Gaming Systems

The R4 Card And Emulators For DS Means Retro Gaming Fun

Some of my fondest R4 memories of video gaming are of my brother and I opening up our Christmas present some 20+ years ago to discover inside the box an Atari 2600 with 10 games. While younger game players don't have any hands on experience with the Atari 2600, everyone has heard of it and has seen at least some of the screenshots out there on this thing we call the world wide web. Great memories indeed. My brother and I spents hours upon hours playing some of the best home conversions of arcade favorites for years to come on our good old Atari 2600. 

Thankfully with the creation of Emulators for classic consoles, we're now all able to enjoy some of the timeless classic games many of us grew up with.

For those of you that are not sure just what an "emulator" is, let me briefly explain.  Emulators for the DS (or emulators for any other platform) are software programs that are created for the sole purpose of running games or applications that were written for or created for another piece of hard ware.  For example, we know that an Atari 2600 can play Atari 2600 games without any trouble.  That's because the software or cartridges that are used on the Atari 2600 were made for and created with the Atari 2600 hardware in mind.  Thus, the games run perfectly on the Atari 2600.  Emulators for the DS aim to recreate, by way of software, all of the different bit of hardware and memory maps that a game would be looking to utilize or work with as if it were an actual Atari 2600 console itself.  And it's no easy task to have one piece of hardware fully emulate or mimic another.

While the Atari 2600 was revolutionary back in its heyday, the Nintendo DS or DSi is easily hundreds of times more powerful and capable of rendering sounds, graphics, even video.  The trick however is to utilize and write software that will turn that Nintendo DS into an Atari 2600.  It's much like having an Atari 2600 running ON TOP OF the Nintendo DS itself.  While the Atari 2600 was a "slow" game console by today's standards, the Nintendo DS has to work twice as hard - or harder - to run both the software and then run the actual games themselves because it is NOT an Atari 2600. 

Thankfully with years and years of NDS homebrew development emulator creators and programmers seem to have many things down to a science, and their software can mimic and emulate the hardware of many of the classic video game and arcade systems.  No small feat considering the heavy processing work that has to be done by the NDS itself.  In my article on Nintendo DS Homebrew I explained what homebrew was and why it is created.  Emulators for the DS are also part of the homebrew umbrella.  While not stand alone homebrew games themselves, they enable playing of retro games by their sheer existence.

Emulators have been around since the days of the old PC computers.  Even the old Apple computers had emulators released for them, some in the form of software while others were hardware boards that enable users to use PC specific software on their Apple computers.

Emulation however really took off as PC's got faster and quicker.  In the early and mid 90's there were emulators for most of the classic video game systems, all playable on any IBM / PC machine.  You could fire up your PC and start playing your favourite Arcade games or Commodore 64 games.  I have fond memories of reliving some of my childhood game playing on my PC in-between doing my regular work (which is what a PC was for after all, right?).

Many of these early emulators have since been ported to virtually every platform that could support the speed required to run the games or programs.  And with the R4 Card for the Nintendo DS, you're now able to enjoy many of your classic systems, in the palm of your hand.  As hand held consoles become more and more powerful, it was only a matter of time that the most popular emulators were ported over.  The only thing that was really holding back their potential was the inability to use these emulators on the Nintendo DS or DSi.  That all changed with the release of NDS Flash Cards like the R4 Card for the NDS and the R4i SDHC for the Nintendo DSi.  No longer did emulator makes have to even consider creating a cartridge, when the R4 Card was the ultimate homebrew / emulator card available.

One of my favourite emulators on my Nintendo DS and R4 Card setup is Stella.  Stella is an Atari 2600 emulator that allows you to load and play all of your favourite Atari 2600 games, right on your Nintendo DS console.  Games like Pitfall, Phoenix, and Journey bring back memories of days now long gone.  And instead of having to pull out and dust off my Atari 2600 console, I can now comfortably play them on my Nintendo DS system thanks to my R4 Card.  Being able to carry around not only some truly unique homebrew games, but also some of my favourite old classic games is what keeps me coming back to the Nintendo DS instead of systems like the PSP.

StellaDS is a complete emulator.  By this I mean that once you load it on your R4 Card you'll be greeted by the familiar blips and bleeps of your favourite Atari 2600 games.  The games run just as quickly and as well as they did right on the Atari 2600 itself.  The novelty is that I can carry around my collection on my NDS and get in a game of Pitfall no matter where I am.

It's homebrew software like emulation that really makes the Nintendo DS stand out for die hard gamers.  While it's great to have unique and touch friendly games, having the option to play some of our favourite classics right on the NDS is what makes the Nintendo DS (and not the DSi) stand out from the crowd.

In my next article I'll do an in-depth review of another very popular 8-bit game system that you can also now emulate on your Nintendo DS or DSi.  So make sure you keep checking back for more.  And while you're waiting, grab your Nintendo DS and get an R4 Card.  You won't regret it once you get your hands on your favourite classic games.

About the Author

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