PDA

View Full Version : Mixed up on PSX Emus



VGWarrior
04-02-2002, 08:24 PM
I have heard different things about Playstation (1) emulators that I would like some clearing up on.


First, I thought that you could only use the "ROM" file (some call it either a bios or ios I think) to play.

Now, I hear that you can actually use the ORIGINAL PSX game instead of a bios file to play!

I also heard that for the bios file, you have to burn it on a CD-ROM in order for it to work!

Don't ask me about memory cards...I have no clue how they would work, but info would be appreciated.



Now, I'm not saying I'll be entering the PSX emu scene. I'm just mixed up on what's true or not. My main concern is this: If you can use the "original" copies on emulators, would that be illegal or legal to do?

Mak-X
04-02-2002, 08:32 PM
There were 2 commercial Playstation emulators a few years ago. One was by Bleem! for the PC. It turned your PC into a virtual Playstation, allowing the user to play a Playstation game (the actual disk) on their PC. Sony's court cases drove them bankrupt.

Brasel
04-02-2002, 08:36 PM
I actually think that playing PSX games on your PSX system is the way to go, not to use some emulator that drives people away from spending more money.

Thats just my opinion though. I'm all about ROMs for dead systems, just not emulators for currently active or recently active ones.

VGWarrior
04-02-2002, 08:51 PM
The funny thing is...

I thought the website I went to was about a FREEWARE emulator that could handle original games.


Let me see if I could find what I thought said that; give me a few hours til tomorrow (later if school kicks in badly).

VEL
04-02-2002, 08:52 PM
epsxe is free and you can play the originals.

MottZilla
04-02-2002, 09:06 PM
LoL.

Ok, dude. Several PSX emulators require the bios rom dump to emulate the system. No matter what though, you do need the CD of the game. A few emulators can play ISOs of the CDs from your harddisk, but still.

You need a CD to play for the most part, and possibly the bios.

VGWarrior
04-02-2002, 09:26 PM
Then my final question comes as such:


Would using epsxe and the original, Funcoland-bought games be considered legal or illegal?

Daarkseid
04-02-2002, 09:30 PM
Originally posted by VGWarrior
Then my final question comes as such:


Would using epsxe and the original, Funcoland-bought games be considered legal or illegal?

Nope. Emulators are not illegal, though SONY will try to sue otherwise. Since you bought the games physically on their licensed medium, playing them on whatever platform is perfectly legal.

VGWarrior
04-02-2002, 10:12 PM
Originally posted by Daarkseid


Nope. Emulators are not illegal, though SONY will try to sue otherwise. Since you bought the games physically on their licensed medium, playing them on whatever platform is perfectly legal.


Actually, I didn't buy ANYTHING yet.

For that matter, this whole thing was more of a "how could this be" thing, and "is it legal" thing.


At least that's my reason.


I have a family member that wanted a PS1 instead of a N64 (I actually liked both systems, but load times and familiararity made me choose 64). With this epsxe thing, we can just buy the games and play them on my computer.


Thank you for straightening my brain out. I'll tell the family member and perhaps we can buy some cheap games at Funcoland.

Daarkseid
04-02-2002, 11:01 PM
Originally posted by VGWarrior



Actually, I didn't buy ANYTHING yet.

For that matter, this whole thing was more of a "how could this be" thing, and "is it legal" thing.


At least that's my reason.



Actually, I saw stating "bought" as in a hypothetical. If you bought the game on its legally licensed medium, you did nothing wrong. I was not actually insinuating that you already bought the games, although I could have made this more clear.

It's still prefereble that you use the original system, since you can run into problems with certain games that don't play perfectly on an emulator, but there isn't anything legally wrong with using emulators if the game you are playing is on a licensed medium(licensed medium being a console company approved format of CD-ROM, DVD-rom or cartridge).

VGWarrior
04-03-2002, 07:24 AM
Whoops.


Sorry about that.


I understand.

AlexMax
04-04-2002, 04:14 PM
The only problem is that you have to download the BIOS of a real PSX onto your computer and THAT is illegel if you dont have the origional PSX. You also need a gameshark and a serial cable to do it.

If not, find out which BIOS file you need, and do a search for the filename on Google. I won't link you, but thats how I found it.

Also, you need a kickass computer system to run it. I have a P2-300 with 64 megs of ram and a ATI Rage Fury Maxx and that wasn't near enough. I then ran it on my friend 1 ghz computer with 128 megs of ram and a Geforce 2 and it ran it decently, but not well enough to make me want to switch from playing it on a real PSX.