Intellivision Emulation

[digitalpress]

OK. Who's used "NOStalgia" for Intellivision emulation?

http://www.gotmaille.com/nostalgia/nostalgia.html

I ask because the time has come to bring Intellivision emulation to my emulator-dedicated PC:
http://www.digitpress.com/gameroom/dp1sm.jpg

I've now got MAME (which is what it was originally assigned to), NES, SNES, Genesis, Turbografx, Commodore 64, Atari 2600 and MESS (which handles just about everything else) running on it but Intellivision, one of my favorite systems of all time, is still missing.

We host all of the INTV emulation stuff on the DP site but it's very cumbersome. I'd like to hear what others are using for Intellivision emulation, particularly NOStalgia!

[NE146]

I have it on my box.. What do you want to know? It seemed pretty good although I admit my time spent playing it amounted to approx 10 minutes. Also it actually crashed my winxp box once to the point where I had to reboot which is unusual (although I think it was a freak occurence).



http://disgruntledgamers.com/lol.nzb

[digitalpress]

OK I'm impatient so I went ahead and downloaded it, played for about 1/2 hour.

Interface, simple, mouse-driven.

You can change the controller set-up which is incredibly important with Intellivision. Unfortunately, the problem with ANY INTV emulator is that you have to figure out how you want to manage the keypad. Great if you use a keyboard but not great if you use a "real controller". For example, there's just no way to play Dungeons & Dragons or Baseball with a HotRod joystick!

Sound, really nice.

Graphics, dead on. Several choices of screen size.

Emulation: seems perfect. I played a few levels of Burgertime, D&D, Atlantis, and Armor Battle (tested with 2 sticks). Next I have to try out the ECS emulation, which has always been trouble to the INTV emulators of yore. I'll report back here (if anyone cares).

[Arcade Antics]

If it is, have you tried it? Impressions? How's it stack up against NOStalgia?

[Revolt]

Its been about 20 years since the last time I played intellivision.I still have the system. I dont think i could go back and play those old games again. i think a lot of the were pretty lame. remember zaxxon? Why play that old version...it doesnt even look like Zaxxon, when you can play the real thing with mame.

[zektor]

I do have to say after using the latest version of Nostalgia it is absolutely awesome. I was very big into the Colecovision during my childhood really, but I also enjoyed the Intellivision for quite a few games. They all seem dead on in the emulation...from what I remember.. Astro Smash was a favorite of mine, and the graphics, sounds, and general gameplay are exact as far as I remember. Also, one of my favorites: "Beauty and the Beast" plays, sounds and looks just how I remember it. No question, this emulator tops it for Intellivision emulation ....at least in my book.

[digitalpress]

@Revolt: Intellivision is a "classic" system. If you don't "get" the retro gaming thing, then you're right, there's no point in going back to it. But for the rest of us, it's a DREAM to play these games, and emulation is kind of a nice convenience. In the case of Intellivision, just getting to play some of the games with a JOYSTICK is a unique experience, just great.

@ArcadeAntics: I'm not sure what you're asking but if you mean have I tried ECS emulation then the answer is now YES. NOStalgia supports it but I think I forgot a BIOS file somewhere because the games load up but then I get the dreaded "plug in your ECS" message. I also need something for the IntelliVoice games, not sure what yet.

As it stands though, I had a great time with Night Stalker (set up player 2 stick on the HotRod to fire in directions and stick 1 to move... like Robotron!), a lot of Burgertime (best home version of the game), Bump 'n Jump, Dracula, Lock 'n Chase and Stadium Mud Buggies. The emulator is just fantastic. If you haven't tried it out, go get it! And many of the ROMS are on the DP site (let me know if there are others you're looking for):

http://www.digitpress.com/emu/intv.htm

[ubersaurus]

I'm a fan of INTVwin, myself, though Nostalgia I might try sometime.

[retrogmr]

I didn't hear anyone mention one of the better INTV emu's out there, namely Bliss:

http://bliss.retrogames.com/

Only drag is that it's hasn't been updated in a few months... but for a Java-based emulator, it's totally dead on, performance is great (even on a slower machine), and it has a good interface to boot.

[Nature Boy]

I'm definitely a newbie when it comes to emulation so bear with me if I sound like an idiot.

@DP: Do you have "ecs.bin" and "ivoice.bin" already? If you do I'd appreciate a quick email. I tried finding them just yesterday to no avail. And have you tried Bliss before? I'm wondering how NOStalgia compares to Bliss.

@RetroGmr: Bliss is actually the emulator I'm using, and I have to admit it's pretty good. But I'm getting some choppy sounds at times. Suggestions? I'm running it on a Toshiba Laptop with Win95 (P233 MHz). I've mucked with the "bliss.ini" file a bit but if you know something I can try I'm all ears.

[zektor]

I have all the needed bios files including the intellivoice and ecs bios files. Joe, next time I see you online I'll send them over.

[digitalpress]

@DP: Do you have "ecs.bin" and "ivoice.bin" already? If you do I'd appreciate a quick email. I tried finding them just yesterday to no avail. And have you tried Bliss before? I'm wondering how NOStalgia compares to Bliss.

I've got these files. Need 'em?

I like Bliss, but really like NOStalgia much better now. I could do without JAVA quite frankly. I enjoyed INTVwin for years (in fact, our emulation page has all kinds of help in setting it up) but it's very cumbersome and the controls were difficult to work with.

[zektor]

Well, I used Bliss for quite a while when I was running Windows 98SE. It ran great there. But after upgrading to Win2k (which is a much superior OS in my opinion) I couldn't run it without skips and crashes. I still can't. So Nostalgia is the only way I can go for a good emu experience for the Intellivision at this point. Bliss rules by all means, but as for OS compatibility it is only for some....sort of like the IMpact emulator.

[Nature Boy]

@DP: I do need them actually. Could you email them to me?

I think I'll be giving Nostalgia a try this weekend!