Guide: How to run PC98 Touhou

[Flame Sniper]

You like retro things?​

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Yeah... Are you one of those people that go out of their way to install 20+ year old games? You know you are masochist right?
This is why i decided to make a guide in how to run PC98 games, to save you time. and because i promised it

Let's begin!

1) Required programs:

We are going to use RetroArch for this guide. You can get it at https://www.retroarch.com/
If you are on Linux, please use the version found here https://flathub.org/es/apps/org.libretro.RetroArch because it has some things we will need that other versions lack. And disable flatpak sandboxing, see my Touhou on Linux guide for steps.

Of course, we are going to need PC98 games for this. You can get them in a familiar place, and if you are good searching inside archive.org.
I recommend that you place your games in a fixed location, like for example create a Games folder and place them there.

If you want to know why and what RetroArch is:
In simple terms, it's a fronted (like the packaging of your ice cream) that is made to provide an easy to use User Interface for almost every emulator in the planet, without sacrificing advanced settings for the looks. It's like the king of emulators.

2) Installing the emulator:

As we know, RetroArch just facilitates installing the actual emulator.
Go to Main Menu, Online Updater, Core Downloader.
Then, scroll down until you find NEC - PC-98 (Neko Project II Kai) and click it.
If you don't see the Kai version, try out the version without the Kai.

3) First Run:

Now, to finish setting things up we need to run the games.
Click on Main Menu, Load Core and select NEC - PC-98 (Neko Project II Kai).
Then, click on Load Content and browse to the file location where your games are and launch a game.

You will see a black screen with some cryptic techy text, ignore it and press F1.
Scroll until you see Add to Favorites. This will provide you easier access to the game, it's going to save you time.
Then, scroll until you see Core Options, and make sure the settings displayed match the ones in this image, then exit with backspace:

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4) Enjoy!

It was that easy. It may seem too simple, but figuring out the right options for a smooth experience took me a while, it's better to have them centralized in one place.
Some small advice, do the Add to Favorites for every game and save the image above for easier setup (i don't remember if RetroArch saved the setup for all the games in the emulator).
And to make the game load faster use the built in shortcut for Fast Foward in the L key. But you should enable a shortcut for the better version of Fast Foward. You can find it in Input, Hotkeys, Fast Foward (Toggle)

Did your computer explode???​

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If you have any issues, please tell me and i will do my best to help you. Same if you know something to improve this guide.

 

[WhiteL]

Some things I want to add.

Generally speaking, if your pc is... quite old or not very good, tinker around with the cpu clock multiplier, most of them can run the emulator on 48 or 32 in my case, makes the game just work better overall. If your pc for any reason cannot handle a multiplier of 24, I would recommend switching to ANEX 86. That emulator is known for having good and stable framerate but, sadly, horrible audio and graphical quality. In the case of touhou, some bullets flash/blink and its really annoying.
 

If you are using neko project without Retroarch, you can setup a option for savestates in the emulator by heading to np21Int.ini and typing "statsave=true" in a new line somewhere.

Another option for an emulator if Nekoproject doesn't run would be T98-Next. Runs the first 3 touhous pretty decently in my really old laptop where Nekoproject couldn't. Don't expect much from LLS or MS though, you need a decent system for those.

 

[Mr_Snail]

I was using the Anex86 emulator but i upgraded to windows 11 and the audio is just not working anymore, it was fine in windows 10 but not now, so i tried with the RetroArch / NEC - PC-98 (Neko Project II Kai) and the audio works perfectly but the games runs at like 10 fps or something, at the start of the level it goes smoothly but as soon as the enemies apear the fps drop to the ground, same with the intro animation and the menus, i dont have a bad pc and the game worked just fine before in the other emulator so is clearly a thing with this one, is there any advice? some options that can fix it? or other emulator?

 

[Astronomical791]

Everything is working nicely but the fonts don't load ! I uploaded the image down below and you can see it's just random symbols. Touhou 1 btw.

 

[brodog567]

Thank you for the guide!