Menneisyys
05-13-2007, 09:41 AM
NEC’s TurboGrafx-16 (also known as the PC Engine) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurboGrafx-16) is a well-known and, at least in Japan, hugely successful fourth generation (8/16-bit combo) gaming console.
It was released (October 30, 1987) about a year before Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) (October 29, 1988) and three years before Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) (November 21, 1990), the, technically, directly comparable, other fourth generation consoles. This means it was probably the first real competitor to NES having decidedly better hardware capabilities (for example, MUCH better and stereo sound), even if you take the custom chips (“mappers”) of the latter into account. This also means emulating a TurboGrafx-16 game may result in a much better experience than a NES game - TurboGrafx-16 games have generally MUCH better sound and somewhat better graphics than NES ones.
It also had several quality titles; most importantly, the three-part Bonk series: Bonk’s Adventure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonk%27s_Adventure), Bonk's Revenge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonk%27s_Revenge) (which was only ported to the GameBoy, unlike the first part; the latter had an Amiga and a NES port too. Note that the Amiga port is a free, official download (http://www.factor5.com/downloads.shtml), along with Katakis and R-Type) and, finally, Bonk's Big Adventure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonk_III:_Bonk%27s_Big_Adventure). These games are of pretty much the same quality as the Sonic series on the Genesis and the Mario series on the Nintendo consoles. Also see The Bonk Compendium (http://bonkzonk.com/) for more info on these three titles. I've also taken a shot of a related article (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PowerPlay.JPG) from the 07/1992 issue of German games magazine Power Play:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PowerPlayTH.JPG (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PowerPlay.JPG)
There are some other, remarkable games on the platform. For example, because of the hardware superiority to the other consoles (but not the Commodore Amiga!) of the time, its Turrican (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turrican) port was excellent and is well worth playing even now (if you don’t have the Genesis version or can’t play it). Also see THIS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TurboGrafx-16_games) and THIS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronological_list_of_PC_Engine_games) for a complete list of TurboGrafx-16 games.
Fortunately, there are some usable emulators for Windows Mobile capable of emulating TurboGrafx-16. Read on to find out what they are and how they compare.
Why should you bother?
While the currently available emulators are in no way up to par with, say, the emulators of NeoGeo, Genesis, SNES or NES (see my earlier roundups of ALL these platforms), you may still have a good time playing these old TurboGrafx-16 titles. Again, don't forget that, technically, these games are pretty good, particularly if you also listen to game music / digitized sounds. NES games had (unless they used some custom sound chips, "mappers", as is explained in my previous, NES-related roundup), in general, very simple in-game music; TurboGrafx-16 games, generally, are much better in this respect. That is, if you, for example, have a game in NES and TurboGrafx-16 formats only, you may want to prefer the latter because of the better music / sounds / graphics.
Current Windows Mobile devices run the currently available emulators without problems; this even applies to devices equipped with the "slow", 195 MHz TI OMAP CPU if you overclock them to 260-273 MHz (unless you use SmartGear, which makes it possible to avoid overclocking).
Why a full roundup?
As with my previous emulation-related articles (see the reader feedback (http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1159948) (also at AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=152670) and at PocketGamer.org, the leading Windows Mobile gaming site, where the SNES roundup has also made its way to the frontpage (http://www.pocketgamer.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6962)) I’ve received to my, say, SNES emulation article), it was because of many reasons that made me publish this roundup:
There are absolutely no comparative, let alone up-to-date roundups on emulating this platform.
There are a LOT of apps to choose from (see Michu's related, excellent link / archive repository HERE (http://emupage.pocketgamer.org/Consoles.html#at00)), which really makes a newbie cry, given that there has been almost no comparative information on these titles on the Internet.
Users’ reports you can run into in different Windows Mobile forums are really unreliable. So are the advertisements of some software developers ;-) (never EVER believe any advertisement without reading an unbiased expert’s report / evaluation!)
Finally, the generic games (which I and Allen Gall have cleaned up last year - after that, we haven't received any criticism) and, particularly, the Emulators category received so much negative criticism (see for example THIS (http://www.pocketgamer.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2991) and THIS (http://www.pocketgamer.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1375)) before my starting to completely update & rework the annual Best Software Awards at Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine that I found it absolutely necessary, now that I’ve been appointed the Awards Nomination Manager (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=8&title=best_software_awards_2007_ready_to_go&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1), to, finally, show the whole world the right person (someone that REALLY knows what he’s doing and REALLY knows everything about the available software titles for Windows Mobile) was chosen for this task ;).
Getting ROM's
As usual, I am not allowed to give you direct links. If you, however, know what Google is, you already know what you should do ;-) Of course, you must own the original cartridge of all games you download.
After you've downloaded your ROM files, transfer them to your mobile, after unZIPping, if the particular emulator doesn't support archived images. (See the File handling: ZIP row in the Comparison Chart (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PCEngineChart.htm)).
Please also see the remarks on Mad Programmer's File Dialog Changer for more information on where the ROM files should be placed on a storage card or the internal memory.
Available Emulators I - Recommended ones
1. MorphGear (http://www.spicypixel.com/xwiki/bin/view/MorphGear/WebHome) 2.4.0.9
MorphGear is a multi-purpose emulator for Windows Mobile. While, in general, it's a bit (or, as far as SmartGear is concerned, a lot) slower than the other, recommended emulators, it's pretty good in the following respects:
it supports Landscape
it has no known MAJOR bugs, unlike, say, PocketEngine (under WM2003+) and XPCE (sound desynchronization)
it is free.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/MGTurrMain.bmp.png
Unfortunately, in addition to speed issues (which, again, ONLY affect slower devices - all games run flawlessly on my 624 MHz Dell Axim x51v under MorphGear), it's the only emulator NOT to support stereo sound with TurboGrafx-16 games (all the other games have stereo sound; most games are stereo and MUCH more fun with stereo enabled). This is another problem with the emulator. Hope it will be fixed some time - it can't be THAT complicated.
Getting and installing MorphGear is easy: download THIS (http://www.spicypixel.com/download/release/morphgear/MorphGearPPC2003.ARM.zip) (main program) and THIS (http://www.spicypixel.com/download/release/hugo/HuGoPPC2003.ARM.zip) (TurboGrafx-16 module) CAB files; unzip them, transfer them to your PDA and click them for installing. Then, click the new MorphGear icon in the Programs / Games group. Click the http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007NESMus/MGOpen.png icon in order to select a ROM to load. After this, the game will start (if it’s compatible).
Note that, if you transfer your ROM images compressed with ZIP, you will explicitly need to switch to displaying ZIP files in the file dialog box.
2. SmartGear (http://www.modaco.com/index.php?showtopic=112206) 0.12
http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007NESMus/SmartGearMain.bmp.png
SmartGear, introduced in the NES article, is a REALLY- REALLY fast emulator - WAY faster than any of its alternatives. Unfortunately, this comes at a price: it's incompatible with many titles the other emulators are compatible with. In addition, it's a commercial application - but, taken the speed and the number of systems it emulates into account, it's still a excellent tradeoff. Finally, it's useless on high-resolution ((W)VGA) devices.
However, if you have a slow(er) Windows Mobile device and / or you don't want to / can't overclock it, SmartGear will become a very nice alternative to anything else. Also, it’s the only alternative when you want to play all the available Bonk titles. The same stands for underclocking your otherwise very fast and responsive (say, 624 MHz Xscale-equipped) mobile to save (considerable) battery life. Sticking with current Xscale-equipped devices, at 208 MHz, the emulation still works flawlessly (unlike with any of the other titles).
Please read the NES roundup (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=1940&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1) for more info on using and configuring both MorphGear and SmartGear. Note that, as far as the former is concerned, the module name is "HuGo (TurboGrafx-16)" - look for this one when you change its settings:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/MGHuGoSettings.bmp.png
3. PocketEngine (http://pocketengine.retrogames.com/) 1.0 beta 1
This free and, unfortunately, long abandoned emulator would be excellent because of the Landscape support and sufficiently large on-screen tap areas (in Landscape) - the two main advantages of this title.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PocketEngineMain.bmp.png
Unfortunately, it's plain incompatible with all operating systems starting with WM2003 (including, therefore, WM2003, WM2003SE, WM5 and WM6 and only excluding PPC2k and PPC2k2). Pressing Button 1, which is used to pause the emulation of the current title and bring up the menu completely crashes all (more) recent operating systems. However, if you do learn to live with the bug (for example, you don't want to frequently change the game you play and resetting the device after finishing playing isn't a problem), you may find this title excellent because of the above-mentioned landscape and screen tap zone support. It's also compatible with VGA devices (unlike SmartGear) and has no sound problems (unlike XPCE ver0.22).
The other major problem with the title is the lack of save loading/saving support, as opposed to (almost) all the other titles.
The menus of this title are really simple, unlike most of the alternates (1 (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PocketEngineMenu1.bmp.png) 2 (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PocketEngineMenu2.bmp.png) 3 (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PocketEngineMenu3.bmp.png) 4 (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PocketEngineMenu4.bmp.png)).
Available Emulators II - Non-recommended ones
XPCE (http://tokyo.cool.ne.jp/pdafan) ver0.22
This title wouldn't be THAT bad - if it had decent sound support. Unfortunately, it doesn't have - it has awfully desynched sound makes this a bad choice – unless you are ready to play without sound.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/XPCEMain.bmp.png
To find out how bad the sound support in this emulator is, listen to the music of any game having a, say, rhythmical music (for example, the in-game music of Bomberman '94). You'll see the emulator completely messes up the rhythm of the track. Unfortunately, disabling auto frameskip (the trick that helps with many SNES emulators upon encountering the same problem) doesn't help either.
bfEngine (http://www.geocities.com/bonelyfish/bfe.html) v0.1b
http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/bfEngineMain.bmp.png
This title is REALLY bad. It has a very low compatibility ratio. And, if is compatible with something, it’s way too fast - unless you enable Throttle in the settings (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/bfEngineSettings.bmp.png) (see the link for other settings capabilities). Finally, it has no sound support at all. Absolutely not recommended.
TGEmuCE
(the homepage of the developer (http://www.imasy.or.jp/~ngs/emu) doesn’t list it; neither does its Download section (http://www.imasy.or.jp/~ngs/emu/emu_down.html))
This is another title you'll want to avoid. It's VERY slow and the frameskip parameter (Option / Misc) doesn't help this at all (I bet it doesn't even try to read this value under Windows Mobile - the app is a native WindowsCE application). What is more, the settings you (manually and VERY awkwardly – examples: 1 (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/TGMenu1.bmp.png) 2 (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/TGMenu2.bmp.png) 3 (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/TGMenu3.bmp.png)) enter in the configuration dialogs don't stick - they're all forgotten upon restating the emulator. All in all, it's in NO way recommended.
Finally,
YameCE (http://emupage.pocketgamer.org/Multiple.html#yace) 0.38g
(the old homepage (http://www.geocities.co.jp/Stylish/2068/yame.html) doesn’t work any more)
http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/YameCESF2.bmp.png
This emulator was supposed to be a direct port of the, on desktop Windows, (some 8-9 year ago) well-known, (then) pretty good and compatible multi-console Yame emulator.
Unfortunately, the project was discontinued back in 2002 and, now, it's REALLY hard to get hold of the emulator - except for Michu's homepage (ARM download HERE (http://emupage.pocketgamer.org/Downloads/Multi/YameCE/YameCE_V038g_ARM.rar)), you can get it nowhere else.
Unfortunately, the currently available only version (the latest one), 0.38g, doesn’t support TurboGrafx-16 on Windows Mobile models with ARM CPU’s - that is, ALL Windows Mobile devices starting with the Pocket PC 2002 operating systems. This is caused by, as is stated by many, a compiler problem. Previous versions (0.38f, 0.38e etc.) did still support TurboGrafx-16 but these versions are, unfortunately, nowhere to be acquired.
If YOU have them (preferably 0.38f) somewhere lying around, PLEASE let me or Michu know so that we can make it online! It'd be REALY worth making it public again because the Yame emulation core has better compatibility ratio than other cores currently used in Windows Mobile emulators. For example, it's the only emulator to correctly (without major bitmap problems) run Street Fighter II Champion Edition and Shinobi.
It's only on VERY old MIPS devices that you can have TurboGrafx-16 emulation (the MIPS build doesn't lack TurboGrafx-16 support as can be seen in, for example, THIS (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/YameCEMIPS.bmp.png) screenshot taken on my E-125). For this to happen, however, you must have a Casio Cassipeia E-750 overclocked to 280 MHz so that you can have usable emulation speed. On a 150 MHz E-125, emulation is uselessly slow even with the sound disabled. See the Bible of Windows Mobile Games – Part I (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/menneisyys/052006MIPSGames.asp) for more information on MIPS devices.
Also see THIS (http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?t=152690), THIS (http://www.pocketgamer.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=109&perpage=12&pagenumber=2) and THIS (http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?t=140111) for more info on the lacking TurboGrafx-16 support of version 0.38g.
Emulators for the desktop Windows
You may also want to know how you can run TurboGrafx-16 games on your desktop computer. As the related Wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PC_Engine_emulators) is just a list and doesn’t contain any evaluation / recommendation / comparison of the available desktop emulators, I've decided to review and compare them too.
The four recommended titles (Ootake 1.03, Xe (Build: Nov 1 2006), Magic Engine v1.0.0 pr10 and Yame 0.38) are elaborated on and linked in (with several screenshots) from the Comparison Chart (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PCEngineChart.htm). In here, I only list and quickly elaborate on the desktop emulators that I do NOT recommend.
Hu-Go (http://www.zeograd.com/parse.php?src=hugof&path=0,1,): couldn’t start it (even when installing GTK). BTW, this is what the MorphGear module is based on.
The in 1999 discontinued xpce (http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley/7052/index-e.html) v0.11a crashes upon trying to load anything.
Mednafen (http://mednafen.com/): doesn’t start on my XP desktop.
PC2E (http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Bay/9975/PC2E/english.html#download): as can be seen in here (http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Bay/9975/PC2E/english.html#download), the emulator is no longer available for download
The comparison & compatibility chart
It's HERE (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PCEngineChart.htm). DO CHECK IT OUT, it contains a LOT of additional information best elaborated on in tabular format!
As with all my previous emulation-related articles, I've made a LOT of real-world compatibility tests with both the freely and legally downloadable Chris Covell's Creations (http://www.disgruntleddesigner.com/chrisc/creations.html) and commercial games.
As can be seen, current emulators, except for the non-VGA-compliant SmartGear, can't run all parts of the Bonk series (only the second one - except for MorphGear, which crashes on the first in-game screen).
None of them (except for the, currently, as of 0.38g, MIPS-only YameCE) is able to correctly render the bitmaps in Street Fighter II Champion Edition and Shinobi either.
As the current desktop emulators - even free, open source ones - have no problems running these programs (see the compatibility info in the chart), someone (Masterall?) may REALLY want to consider porting a CURRENT emulator core to Windows Mobile with all he necessary goodies (stereo sound, Landscape support and on-screen tap areas) so that all (including all the Bonk) games become playable.
Recommended links
Chris Covell's Creations (http://www.disgruntleddesigner.com/chrisc/creations.html) - free graphical demos. Note that they won’t really do what they are supposed to on the Pocket PC!
Michu’s related link collection (http://emupage.pocketgamer.org/Consoles.html#at00)
My other game emulator reviews in the Games section (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&cat=36) of the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine's Expert Blog (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs). I plan to cover / discuss ALL emulators available for Windows Mobile and have already published some of these articles. Do make sure you follow / read these articles - nowhere else will you find a better source of emulation-related information, I'm absolutely sure.
It was released (October 30, 1987) about a year before Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) (October 29, 1988) and three years before Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) (November 21, 1990), the, technically, directly comparable, other fourth generation consoles. This means it was probably the first real competitor to NES having decidedly better hardware capabilities (for example, MUCH better and stereo sound), even if you take the custom chips (“mappers”) of the latter into account. This also means emulating a TurboGrafx-16 game may result in a much better experience than a NES game - TurboGrafx-16 games have generally MUCH better sound and somewhat better graphics than NES ones.
It also had several quality titles; most importantly, the three-part Bonk series: Bonk’s Adventure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonk%27s_Adventure), Bonk's Revenge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonk%27s_Revenge) (which was only ported to the GameBoy, unlike the first part; the latter had an Amiga and a NES port too. Note that the Amiga port is a free, official download (http://www.factor5.com/downloads.shtml), along with Katakis and R-Type) and, finally, Bonk's Big Adventure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonk_III:_Bonk%27s_Big_Adventure). These games are of pretty much the same quality as the Sonic series on the Genesis and the Mario series on the Nintendo consoles. Also see The Bonk Compendium (http://bonkzonk.com/) for more info on these three titles. I've also taken a shot of a related article (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PowerPlay.JPG) from the 07/1992 issue of German games magazine Power Play:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PowerPlayTH.JPG (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PowerPlay.JPG)
There are some other, remarkable games on the platform. For example, because of the hardware superiority to the other consoles (but not the Commodore Amiga!) of the time, its Turrican (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turrican) port was excellent and is well worth playing even now (if you don’t have the Genesis version or can’t play it). Also see THIS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TurboGrafx-16_games) and THIS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronological_list_of_PC_Engine_games) for a complete list of TurboGrafx-16 games.
Fortunately, there are some usable emulators for Windows Mobile capable of emulating TurboGrafx-16. Read on to find out what they are and how they compare.
Why should you bother?
While the currently available emulators are in no way up to par with, say, the emulators of NeoGeo, Genesis, SNES or NES (see my earlier roundups of ALL these platforms), you may still have a good time playing these old TurboGrafx-16 titles. Again, don't forget that, technically, these games are pretty good, particularly if you also listen to game music / digitized sounds. NES games had (unless they used some custom sound chips, "mappers", as is explained in my previous, NES-related roundup), in general, very simple in-game music; TurboGrafx-16 games, generally, are much better in this respect. That is, if you, for example, have a game in NES and TurboGrafx-16 formats only, you may want to prefer the latter because of the better music / sounds / graphics.
Current Windows Mobile devices run the currently available emulators without problems; this even applies to devices equipped with the "slow", 195 MHz TI OMAP CPU if you overclock them to 260-273 MHz (unless you use SmartGear, which makes it possible to avoid overclocking).
Why a full roundup?
As with my previous emulation-related articles (see the reader feedback (http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1159948) (also at AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=152670) and at PocketGamer.org, the leading Windows Mobile gaming site, where the SNES roundup has also made its way to the frontpage (http://www.pocketgamer.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6962)) I’ve received to my, say, SNES emulation article), it was because of many reasons that made me publish this roundup:
There are absolutely no comparative, let alone up-to-date roundups on emulating this platform.
There are a LOT of apps to choose from (see Michu's related, excellent link / archive repository HERE (http://emupage.pocketgamer.org/Consoles.html#at00)), which really makes a newbie cry, given that there has been almost no comparative information on these titles on the Internet.
Users’ reports you can run into in different Windows Mobile forums are really unreliable. So are the advertisements of some software developers ;-) (never EVER believe any advertisement without reading an unbiased expert’s report / evaluation!)
Finally, the generic games (which I and Allen Gall have cleaned up last year - after that, we haven't received any criticism) and, particularly, the Emulators category received so much negative criticism (see for example THIS (http://www.pocketgamer.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2991) and THIS (http://www.pocketgamer.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1375)) before my starting to completely update & rework the annual Best Software Awards at Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine that I found it absolutely necessary, now that I’ve been appointed the Awards Nomination Manager (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=8&title=best_software_awards_2007_ready_to_go&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1), to, finally, show the whole world the right person (someone that REALLY knows what he’s doing and REALLY knows everything about the available software titles for Windows Mobile) was chosen for this task ;).
Getting ROM's
As usual, I am not allowed to give you direct links. If you, however, know what Google is, you already know what you should do ;-) Of course, you must own the original cartridge of all games you download.
After you've downloaded your ROM files, transfer them to your mobile, after unZIPping, if the particular emulator doesn't support archived images. (See the File handling: ZIP row in the Comparison Chart (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PCEngineChart.htm)).
Please also see the remarks on Mad Programmer's File Dialog Changer for more information on where the ROM files should be placed on a storage card or the internal memory.
Available Emulators I - Recommended ones
1. MorphGear (http://www.spicypixel.com/xwiki/bin/view/MorphGear/WebHome) 2.4.0.9
MorphGear is a multi-purpose emulator for Windows Mobile. While, in general, it's a bit (or, as far as SmartGear is concerned, a lot) slower than the other, recommended emulators, it's pretty good in the following respects:
it supports Landscape
it has no known MAJOR bugs, unlike, say, PocketEngine (under WM2003+) and XPCE (sound desynchronization)
it is free.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/MGTurrMain.bmp.png
Unfortunately, in addition to speed issues (which, again, ONLY affect slower devices - all games run flawlessly on my 624 MHz Dell Axim x51v under MorphGear), it's the only emulator NOT to support stereo sound with TurboGrafx-16 games (all the other games have stereo sound; most games are stereo and MUCH more fun with stereo enabled). This is another problem with the emulator. Hope it will be fixed some time - it can't be THAT complicated.
Getting and installing MorphGear is easy: download THIS (http://www.spicypixel.com/download/release/morphgear/MorphGearPPC2003.ARM.zip) (main program) and THIS (http://www.spicypixel.com/download/release/hugo/HuGoPPC2003.ARM.zip) (TurboGrafx-16 module) CAB files; unzip them, transfer them to your PDA and click them for installing. Then, click the new MorphGear icon in the Programs / Games group. Click the http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007NESMus/MGOpen.png icon in order to select a ROM to load. After this, the game will start (if it’s compatible).
Note that, if you transfer your ROM images compressed with ZIP, you will explicitly need to switch to displaying ZIP files in the file dialog box.
2. SmartGear (http://www.modaco.com/index.php?showtopic=112206) 0.12
http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007NESMus/SmartGearMain.bmp.png
SmartGear, introduced in the NES article, is a REALLY- REALLY fast emulator - WAY faster than any of its alternatives. Unfortunately, this comes at a price: it's incompatible with many titles the other emulators are compatible with. In addition, it's a commercial application - but, taken the speed and the number of systems it emulates into account, it's still a excellent tradeoff. Finally, it's useless on high-resolution ((W)VGA) devices.
However, if you have a slow(er) Windows Mobile device and / or you don't want to / can't overclock it, SmartGear will become a very nice alternative to anything else. Also, it’s the only alternative when you want to play all the available Bonk titles. The same stands for underclocking your otherwise very fast and responsive (say, 624 MHz Xscale-equipped) mobile to save (considerable) battery life. Sticking with current Xscale-equipped devices, at 208 MHz, the emulation still works flawlessly (unlike with any of the other titles).
Please read the NES roundup (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=1940&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1) for more info on using and configuring both MorphGear and SmartGear. Note that, as far as the former is concerned, the module name is "HuGo (TurboGrafx-16)" - look for this one when you change its settings:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/MGHuGoSettings.bmp.png
3. PocketEngine (http://pocketengine.retrogames.com/) 1.0 beta 1
This free and, unfortunately, long abandoned emulator would be excellent because of the Landscape support and sufficiently large on-screen tap areas (in Landscape) - the two main advantages of this title.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PocketEngineMain.bmp.png
Unfortunately, it's plain incompatible with all operating systems starting with WM2003 (including, therefore, WM2003, WM2003SE, WM5 and WM6 and only excluding PPC2k and PPC2k2). Pressing Button 1, which is used to pause the emulation of the current title and bring up the menu completely crashes all (more) recent operating systems. However, if you do learn to live with the bug (for example, you don't want to frequently change the game you play and resetting the device after finishing playing isn't a problem), you may find this title excellent because of the above-mentioned landscape and screen tap zone support. It's also compatible with VGA devices (unlike SmartGear) and has no sound problems (unlike XPCE ver0.22).
The other major problem with the title is the lack of save loading/saving support, as opposed to (almost) all the other titles.
The menus of this title are really simple, unlike most of the alternates (1 (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PocketEngineMenu1.bmp.png) 2 (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PocketEngineMenu2.bmp.png) 3 (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PocketEngineMenu3.bmp.png) 4 (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PocketEngineMenu4.bmp.png)).
Available Emulators II - Non-recommended ones
XPCE (http://tokyo.cool.ne.jp/pdafan) ver0.22
This title wouldn't be THAT bad - if it had decent sound support. Unfortunately, it doesn't have - it has awfully desynched sound makes this a bad choice – unless you are ready to play without sound.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/XPCEMain.bmp.png
To find out how bad the sound support in this emulator is, listen to the music of any game having a, say, rhythmical music (for example, the in-game music of Bomberman '94). You'll see the emulator completely messes up the rhythm of the track. Unfortunately, disabling auto frameskip (the trick that helps with many SNES emulators upon encountering the same problem) doesn't help either.
bfEngine (http://www.geocities.com/bonelyfish/bfe.html) v0.1b
http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/bfEngineMain.bmp.png
This title is REALLY bad. It has a very low compatibility ratio. And, if is compatible with something, it’s way too fast - unless you enable Throttle in the settings (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/bfEngineSettings.bmp.png) (see the link for other settings capabilities). Finally, it has no sound support at all. Absolutely not recommended.
TGEmuCE
(the homepage of the developer (http://www.imasy.or.jp/~ngs/emu) doesn’t list it; neither does its Download section (http://www.imasy.or.jp/~ngs/emu/emu_down.html))
This is another title you'll want to avoid. It's VERY slow and the frameskip parameter (Option / Misc) doesn't help this at all (I bet it doesn't even try to read this value under Windows Mobile - the app is a native WindowsCE application). What is more, the settings you (manually and VERY awkwardly – examples: 1 (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/TGMenu1.bmp.png) 2 (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/TGMenu2.bmp.png) 3 (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/TGMenu3.bmp.png)) enter in the configuration dialogs don't stick - they're all forgotten upon restating the emulator. All in all, it's in NO way recommended.
Finally,
YameCE (http://emupage.pocketgamer.org/Multiple.html#yace) 0.38g
(the old homepage (http://www.geocities.co.jp/Stylish/2068/yame.html) doesn’t work any more)
http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/YameCESF2.bmp.png
This emulator was supposed to be a direct port of the, on desktop Windows, (some 8-9 year ago) well-known, (then) pretty good and compatible multi-console Yame emulator.
Unfortunately, the project was discontinued back in 2002 and, now, it's REALLY hard to get hold of the emulator - except for Michu's homepage (ARM download HERE (http://emupage.pocketgamer.org/Downloads/Multi/YameCE/YameCE_V038g_ARM.rar)), you can get it nowhere else.
Unfortunately, the currently available only version (the latest one), 0.38g, doesn’t support TurboGrafx-16 on Windows Mobile models with ARM CPU’s - that is, ALL Windows Mobile devices starting with the Pocket PC 2002 operating systems. This is caused by, as is stated by many, a compiler problem. Previous versions (0.38f, 0.38e etc.) did still support TurboGrafx-16 but these versions are, unfortunately, nowhere to be acquired.
If YOU have them (preferably 0.38f) somewhere lying around, PLEASE let me or Michu know so that we can make it online! It'd be REALY worth making it public again because the Yame emulation core has better compatibility ratio than other cores currently used in Windows Mobile emulators. For example, it's the only emulator to correctly (without major bitmap problems) run Street Fighter II Champion Edition and Shinobi.
It's only on VERY old MIPS devices that you can have TurboGrafx-16 emulation (the MIPS build doesn't lack TurboGrafx-16 support as can be seen in, for example, THIS (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/YameCEMIPS.bmp.png) screenshot taken on my E-125). For this to happen, however, you must have a Casio Cassipeia E-750 overclocked to 280 MHz so that you can have usable emulation speed. On a 150 MHz E-125, emulation is uselessly slow even with the sound disabled. See the Bible of Windows Mobile Games – Part I (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/menneisyys/052006MIPSGames.asp) for more information on MIPS devices.
Also see THIS (http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?t=152690), THIS (http://www.pocketgamer.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=109&perpage=12&pagenumber=2) and THIS (http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?t=140111) for more info on the lacking TurboGrafx-16 support of version 0.38g.
Emulators for the desktop Windows
You may also want to know how you can run TurboGrafx-16 games on your desktop computer. As the related Wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PC_Engine_emulators) is just a list and doesn’t contain any evaluation / recommendation / comparison of the available desktop emulators, I've decided to review and compare them too.
The four recommended titles (Ootake 1.03, Xe (Build: Nov 1 2006), Magic Engine v1.0.0 pr10 and Yame 0.38) are elaborated on and linked in (with several screenshots) from the Comparison Chart (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PCEngineChart.htm). In here, I only list and quickly elaborate on the desktop emulators that I do NOT recommend.
Hu-Go (http://www.zeograd.com/parse.php?src=hugof&path=0,1,): couldn’t start it (even when installing GTK). BTW, this is what the MorphGear module is based on.
The in 1999 discontinued xpce (http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley/7052/index-e.html) v0.11a crashes upon trying to load anything.
Mednafen (http://mednafen.com/): doesn’t start on my XP desktop.
PC2E (http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Bay/9975/PC2E/english.html#download): as can be seen in here (http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Bay/9975/PC2E/english.html#download), the emulator is no longer available for download
The comparison & compatibility chart
It's HERE (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052007TG16Emus/PCEngineChart.htm). DO CHECK IT OUT, it contains a LOT of additional information best elaborated on in tabular format!
As with all my previous emulation-related articles, I've made a LOT of real-world compatibility tests with both the freely and legally downloadable Chris Covell's Creations (http://www.disgruntleddesigner.com/chrisc/creations.html) and commercial games.
As can be seen, current emulators, except for the non-VGA-compliant SmartGear, can't run all parts of the Bonk series (only the second one - except for MorphGear, which crashes on the first in-game screen).
None of them (except for the, currently, as of 0.38g, MIPS-only YameCE) is able to correctly render the bitmaps in Street Fighter II Champion Edition and Shinobi either.
As the current desktop emulators - even free, open source ones - have no problems running these programs (see the compatibility info in the chart), someone (Masterall?) may REALLY want to consider porting a CURRENT emulator core to Windows Mobile with all he necessary goodies (stereo sound, Landscape support and on-screen tap areas) so that all (including all the Bonk) games become playable.
Recommended links
Chris Covell's Creations (http://www.disgruntleddesigner.com/chrisc/creations.html) - free graphical demos. Note that they won’t really do what they are supposed to on the Pocket PC!
Michu’s related link collection (http://emupage.pocketgamer.org/Consoles.html#at00)
My other game emulator reviews in the Games section (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&cat=36) of the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine's Expert Blog (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs). I plan to cover / discuss ALL emulators available for Windows Mobile and have already published some of these articles. Do make sure you follow / read these articles - nowhere else will you find a better source of emulation-related information, I'm absolutely sure.