Commodore 64 Emulation Tutorial with VICE and a Windows PC

[swiv2d]

only problem is that site is difficult to find games on.

[michitakem]

@swiv2d Glad you liked it. I changed my site so it no longer has a blog type category for games, so I recommend going to GB64.com directly.

[swiv2d]

thank you so much been here searching for ages on an instruction vid. might I say you have a very soothing voice.

[storrs19]

Wow! That setup sure brings back memories. You have two 1541 disk drives, a pop door and a spin door plus the Epyx 500XJ Joystick. I had all of that way back when. Thank God for emulators. My problem is that even at 10% Vice is way to fast on my machine using Windows XP (I only have a P4 3.00ghz machine).

[michitakem]

Hey Gjc - I recommend the Denial VIC-20 forums as a great place for more VIC-20 info, because they have a great little app I found there that you can run that kicks off VICE with the right settings for the VIC-20 games called PRG starter. You can find it stickied in the Emulation and Cross Development sub-forum. Or just Google vic-20 PRG starter. Hope that helps!

[gjc82071]

@michitakem Thanks! After using PRG Starter, I actually figured out how to load PRG/Carts w/o it. I never knew or saw any documentation on HOW to load the carts. I now know they need to be assigned to their respective memory slots. In retrospect it is ridiculously simple. It's just that I never had any straight forward "Do this/that, put this here/there" type instructions. All in all, after literally years of trial/effort & failure, I am just happy to be playing the games I want! :-)

[gjc82071]

Hello michitakem. I have a question. Do you know much about VICE & the Vic 20 emulation? I have no trouble at all with C64, but I have quite a bit of trouble with Vic 20 files types, like .20, a20, .60, etc. Even the .p00/.prg that do work, many only do so if I load & then reset the system (a trick learned online). I have been trying literally for years to get VICE/Vic 20 Donkey Kong, Pole Position, etc, to work. Any tips/help please?

[michitakem]

sumvac, make sure that you have the joystick properly set up in the settings drop down menu, and make sure that you plug in the joystick BEFORE you load VICE, because it will not see the USB joystick/pad if you plug it in after VICE loads. One more thing to try is to "swap joystick" or set both #1 and #2 joysticks to the USB joystick. Some games used Port #1, others used Port #2 for the primary joystick, so you might be getting part of the controls working due to using the opposite port.

[sumvlac]

@michitakem You are right. The fire button was the left pointing arrow next to the number 1. On the PC it is the tilde key. I was trying to play 'Castle Wolfenstein', and it had some wierd joystick/keyboard combos.

I am using a logitech gamepad on Windows 7 running VICE and it works great!

[michitakem]

sumvac, I have used many usb joysticks but never had a problem with the fire button if the directional pad is working. Usually on a multi-button pad all of the buttons act as "fire". Make sure that you have the joystick properly set up in the settings drop down menu, and make sure that you plug in the joystick BEFORE you load VICE, because it will not see the USB joystick/pad if you plug it in after VICE loads. One more thing to try is to "swap joystick" or set both A and B joysticks to USB.

[GrapesAreFun100]

wow you sound like you could do radio xD

[sumvlac]

How do you get a usb joystick to work? I can get everything except the fire button to work. The emulator runs fine. Thanks for the post!

[michitakem]

@sumvlac make sure that you have the joystick properly set up in the settings drop down menu, and make sure that you plug in the joystick BEFORE you load VICE, because it will not see the USB joystick/pad if you plug it in after VICE loads. One more thing to try is to "swap joystick" or set both #1 and #2 joysticks to the USB joystick. Some games used Port #1, others used Port #2 for the primary joystick, so you might be getting part of the controls working due to using the opposite port.

[michitakem]

XP does work fine pauly - same way - actually easier if you noticed all of the nag messages I ignored in Vista that won't pop up in XP.

Glad you got it working Ampedforay!

[Ampedforay]

Great job, worked perfectly! Now onto Fort Apocalypse. Oh how I wish I had not left my C64 at my X's.

[paulymindfreak]

i subbed to you ;) but it workz with xp? vista doesnt works for me and i dont like it

[DarthNuno]

Nice tuto, but don't scream like that ;-)

[fredtemple]

Rob, You are a riot. michitakem???

Wally

[michitakem]

Couple of things I noticed - first my voice is hushed as I was recording this late night -- and I often don't mention that I am RIGHT clicking the files in many cases, for instance when associating the T64 file with VICE, and when pulling up a couple of other menus. Right clicking in Windows comes very natural to me, so if you think you're missing something in my tutorial, try that.