A list of applications that seem to work decently with the C64 emulator.
Limitations:
The C64 emulator currently lacks support for the C64 disk and tape drives. Therefore programs must be loaded from the emulator menu (or monitor) as .prg files from the host OS file system. Also, any loaded .prg file that tries to access the C64 disk or tape drive most likely will not work (hang).
The video emulation is not cycle exact, and does not cover all tricks possible with the C64 VIC2 video chip. Any advanced app/game/demo may not work as expected.
There are currently different video renderer implementations that can be selected in the C64 config UI. All renderers supports
Character
mode, most supportsprites
, but only some supportBitmap
mode (which makes them a bit slower). Bitmap mode may be required by some apps, so the correct renderer must be selected before starting certain apps (see Renderer column in table below).The audio emulation is currently not very accurate, so expect especially music to not sound correct.
Game | D/L URL | .D64 -> PRG file | .prg type | Renderer (C64 Config menu) | Comment |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Digiloi | https://csdb.dk/release/download.php?id=213381 | digiloi.d64 -> digiloi64 |
Basic | SkiaSharp*, SilkNetOpenGl | Character mode. |
Elite | https://csdb.dk/release/download.php?id=70413 | ELITE.D64 -> elite [3] |
Basic | SkiaSharp*, SilkNetOpenGl | C64 PAL variant. Bitmap mode. Some gfx artifacts. |
Last Ninja | https://csdb.dk/release/download.php?id=101848 | lncro.d64 -> last ninja/zcs |
Basic | SkiaSharp2b, SilkNetOpenGl | Bitmap mode, sprites. |
Mini Zork | https://csdb.dk/release/download.php?id=42919 | Mini-Zork(L+T).d64 -> mini-zork /l+t |
Basic | SkiaSharp*, SilkNetOpenGl, SadConsole | Character mode (default charset). |
Rally Speedway | https://csdb.dk/release/download.php?id=22736 | jolly_roger_-_rally_speedway.d64 -> rallyspeedway |
Basic | SkiaSharp*, SilkNetOpenGl | Character mode, sprites. |
Montezuma's Revenge | https://csdb.dk/release/download.php?id=128101 | Montezuma's Revenge - 1103.d64 -> montezuma's rev. |
Basic | SkiaSharp*, SilkNetOpenGl | Character mode, sprites. |
Bubble Bobble | https://csdb.dk/release/download.php?id=187937 | Bubble Bobble.d64 -> bubble bobble |
Basic | SkiaSharp*, SilkNetOpenGl | Character mode, sprites. |
If the download is a .zip (or other compressions) file, start with unzip:ing it to a folder.
If the unzip:ed contents is a .prg file, then it is possible to be loaded directly into the emulator. No more extra steps needed.
If the unzip:ed contents is a .D64 file (which is a C64 disk image file), a .prg file needs to be extracted from the .D64 file. For this purpose the c1541
command line utility provided by VICE emulator can be used.
- Install VICE (if not already installed)
- List contents of .D64 image (example)
[VICE install path]\bin\c1541.exe -attach "lncro.d64" -list
- Extract .prg file from .D64 image (example). The last argument is what you want to name the extracted .prg file.
[VICE install path]\bin\c1541.exe -attach "lncro.d64" -read "last ninja/zcs" "last ninja-zcs.prg"
- In this example, The Last Ninja was extracted from the .D64 image
lncro.d64
to the filelast ninja-zcs.prg
- File must be loaded as a Basic program, from the menu
Load Basic PRG file
, or via the monitor. - Start by typing
RUN
(and press Enter). - The Basic program is most likely a short stub program that starts a machine language program by invoking SYS.
- File must be loaded as a Binary program (from the menu or monitor).
- It's loaded into a memory address that is specified in the first two bytes of the .prg file (a C64 standard).
- Menu:
Load & start binary PRG file
- It's loaded and started automatically.
- Monitor:
- See Monitor docs. Relevant commands are
ll [file]
andg [address]
- See Monitor docs. Relevant commands are