Nintendo DS emulator for android. Not only that many games already at the full fps, you can even use the touch screen input to play the game. You can even use only one of the screens as the main and left out the other one, which looks good for Castlevania games
The downside is the price is currently set at 5.99$

Nintendo 64 - N64oid
I have tried some emulators for N64 and most of them have lag in 3D games. The n64oid is one of the N64 emulator that has fewer hiccups in my android. I have not tried with the faster Android phone though so you may encounter smoother game play experience.

How to install emulators in Android Smartphone.

For installing the emulators, you need android smartphone (off course), running Internet connection, a google account (you can create email when you first click google play), credit card account (for premium software), and a micro sd cards with some games ROMS inside.

First, copy the game ROMS inside the SD card memory. It is preferable if you create folder games, then adding the "unit" folder inside (for example NDS folder), and then put the ROMS inside

Second, you can click on Google play icons and type the emulator name and touch "search". For reference use the list of emulators above.

Click the install button and wait until the installation finished.

Click the emulator icons and click open file. Then, you can try to find the Rom directory in the micro sd and click open

Check the emulator faqs if possible and try to change the setting to your preferences

The emulators list above is not complete and generally the emu that I have tested personally in my smartphone. Yet, I will update my list in the future and if you have some questions related to the emulator, you could ask me to my email or post in the blog. 

Posted by hendyable on | Tagged | 0 comments

Installation manual for Nintendo 64 emulator Project 64 for beginner





Installation manual for Nintendo 64 emulator Project 64 for beginner



Nintendo 64 was one of the main competitors for Sony Playstation back in the mid-late nineties. The console was a major powerhouse at that moment and some of the killer cartridges like Zelda Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64 were the best selling games at that time. The N64 took the 3 Dimension gaming to the new level. The graphic were superior to the PSX and Saturn. However, Nintendo decision only to use cartridges in order to battle piracy makes many third party developers could not developed the games for the N64. The more expensive licensing fees and difficulties to stock cartridges (not to mention the fees for producing them) made the games for N64 lacking in numbers

There are two robust emulators for Nintendo 64 are Project 64 and 1964 in Windows operating system and in this manual we would like install the Project64.  The latest N64 emulator is version 2.1 and we can download the emulator from www.pj64-emu.com

The step for installing project 64

  1. You can visit to the emulator main site and go to the download page.
  2. Look for PJ64 ver 2.1 and download the exe file
  3. Double click the Pj64.exe
  4. Click next
  5. Skip the two ads by clicking skip
 















After the exe finished, open the software, you can see the main menu of the emulator

Now you will see three tabs in the upper part of the emulators. Lets look at them

File tab


  1. Use it to choose the ROM image you wants to play
  2. If you happen to play a game in a windowed environment, this will end the game
  3. Choose the language for the emulator
  4. If you put the roms images in one folder, you can browse the computer and set the folder as the one for opening the game and all of the supported game will be displayed in the emulator windows as well as their compatibility status
  5. If you add or delete roms, choosing this option will update the rom list
  6. Self explanatory, closing the emulator

Option tab

  1. If you start the game in windows mode, clicking this will turn the game into a full screen
  2. Change the graphical properties of a ROM
  3. Change the audio properties
  4. Set the controller
  5. Change setting related to plugins, directories, keyboard shortcut, and ROM status.



Help tab

  1. User manual a.k.a how to use the software
  2. Frequent Asked Question. The list of problems that usually happened with the emulator, fully explained.
  3. Have trouble with the emu and linked to the net this will help you
  4. www.pj64-emu.com
  5. The version of the emulator as well as the programmers name


Advanced option tabs explanations

Configure Graphic Plugin


  1. The bigger the number, the bigger the windowed app
  2. The bigger the number, the better the overall graphic of the game (in full screen)
  3. Copy sync, will not render the frame buffer (some frame buffer effect in the game will missing), if your hardware is capable of showing the frame buffer effect without losing the performance, you can choose the triple buffer
  4. Increasing the texture filtering for the game. The bigger the number, the better of the quality of the game's texture
  5. Increasing the full scene anti aliasing. Ideal if you have decent video card
  6. Only applicable if you open a game. It increases the brightness of the game
  7. Only applicable if you open a game. Changing the aspect ratio of the game in full screen windows.  It has four choices. Automatic, stretch (will stretch the game aspect ratio to your full screen), force 4:3 (letterbox screen), and 16:9 (cinematic aspect ratio)
  8. Activate Super 2xsal texture, a software render to make the three Dimension graphic looks sharper
  9. Activate texture filter, which make rougher edge looks softer.

Configure Audio Plugin

  1. The slider to increase or decrease the sound
  2. Start in-game audio recording
  3. Stop in-game audio recording
  4. It will make the software sync the audio with the video so that they look consistent

Configure Controller plugin

  1. You can set the controller for four players. You can easily change which player controller that you want to configure
  2. You can choose this to set the keyboard button that you want as the controller
  3. It loads a saved controller configuration
  4. It changes the configuration back to the original keyboard layout
  5. It saves the change that you make to the keyboard layout.



How to play the N64 games

You can click in file --> Open rom --> find the ROM you want to play and click open



That's it for now. Thank you for reading 




Posted by hendyable on Thursday, May 22, 2014 | Tagged | 0 comments

How to create CD/DVD Images


How to create CD/DVD Image


CD/DVD image is any file, which inside it contains the information, file, setup, images, or sound taken directly from any CD or DVD and it later can be stored inside a hard disk drive.  In short, it is a clone of a CD/DVD in form of file. It is important in playing video game emulator especially for any emulators that support cd images like psx or playstation 2.

Every time you use a cd rom drive to play a game, the cd game as well as the drive will get older by usage. Using CD image software, we can put ease the cd game that we bought (it is only used the first time we create image) as well as the drive.

Imagine you can store the CD/DVD image in the hard disk drives; you can start your emulator and play your game without even opening your CD/DVD drive. Also, the game played using Iso generally work faster than the one using CD/DVD drive

Another interesting method is you can create backup CD of your legit game copy (here I don’t encourage piracy, it is just for personal use)

So how to create CD/DVD Images? The only software you need is Iso maker here I recommend Imgburn (Since it free, obtaining it would be easy doesn't it^-^)

Follow the following step:

  1. Open your Internet explorer and type www.imgburn.com and enter 


  2. Scroll down until you find the download link and click on the download link

  3. Choose the server where you want to download the software
  4. Click on the download button and save the imgburn.exe file to your hard drive
  5. Click twice in the imgburn.exe
  6. Allow the program to install by click run
  7. Click Next
  8. Tick on I accept the term of licenses agreement and click next
  9. Just click next

  10. Next again
  11. Next
  12. Here we have and advertisement with license agreement. As much as we appreciate the free stuff, we are not needing the ads for the software so untick mobogenie agreement and click next
  13. If you choose express installation, the program will also install additional tune up utilities
  14. Choose costume installation and just un tick the tune-up utilities 2014 and click next
  15. Wait until the installation finish and click close
  16. Insert the CD/DVD game in your CD/DVD drive (preferably DVD drive)
  17. Double click on the software img burn and wait the application to open up. Choose create image file from disk
  18. You can see the source of the CD/DVD drive chose the one where your CD/DVD is inserted
  19. You can also click the destination to choose where you would put your resulting image as well as create the image name.
  20. Lets create a CD image name tes image in Disk D then click save
  21. Click the icon to start the imaging process
  22. Wait until the process finished and operation successfully completed if not either your CD/DVD drive lens have gone weak or the Cd game have parts that unreadable
  23. Now open your epsxe (or other emulator that support CD/DVD)
  24. Go to file -> run iso
  25. Find the tes image that you create in D (or in any place where you create your iso) then click open.
  26. Congratulation now you can put your CD ROM drive to other need


The good thing about using CD/DVD imaging is you can also use it to create back up of your other data (not only game). You can backup your music, document, and you can even create backup of your other media CD/DVD (just don’t sell your backup its illegal)

Phew it finished if you have any question, you can mail me or post the question. I would try my best to answer your question.

Posted by hendyable on Wednesday, May 21, 2014 | Tagged | 0 comments

step by step Installation of Epsxe emulator (English)


English tutorial of using PSX emulator “EPSXE”

About PSX

PSX A.K.A Sony Playstation A.K.A Ps one was a console video game using a standard cd format which took the market of console video game in the mid of nineties. Not only that the Psx was capable of displaying a full 3D environment in the video game, it also supported the Video and CG format which was quite rare for that time (the competitor for using CD format was Panasonic 3do)

About Epsxe

Epsxe is a Sony Playstation emulator run in Window, Linux, and Android environments. The Epsxe have been around for years and the compatibility as well as the stability of the emulator have been proven to be the best of its peers. Almost all games can work in Perfect state or even better in a modern computer. Hopefully using this article, audience can do the installation of epsxe and start playing their favorite oldies title in a High Definition ^-^
This tutorial will explain how to setup the emulator in the Microsoft windows.

In order to get the emulator please visit www.epsxe.com. In that site you can find a download tab under the news word. Up to this article made, the emulator is already come in a version of 1.9

 

There will be many choice of epsxe versions available. Click the left mouse button in the epsxe v1.9.0 windows and you will be given the choice to save the zip file. Save the file inside your computer /download folder


To extracting the zip file, you can install a winrar (demo version) or you can find a 7z program (which is free). Find them in www.winrar.com or www.7zip.org or you can extract the zip file directly (in win7) by clicking the right mouse button and click the open tab then extract.

In order to get the program up and running, you need to get two additional download. You need to download the BIOS (Basic Input Output System) as well as the plugins for the epsxe since the original epsxe software doesn’t provide with either of them.

Reader can visitwww.pbernert.com/html/gpu.htm and find the psx gpu plugin tab. Please find the video plugins that supported in windows. In this example, we will download Pete Windows psx GPU


In order to get the audio plugin, reader can click the tab of Psx Spu Plugin. We will download P.E.Op.S. DSound PSX SPU



In addition, we also need the CD Rom plugin for the epsxe. Please go to the tab of Psx cdrom plugin and download P.E.Op.S. PSX CDR



In order to get the BIOSes, you can search the google by typing PSX bios. Most of the emulator site will provide the bios download or you can also dump your own Bios using a bios dumper.

Extract the zip file epsxe 1.9 to the new folder (it is better if you create a separate folder like games or emulation to save the time later). Inside the folder epsxe 1.9, you will find a folder plugin and bios. Please extract the Pete windows PSX plugin, P.E.Op.S. DSound PSX SPU, and P.E.Op.S. PSX CDR to the plugin folder 


and put or extract the bios in the bios folder

Just click the left mouse button in the epxe 1.9 application. It will start the configuration wizard, which ask you to set the epsxe first. Click config

Chose the bios that you want to use then click next

Chose the video plugin. If you already have a modern graphic card and your computer can play graphic heavy video games, try the D3D driver or Pete’s Open GL driver. If not you can opt to use the pete’s soft graphic which is not as flashy/smooth but take less CPU Power

Click Config to configure the video

In order to get the quality of high definition with the resolution of 720p, change the desktop resolution to 1280x720 or even higher if you like.
In addition, if you want softer and better texture (especially if you are playing a 3D games) change the texture quality to R8G8B8A8 dan texture filtering to extended + smoothed sprites

Klik Ok then click next

Choose epsxe Spu (Sound Processing Unit) core 1.9 then click next


Choose Epsxe CDR WNT/W2k core 1.7.0 then click next


Click controller 1 to configure the buttons


After setting the keyboard button click Ok then click next

Congratulations, your Psx have been configured. Next we will go to how to play the game


To play Epsxe


Find the epsxe 1.9 application and click the left mouse button twice

Put your Psx games in the CD Rom drive or you can opt to use CD image/iso (which I will post later)


Click file then left click run CD rom

Enjoy your game ^-^

Posted by hendyable on Sunday, May 18, 2014 | Tagged | 0 comments