Matt asks, "Do I need to build a high end gaming computer to play emulated games? I'm thinking of building a gaming computer, but most of the games I play are on the NES, SNES, and DOS. Also, is it possible to emulate Playstation 2 games?"

When you're talking about emulated games, you're talking about raw processing power. For older systems, such as the NES and SNES, any cheap computer will work fine. In fact, you could probably spend $100 on a computer and get good enough performance to emulate those older systems.

For more modern emulation, though, you're going to need to spend a lot of money on processing power, and it may still not be enough.

"Last generation" systems, like the Xbox, Playstation 2, and Gamecube are a bit more complex than the older Playstation, SNES, or NES systems. Each of these newer consoles has multiple processors that needs to be emulated - the Playstation 2 has 6 micro processors that need to be emulated, not counting the multiple cores found in its main processor (we're not even discussing the multiple core cell processor of the Playstation 3) - and the graphics commands also need to be translated to work on modern hardware.

Essentially, you're talking about emulating not only a logic core, but also a graphics core. It's a nearly herculean task that isn't easy. In fact, emulating the Playstation 2 has proven to be quite the challenge: while the emulated PS2 is "playable" on a dual-core AMD system with a GeForce 9200, it's not exactly "presentable" - the games run slow enough to be annoying.

If you really want to emulate the last generation of consoles, then you might actually want to wait for the next generation of multi-core processors. Even with the top of the line quad-core processors, you're still lacking enough power to translate everything into working code, but the upcoming oct-core processors should make things a little easier for you. Once you get past the processing hurdle, though, drawing the games isn't as herculean as you might think. Todays average graphics card has enough power to actually draw these games, so buying an SLI or CrossFire system is a bit overkill in this situation.

Emulation all boils down to how fast you can translate one set of bits into your native set of bits. While it's nice to be able to push polygons, emulation relies on raw processing power more than video cards.

Do you have a question you need answered? E-mail me! lordkat@gmail.com

Click here to check out How to Build a Gaming Computer for Under $1000.

Be safe,

Jason