PocketNES

This is a selected list of video game system emulators. For information about emulating specific systems, including those not covered by the emulators in this list, see the respective article for each system.

An arcade emulator is a program that emulates one or more arcade games on a different computer, such as a PC. The first known arcade emulation available publicly was the Williams Digital Arcade series from Digital Eclipse Software, released for the Macintosh in 1994. This series featured the Williams Electronics' arcade classics Joust,Defender and Robotron: 2084. In 1995, it was repackaged and expanded upon as Williams Arcade Classics for the PC. DASArcade (written by David Alan Spicer) was arguably the first PC-based multiple arcade game emulator. This was distinct from Digital Eclipse's release in that only one program was required to emulate more than one arcade game, rather than one program per game. The first version of DASArcade was released later in 1995 and emulated a few titles including Pac-Man and Frogger (two years before MAME which now dominates arcade emulation). DASArcade evolved into Sparcade which emulates over 70 games.

A virtual arcade is an extension of an arcade game emulator. With some setup, the player can view all the ROMs supported by the virtual arcade as actual arcade machines. The most commonly used emulator and virtual arcade software is MAME and 3D Arcade. Most common Virtual Arcades can not play more than one ROM at a time which makes it near impossible to play a game that requires the player to run two ROMs at once. Most virtual arcades also allow you to add new games, or customize the arcade.

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