Please bear with me (Emu/Rom help)

Ok, to tell you all first off, I am extremely computer ignorant. If it isn't simple internet of Microsoft Word, I am way out of my league. Anyways, I was wondering if anyone could explain to me what these emulators and roms do that we can download and how exactly I would go about doing it. I tried to with it with a nes emulator and FF1, but it kept saying something about how it doesnt fit for MS DOS or something like that. Once again, I am completely computer ignorant so you will have to talk to me like a child. Thanks.

This would be better in the Help Forum, somebody should be able to help in there ^_^ *moves*

Are we allowed to help? *not sure about EoFF and rom laws, but there are roms in the EoFF page...*

I think so because he is asking what they do and how to make them work... not asking FOR Roms...so it seems fine to me. If I'm wrong then someone else can close this, I guess.

An emulator is a program that emulates gaming consoles like Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. A ROM is a file that contains the information of a game originally on one of these consoles, in a format that the emulator can read.

When you download an emulator, it will most likely be zipped - that is, the file name will be nes_emulator.zip or omgsars.zip, for example. A zipped file just means that several files are bundled together as one, far easy transfer - you don't need to move each individual file this way.

When you download the emulator, you'll need to unzip it, using a program like WinRAR. Unzipping is just unbundling all of the zipped files into a directory - which you'll need to remember.

The ROM may also be zipped, and you'll need to unzip that too, though most emulators can run a ROM from within a zipped file these days.

Once you have the ROM and the emulator, you'll want to navigate the the directory with the emulator in it, and run it, using what will likely be the only executable file. Then you'll want to use the menus and such within the emulator to configure your keys to match the controller, and load the ROM.

That's about all there is to know about emulators.

Cool, thanks for the info. Is there any difference in quality in emulators, and if so, is there a certain one I should get that is of good quality or are they all pretty much the same?

Yes, emulator quality and ease of use varies greatly. Zophar's Domain is the premier emulation site, so you should visit to learn more about specific emulators.

My personal favourites for SNES and NES are Zsnes and Nesticle (Outdated, but it's fast) respectively.