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NEC PC-9800 series

5,124 bytes added, 04:02, 5 May 2019
Playing Games
{{Infobox console
|title = NEC PC-9800 series
|logo = PC98RS.jpg
|developer = NEC Home Electronics
|type = [[:Category:Computers|Home computer]]
|generation =
|release = 1982
|discontinued = 2000
|predecessor = [[PC-88 emulators|PC-8800]]
|successor =
|emulated = {{✓}}
}}
The '''[[wikipedia:PC-9800 series|NEC PC-9800]]''', also known as the '''PC-98''', were a family of computers made by [[wikipedia:Nec|NEC]] throughout 1982 to 2000. They were not released or marketed outside of Japan, but still useful for playing early Touhou games.
==Emulators==
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|+ PC-98 Emulators
! scope="col"|Name
! scope="col"|Operating System(s)
! scope="col"|Latest Version
! scope="col"|[[Emulation Accuracy|Accuracy]]
! scope="col"|Active
! scope="col"|[[Recommended Emulators|Recommended]]
|-
!colspan="11"|PC
|-
|Neko Project 21/W
|Windows, Linux
|[https://sites.google.com/site/np21win 0.86 rev60]
|High
|{{✓}}
|{{✓}}
|-
|Neko Project II
|Windows, macOS <small>(PPC/Intel)</small>
|[http://www.yui.ne.jp/np2 0.86]
|Mid
|{{✗}}
|{{✓}}
|-
|[https://web.archive.org/web/20100323104752/http://hp.vector.co.jp:80/authors/VA015680/ax/axindex2.htm Anex86]
|Windows
|[https://www.zophar.net/pc98/anex86.html e1]
|Low-Mid
|{{✗}}
|{{✓}}
|-
|[[MAME]]
|Multi-platform
|[http://www.mamedev.org/release.html {{MAMEVer}}]
|Low
|{{✓}}
|{{~}}
|-
|SL9821
|Windows
|[http://www.satotomi.com/sl9821/sl9821_dl.html 0.3.1.5]
|High
|{{✓}}
|{{✗}}
|-
|[[DOSBox#DOSBox-X|DOSBox-X]]
|Multi-platform
|[https://github.com/joncampbell123/dosbox-x/releases {{DOSBox-XVer}}]
|Low
|{{✓}}
|{{✗}}
|-
!colspan="11"|Mobile
|-
|[https://sourceforge.net/projects/np2android Neko Project II]
|[[Android emulators|Android]]
|[https://sourceforge.net/projects/np2android 20120217]
|Unknown
|{{✗}}
|{{✓}}
|-
|[http://akiyuki.boy.jp/android J98]
|[[Android emulators|Android]]
|[http://akiyuki.boy.jp/android J98-b]
|Unknown
|{{✗}}
|{{✓}}
|}
 
===Comparisons===
;Neko Project II:The best PC-98 emulator out there but went inactive since March 2016. Its major drawback is the non-remappable controls.
;Neko Project 21/W:Based on Neko Project II (mainly ver0.86) but focus on PC-9821 series with enchanced options (CPUs, memory sizes, sound sources) as well as support of LAN board, PCI bus, CD-DA, windows accelerators, fmgen and so on.
;Anex86:Another decent PC-98 emulator, but is older and less powerful. It allows key rebinding.
;[[DOSBox#DOSBox-X|DOSBox-X]]:A very active fork of DOSBox that, among other things, adds support for the PC-98 as a target system. While it's very easy to set up, its PC-98 compatibility is still in its early stages.
;[[MAME]]:It has drivers for various revisions but as of version 0.189, all of them are reported as <font color="darkred">Not Working</font>. Support for the first batch or so of PC-98 games have started to be added to MAME in [https://www.mamedev.org/?p=460 0.201] (Aug 2018).
 
==Usage==
:<small>''Note: This tutorial was adapted from [http://46okumen.com/pc-98-emulation/ this resource.]''</small>
 
The PC-9800 series of personal computers had floppy disk drives (FDD) and hard drives (HDD) which contained the actual games and software to be loaded. Besides the emulator, you'll need a set of floppy disk images (FDI, FDM, NFD, D88...) or a hard disk image (HDI, HDM, NHD...).
 
You'll need a font if you want text characters to display properly in most cases. It can be downloaded [[Emulator Files#NEC PC-9800|here]]. Put it in the same directory as the emulator executable, and select it (''Emulate/Font'' for Neko Project II, or ''Config/Font'' for Anex86).
 
You'll need to configure the emulator as well. In NP2's case, you want to go with the recommended configuration here:
 
* Emulate/Configure/CPU: Number of cores to something like 32.
* Emulate/Configure/Sound: Rate to 44k or 88k for better sound quality.
* Device/Memory: 13.6MB
* Screen/Screen Option: Check "Use skipline revisions", and change Ratio to 255. This gets rid of the existing scan line implementation, in case you want a better one with shaders from external programs. Keep in mind PC-98 games, more than any other system, are often graphically designed with scanlines in mind.
 
To play the games:
* If using a floppy disk based game: Plug the first disk (FDI) into '''FDD1''', and the second disk (FDI) into '''FDD2'''.
* If using a hard drive based game: Plug the hard drive (HDI) into '''Harddisk/IDE #0''' (if using Anex86, use the HDD1 and HDD2 fields and check the box '''HDD>FDD''').
 
Then restart the machine (not emulator), and most games automatically launch from there.
 
Neko Project II's controls are not remappable. They're 2, 4, 6, and 8 on the numpad, arrow keys, enter, space, ctrl, z, and x. For games using the mouse, hit F12 to enable or disable mouse input. Use programs like Joy2Key to rebind other keys.
 
==Resources==
* [http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=954 Overview of PC-98 emulators]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOYh92usnhk Policenauts running under SL9821]
 
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:NEC personal computers]]
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