Kongming’s Archives – Emulation Guide
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The world of ROMs, emulation, and game patches can be quite confusing, especially for a person that has never really imagined playing old games on their computer. In fact, emulation is a subject for a good portion of our email, but as explained below, the best we were able to do was direct you to our forum. Because translation has become so big in the Destiny of an Emperor world, we have decided to write this little guide to help you along your way. We hope you enjoy it.
Abbreviation Information: EN = English, CH = Chinese, JP = Japanese, NES = Nintendo Entertainment System, SNES = Super Nintendo Entertainment System, SMD = Sega Mega Drive, NSF (info, external), SPC (info, external), ROM = Console game data file which can be played using an emulator (info, external), IPS = Game Translation Patcher (info).
- Emulation Disambiguation and Instructions
- Three Kingdoms PC Compatibility Help Thread (Scholars of Shen Zhou)
- How to Run Old DOS Games (e.g. RTK I–IV) (Scholars of Shen Zhou)
Section Information: You may only download ROM files if you own the actual game (broken or working). We do not support technical issues regarding these games including how to use, patch, or troubleshoot them. Questions on this matter will be ignored, so please direct them to Scholars of Shen Zhou using the links below. We will not provide games any newer than those featured on this site.
ROM Files
A game cartridge is just a piece of hardware for storing a game. The game itself is software stored on a chip inside that cartridge. That software is called the Game ROM. To play these games on their computer, fans extract this ROM Software into a ROM File. You can open these ROM Files in software programs called Emulators just as you would open a Word document in Microsoft Word. Your ROM File is your actual game file. It is considered illegal to own a ROM file for a game unless you own that actual game, but few companies worry about ROM translations for games that were never officially released.
Emulators
An emulator is a program designed to play ROM files. An emulator is to the Nintendo Entertainment System game console as a ROM File is to the video game, Destiny of an Emperor. You load a ROM File into your emulator program as you would place a video game cartridge into your console. Just as there are multiple consoles (e.g. Sega Genesis, Nintendo, Super Nintendo) there are multiple emulators (for the different game consoles).
Emulators vary in quality, so look into different programs before you pick one. Generally speaking, emulator programs that haven’t been updated for years tend to become obsolete or unreliable, even if they were once considered top tier. Also, some new emulators may be too early in development for reliable use. Many emulators are shareware (they cost money), while others are free. It is easy to find a good free emulator for any given platform. Also note that save files from one emulator usually won’t work in another, so chose carefully. Below we will recommend good Nintendo emulators for Windows and Macintosh (especially because not all of them are compatible with Destiny of an Emperor II), but you should search the internet for other console emulators.
- FCE Ultra
Recommended Nintendo Emulator for Windows - Nestopia
Recommended Nintendo Emulator for Macintosh OS X
Patching ROM Files (IPS Patches)
Whenever fans translate or modify original ROM files they release these updates in the form of files called IPS Patches (they have a .ips file extension). Because much of this movement takes place in foreign languages (particularly Japanese) these patches are often distributed in oddly-named packages. If you want to patch a file, you just need to locate the .ips file inside whatever download you have obtained. Next, you need to find the correct ROM for the patch. With both of those things in hand, all you need is an IPS Patcher.
Currently, for Windows users we recommend IPSWin 2.0 (we have tested it with the patched ROM files on this site). Unfortunately we have not been able to find any IPS patching programs that work reliably under the latest version of OS X for Macintosh users. It isn’t too important, though, as whenever we feature a patched game, we provide a pre-patched version of the game for download. Anyone can download these pre-patched versions to save the trouble.
- IPSWin 2.0 (external: zophar.net)
Recommended IPS Patcher Application for Windows - More Information (external: zophar.net)
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