A Tutorial For Nestopia, An NES Emulator That Prides On Accuracy
Last Update: Oct 2, 2020
Last update: Oct 2, 2020
So, what’s Gens/GS? It continued the legacy of Gens. During the 2000s, the best emulator was Gens, known as the Genesis emulator. Upon quitting Gens, its developers shared the codes for free. Consequently, this led to new versions of Gens. You may access about 10 versions stemming from the original ones.
Since they’re spin-offs, the way they function seems similar and thus, this article will help figure out how to install and start playing your retro games that were once your popular ones. Sonic Hedgehog or Altered Beast? No matter which game you pick, you may simply start playing on your computer right now.
As it’s a separate program, Gens/GS doesn’t come with an install wizard. Yet, the process is quite easy to do. You need to extract the file from compression. If you don’t know how to do that, you may watch the video showing it.
Note: It’s critical to put the Gens/GS file in a common folder of your computer. A good option may be putting it in Downloads, Documents, or just make a new folder on the desktop on your computer. If a Gens/GS file is located in your C drive which is the main one, then this means to restrict your file. You’ll make this file with read-only access.
After you locate your Gens/GS, it’s time to start the installation. All you do is double click on gens.exe.
Note: if you’re planning to load your game from the Sega CD game, you need to skip to the section dedicated to Sega CD.
Many emulators have their specific folder of ROMS, a place of games. Yet, when it comes to Gens/GS, this isn’t a case. When you download your ROM, you can keep it anywhere, be it inside the Gens/GS folder or somewhere outside it. There’s no specific location requirement, but remember where you keep your ROMS.
So, how to load your game?
Find Graphics > Full Screen. Yet, there’s a more straightforward way of doing it. Just press Alt+Enter. To leave Fullscreen, you may press Esc or Alt+Ent. When playing your game, you may easily access the menu if you click right on your mouse on the screen.
The most ironic fact about this emulator is that there’s been no substantial update of Gens/GS despite being a trendy one. Thus, it’s not surprising to come across problems related to shifting to Fullscreen if you’re on Windows 8 or 10.
Yet, Windows has its solution to this glitch. It’s a feature known as Windows compatibility, enabling smooth playing with Fullscreen mode imitating Windows’s older versions. Check how you do that:
Note: If crashing after fullscreen mode persists, the problem may be in the invalid video setting. You need to delete the gens.cfg file in the Gens/GS folder.
What are these filters for? They make the graphics better, and to access the screen filter list, you need to go to Graphics > Render, as indicated:
Choose one filter from the list, and the program will render the screen. But what about filters? You’ll find the following info useful in terms of choosing your filter:
Choose one filter from the list, and the program will render the screen. But what about filters? You’ll find the following info useful in terms of choosing your filter:
There’s a useful feature known as Save states. They save your game right at that moment whenever you decide. To save your game, you need to go to the File menu. Don’t forget this feature works correctly only with 32X and Genesis.
One important thing to keep in mind is that there are 2 types of save states. One is quick saves, and the other one is regular ones.
Here you may capture a quick save which is done with a shortcut of F5. Or you may go to File > Quick Save, and you’ve saved your game. To load your saved game with a quick load is also simple with a shortcut of F8. Or go to File > Quick Load.
Your F5 and F8 will help you with quick saves and loads. Yet, don’t forget that you’re given only 10 slots for various quick saves, from 0 to 9. The ‘0’ slot comes the first one. You may also shift the slots and for this, you go to File > Change State. Also, shortcuts like F6 for backward or F7 for forward will help you.
There’s also a standard but not so convenient method of saving your games. It has its explanations:
To save your screenshots, you need to go to Graphics > Screenshot or just press Shift+Backspace. This will save your image in PNG format in the Gens/GS folder.
Note: it’s not tricky to find cheats, and one of the primary sources is gamegenie.com. Also, you may search for the codes online. To do it efficiently, you should type the name of your game along with the game genie. For example, landstalker game genie.
As the name suggests, you can speed up your game. Most emulators have one fast forward button with an adjusted speed. Unlike those emulators, Gens/GS allows you to adjust your speed on your own.
In total, you have 9 units of speed. You can increase or decrease. To make faster, you just need to press F4, and to reduce the speed, you need F3. Also, if you press F2, you turn your game into normal speed.
Finding your favorite games isn’t a challenging task at all. There are many places where you may get these ROMs, and all you need is to write, as an example, download castlevania bloodlines.
Is it possible to transfer the save states to another emulator? Yes, it’s possible if this another emulator is Kega Fusion. Yet, this won’t work if you transfer your saved games to other Genesis emulators.
The good news is that if you transfer your saved games to other Gens/GS emulators, this won’t be difficult. You may share your saved files with other gamers if they’re using your emulator. Or just save your games and go on with them on other computers.
If you’re new to emulators like Gens/GS and still trying to find out all nuances, you may have the following issues:
The solution to the following issues is an obvious one. The root of the problem is the location of your emulator. It’s just located in a read-only place, so you need to replace Gens/GS to a common location like Downloads, Documents, etc.
The Sega CD emulator works a bit differently, and there are some details to know about it.
The games of this emulator were available with audio CDs. The data on CDs were broken into two parts. The first part used to belong to game data, and the other part was dedicated to the games’ soundtrack.
Ripping Sega CD games has been similar, as was in CDs. So, game data and soundtracks have led to different formats to download. These games are generally found in the BIN file format for game data, audio tracks, and a CUE sheet. The last one is the text of the programmatic list of tracks. Given the complexity of these games, you can download 4 types of ISOs, as described below:
Note: all the above-mentioned formats are also known as Sega CD ISO.
For Gens/GS, saving your Sega CD game will be different from the real one. The real Sega CD system includes internal memory the capacity of which isn’t that great and external RAM carts.
Gens/CD gives every game both internal memory and external cart. Yet, all this gives an advantage of more space as well. However, with internal memory and an external RAM cart, you’ll have to format the game’s memory if you plan to play a new one.
For games where saving is quite significant, as in RPG games, the game may not let you proceed until you format the memory. Perhaps, it sounds a bit complicated, but the process of formatting is easy to perform.
If you download Sega CD, you may easily burn to CD-R and play on the real stuff. There are no copyright things to worry about. At the end of this article, you’ll find the info on how you may burn ISO to CD-R.
If you want to boot Sega CD games, you have to download the Sega CD BIOS. Every region has its particular one. You can download them online.
Following this article, you should’ve read about Sega CD emulation, and:
It’s time to start loading Sega CD games on your emulator.
You need to check the following:
Note: If you see the CD player screen but not the game when you press the START button, it means you have a problem related to your game file. Perhaps, the game is invalid. You need to revise the steps described above to see if everything is done properly. And if that doesn’t work out, you have to download your game from a different source.
Loading games from the CD-ROM drive isn’t always advisable. Such means of loading games can entail problems and, as expected, slowing of the game itself. Instead, the better approach will be to rip the CD to a BIN/CLUE format file.
As this format won’t take up much space on your HDD, ripping your CD games is the best option. Moreover, it’ll be a digital backup of your game as CDs aren’t good when it comes to quality and can be easily lost.
Note: If your computer works under older Windows (XP, 98, ME) and you have problems with Gens/GS detecting CD drive, your solution might be installing ForceASPI.
Note: If you see the CD player screen but not the game when you press the START button, it means you have a problem related to your game file. Perhaps, the game is invalid. The problem can be with your CD-R copy, caused by a bad burn. And if that doesn’t work out, you have to download your game from a different source.
Once your game has started functioning, you better read the following 2 sections on Perfect Sync and formatting the memory.
Why do you need this feature of Perfect Sync? This feature enables your Gens/GS emulator to send less commands while emulating the Sega CD game. For games, this feature should be enabled; otherwise, some game points may lock up from the very start.
Let’s say you’re playing ‘Popful Mail,’ and it won’t boost past its logo. You need to activate this feature to go further. It’s not clear why the emulator doesn’t automatically turn this on, yet to do it on your own becomes inevitable.
Note: Always remove the check on Perfect Sync after playing your game. Since not all games require this option, this will cause problems with gaming.
This isn’t always required. Yet, when playing RPGs and some other games, you may face the issue saying ‘Backup RAM not initialized.’ Then, it means you have to format the memory.
Have you heard of such games as Night Trap or Ground Zero Texas? What do they have in common? They come in two CDs. When it’s time to change them, you’ll see a CD tray icon. It’s at the bottom left corner.
When you see the CD tray’s flash at the corner, it signals for swapping CDs. It means to load the second CD ISO. That’s all you need to do.
The Sega CD emulator has 2 indicators in the form of light blinking. The first one is a green light. It means that something is READY for use, and the other one is red, meaning to need for ACCESS. These lights are located at the bottom left.
Of course, the lights aren’t in the middle or very visible place. Yet, their blinking can be a bit disturbing. Removing these lights isn’t something challenging, so just follow the instructions:
All you need is to format the memory. With this article, you may learn how to do that instantly.
The solution, as was explained above, is activating Perfect Sync. Don’t forget, not all games require this feature to be on.
Remember the important aspect of CUE sheets. You need to verify the CUE sheets and that everything is done properly.
When loading a Gens/GS game, you may get a black screen accompanied by an unusual audio index message at the top.
The reasons aren’t clear, though. This might be a case when you load the CUE. The solution is simple, and you need to load ISO or BIN rather than the CUE sheet.
The following is intended for burning BIN/CUE or ISO/MP3 archives to a CD. As you already know, there’s no copyright stuff on the Sega CD system. You may simply play copies without any problems.
Before you start burning the process, be sure you have a CUE sheet. If there’s no CUE, the process will be done in vain. When you don't have it, generate it with Sega CUE Maker.
If the game you downloaded comes in ISO/MP3 format, you’ll have to convert the MP3 files to WAV. The best option to do so is with a free program of WinLAME. It’s easy to find and download this program. To convert the MP3 files into WAV, you need to do the following:
If the game is in ISO/MP3 format, you’ll have to edit the sheet as you get new WAV tracks from the conversion with WinLAME. It’ll look like this:
‘Find what’ will find you MP3, and ‘Replace with’ will change it to WAV.
After the completion of the previous steps, it’s time to burn your game to CD-R. You can use either CD-RW or CD-R discs.
Note: It happens that after burning, there might be problems with playing music. It means you did something wrong. Look through the directions above and find where you made a mistake.
These directions will help you copy a Sega CD game or CD-R copy.
Last Update: Oct 2, 2020
Last Update: Oct 2, 2020
Last Update: Oct 2, 2020