OSX Emulation Guide

One of the coolest and least talked about features of having an Apple Media Center is the ability to emulate old video games and play them on your high definition display. However, while there is a ton of information scattered throughout the web on how to do so, there really doesn’t seem to be one place you can go to for simple instructions, especially when it comes to OSX Emulation… until now. This post/guide will provide a quick overview of all the information that can be found in the Video Games section. After you read it you should have a good understanding of Classic Gaming on the mac and, per our tutorial below, how to play Sonic 3 in as little as 5 minutes!

Emulators: The first thing you need in order to play old school video games is a program called an emulator that can read the individual game files. The emulator is the software equivalent of a hardware game console. There is pretty much an Emulation program for every single system that has ever been made. The more recent systems such as the Playstation 2 and the Game Cube have emulators, but they don’t really play too many games very well. The general rule of thumb is, the older the system, the better it will work. Check this page out for an up-to-date list of OSX Emulators and important notes about compatibility.

Game Files: You can’t play a game without having one, so you will have to get one. The digital versions of the game cartridges that we used to own are called ROM files. Depending on where you live, owning or downloading ROM files could be against the law, but I don’t think the FBI will kick your door in because you wanted to play a little Sonic. If you are familiar with BitTorrent or Usenet Newsgroups you may be able to download an entire system’s catalog of games all at once. If you don’t know how or don’t want to do that, you can download individual ROM files from websites such as coolrom.com. For more info and other websites that have ROMs, check out the ROM page here.

Controlling the Game: After you have your emulator and ROM file, you are ready to play! Every emulator will have the controls mapped to the keyboard and you can see what is what by going to the Preferences menu (it’s location may vary depending on the application, but it’s there somewhere). Should you decide to want to play your games with a little more authenticity you can purchase a USB controller, utilize an iPhone application or even use your existing XBOX360 controllers with a little tweaking; all that info can be found here.

After you have everything in place, you just use the file menu of your Emulator to select your ROM file and then you should be playing your favorite old school game! This is obviously a very simple explanation of how to get started with emulation, but as you will see after reading the full Video Games section, there is so much more that can be done! From utilizing the original controllers you used over 20 years ago to playing Arcade games that you used to pump tons of quarters into!

How to Download & Play Sonic the Hedgehog 3 in 5 Minutes!

Having provided you with some basic information, why don’t I give you a quick example of how to put all that new knowledge to work! By following these simple instructions, you will be playing the Sega Genesis game Sonic the Hedgehog 3 within five minutes. The best part about this is that installing pretty much every other emulator is just as easy. If you can do it for this system, you can do it for the rest!

1. From the Emulators section, download ‘Genesis Plus.’
2. Head over to CoolRom.com and do a search for ‘Sonic the Hedgehog 3.’
3. Coolrom.com requires that you wait 15 seconds while your download loads.
4. Click the ‘Download’ button that will appear after 15 seconds.
5. Open the ‘Genesis Plus’ file you downloaded and drag the application ‘Genesis Plus’ to your Applications folder.
6. Extract your game file from the zip file you obtained from Coolrom.com
7. Open Genesis Plus and locate the unzipped ROM file on your computer.
8. Play Sonic 3 just like you did when you were a kid!
9. Repeat the download process from Coolrom.com for any other games you want.

If you get stuck, please watch the YouTube video below which shows the full process!