Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five technical tips for anyone who’d like to get into retro gaming, in particular through the use of emulation.

There seems to be a growing interest in retro basketball gaming, and I love to see it! Obviously, people have been going back to old favourites or sticking with a treasured game for a long time now, but I’ve been noticing more enthusiasm for it in recent years. Whether it’s a case of NBA 2K fatigue, people reaching an age where they’re feeling more nostalgic, less stigma around retro gaming, or a combination of those factors, there’s a clear desire to revisit the classics. We’re keen advocates for that here at the NLSC, and moving forward, we’ll look to expand our retro gaming resources.

In that spirit, I’d like to share some technical advice for retro gaming, with a focus on emulation. Naturally there’s a certain charm to playing on original hardware – whether it’s a console or an older PC – and in some ways it’s definitely easier! There are many benefits to emulation though, whether we’re talking about retro console emulators or compatibility fixes to get old PC games up and running on a modern system. Thanks to the efforts of some talented people throughout the years, we’re at a point where emulation has greatly improved, and retro gaming is technically viable. You may encounter a few difficulties here and there though, so hopefully these tips will help.

1. Be Prepared to Troubleshoot

Although retro gaming and emulation have become more accessible over the years, they do still require a little bit of technical savvy. At the very least, you need to follow steps carefully and precisely, and retrace those steps and troubleshoot the cause if there are any problems. In my observation, not everyone is willing to do this. Some people will hit a wall while setting up an emulator or trying to get an old PC game to run on a modern system, and just throw up their hands and declare it doesn’t work. I understand the frustration, but considering that there’s an often an easy fix once the problem has been identified, a willingness to troubleshoot is vital when retro gaming.

This also means acknowledging that you might’ve made a mistake, and that it’s not the fault of the software or the described method! It can happen to all of us, even if you’re a technical whiz. Also, I’ve found that some people will just skip any steps that sound too difficult or potentially unsafe, and in doing so, fail to perform a necessary part of the process. That’s why retracing your steps and ensuring that you’ve done everything exactly as described will often get you up and running with emulation and retro PC gaming. Troubleshooting also involves researching whether there are known issues related to your hardware or general setup, and trying out the suggested solutions.

2. Settings Can Make All The Difference

When I covered the Nintendo 64 version of NBA Live 99 in a couple of Wayback Wednesday features some months back, I fired it up on the Project64 emulator. While I do own an original copy and a working Nintendo 64 console, emulation is not only more convenient than hooking everything up, but allows me to capture media in much higher resolution. However, it looked as though I wasn’t going to be able to do that, as the graphics were completely garbled. After trying previous versions of Project64 and looking into possible alternatives for N64 emulation, I found an old post on GitHub that suggested disabling the 32-bit engine option. That did indeed solve the problem.

Again, this demonstrates the importance of being willing to troubleshoot! Settings are worth looking into and playing around with, whether they’re applied universally or on a game-by-game basis. When it comes to console emulation, many games may work superbly with the default settings, but others will require a compatibility tweak to be enabled. Likewise, wrappers that emulate old video cards also provide settings that are useful in getting certain games to run, or improving performance. Emulation isn’t a magical process that always works flawlessly. If a particular game isn’t booting or you’re encountering poor performance, be prepared to mess around with the settings.

3. Keep Emulators Up to Date

Emulation has come a long way over the years. From stable console emulators that can at least boot up pretty much the entire library, to the workarounds that allow us to install and play old PC games on the latest version of Windows, retro gaming is as accessible as it’s ever been. That represents years of hard work figuring out how to properly and efficiently emulate old hardware. To that end, if the emulator or wrapper you’re using is several years old, you may not have the latest and best solution. As such, like operating systems, drivers, PC software, and mobile apps, it’s wise to keep emulators up to date. If you don’t, you’ll miss out on major fixes and improvements.

Fortunately, the emulators themselves are making this easier. There was a time when you’d have to keep checking a website or social media for updates, but emulators such as DuckStation, PCSX2, and RPSC3 will inform you of a new version and prompt you to download it, while providing a complete list of release notes. Of course, for the emulators that don’t include such a feature, it’s worth keeping an eye out for any new versions so that you can download them accordingly. Not all of them are regularly updated of course, but the ones that are actively maintained are always improving. I can attest to the progress that’s been made since I first began dabbling with emulation.

4. Retain Backups of Stable Versions of Emulators

I realise this contradicts what I just said about always keeping your emulators up to date, but both points are true. Generally speaking, updates to emulators and other retro gaming software provide improvements to compatibility and performance, making it a good idea to have the latest versions. At the same time, just like any other update for an app, driver, or operating system, sometimes resolving one issue can cause another to occur. A while back, Dee and I discovered that NBA Street Vol. 2 didn’t work as well following an update to PCSX2. Luckily subsequent updates have resolved those problems, and that’s usually going to be the case with frequently updated emulators.

With that being said, if there’s a particular version of an emulator that’s working great for you as far as the games that you play most often, it’s worth keeping a backup of it. Sure, any issues that arise with a new update may be fixed within a day or two, but in the meantime, you can fire up the stable version and keep playing as normal. It’s akin to Windows creating a restore point when installing updates, so that you can easily roll back any changes if there are problems. Once again, it’s usually advisable to have the latest version of emulators, and if an update does mess something up, a fix likely isn’t far away. Still, it’s not a bad idea to keep a copy of a version that you can rely on.

5. Periodically Seek Out New Solutions

As a creature of habit, I know how comfortable it is to stick with what works. If your current emulation and retro gaming setup is working great for you, then there may not be a need to change anything. Of course, you may not be using the best emulator, or at least the optimal settings. It’s a good idea to keep up with the latest developments and ensure that you’re using the preferred solution. If there are competing emulators, one may end up pulling ahead of the other. There might be a recommended plugin that can improve performance, or a new ROM that’s more stable than an older rip. As I said, progress is being made all the time, and not just in the form of software updates.

After much testing and troubleshooting, someone might’ve discovered settings that finally allow a game to be playable via emulation. Indeed, if you have some technical aptitude and you’re willing to tinker, you might come up with the solution yourself! This isn’t to say that there’s an easy fix for everything. You may still have to wait for a major breakthrough with emulation when it comes to specific games and hardware. The point is that just because something isn’t working very well or at all right now, it doesn’t mean that we should give up hope. By all means set it aside for the moment, but stay on top of updates and periodically search for any solutions to known issues.

If you’re a basketball gamer who’s interested in emulation and retro gaming, but don’t know where to start or have been having difficulty setting everything up, what other advice would be useful for you? Let me know in the comments, and as always, feel free to take the discussion to the NLSC Forum! That’s all for this week, so thanks for checking in, have a great weekend, and please join me again next Friday for another Five.