Best Retro Games You Can Play Legally Without Emulators
Best Retro Games You Can Play Legally Without Emulators In 2026, playing an old game might mean finding the right file, choosing an emulator, tweaking controller settings, and hoping your save survives the next update. For many people, that’s more setup than it’s worth. The good news is that many oldies are now available through […]
Emulator Save States and Shaders: A Beginner’s Guide
How to Use Save States and Shaders in Emulators: A Beginner’s Guide Two emulator features change the experience of old games on a modern PC more than almost anything else. Save states let you save anywhere, even in games that only let you save at a checkpoint. Shaders alter the look of the image, from […]
RetroArch vs Standalone Emulators: Which Is Better on PC?
So how do you go about setting up emulation on a Windows PC? Should you install RetroArch and its cores, or install specific standalone emulators? It’s one of the first decisions any new emulation setup has to make. The answer depends on what consoles you care about. The question exists because there are two alternative […]
Best Controllers for Emulation in 2026: USB, Bluetooth & Retro
Best Controllers for Emulation: USB, Bluetooth & Retro The best controllers for emulation are not necessarily the newest or the most expensive. You can emulate pretty much any ancient system on a current PC, but whether a game feels correct or just playable largely depends on the controller in your hands. A mushy D-pad can […]
How to Legally Back Up Game Cartridges and Discs (Guide)
Game cartridges were made to last, but not forever. Batteries wear out, contacts corrode, and circuit boards age. Discs have their own problems: scratches, warping, and sometimes “disc rot”, when their reflective coating slowly breaks away. And the older the original gear required to play these games gets, the more difficult and expensive it becomes […]