Pardon my simplicity,

[Sniped_]

but.....

A. I'm new to the forums. Ola.

B. I've never used ROM's before, but I'd love to get acquainted with them because some of these patches look sweet.

C. Basically, if anyone could walk me through the steps of how to get an emulator(I think?) and a ROM up and running, that'd be great.

D. If it means anything, I have a Mac, and I downloaded the VBA for Macs a few weeks ago, but once I downloaded it I really didn't know what to do.

P.S.- I DID check the search engine(yay propz for lolcommonsense) for tutorial and guide, but nothing really came up, so this is basically my last option...I've posted on a few other boards, with no adequate response yet.

Thanks in advance :D

[Intoner Two]

strange I'm surprised that there would be a problem...ok, I assume you have downloaded VBA Link Emulator or so...ok, now we can't give you links to ROMs -against teh rulez- but basically once you have downloaded and uzipped the ROM to a folder, it should tell you that it's a GBA file when you place and leave your cursor over it...if it doesn't then the ROM is not a gba rom or w/e emulator you're using; now, simply launch the VBA program, the first option in the upper left hand corner should be "file" or something similar; then when you choose open, you locate your ROM in its folder then select it and voila, it should run your game...now, for patches, when you download most they usually come with a readme text file which will give you specific directions on how they want you to patch the game, it usually involves downloading a quick and simple program for patching and when you do so the site should have instructions -or it comes with a readme file containing instructions-; also there is an option somewhere in the VBA program that enables instant IPS patching (as long as you have the ips patch in the same folder as your ROM, but it typically only works if the files are the same size so always check your patch's zip file for a readme on what they recommend), hope that helped answer your questions

[TheEnd]

The main issue with Mac emulation is that the majority of the community uses Windows (or maybe Linux), so you might have some trouble getting specific support if something unexpected happens. >:

But anyway, the basics are: you get a rom (you might or not need to unzip it) and open it with an emulator, just like you'd open a jpg with an image editor.

If you're trying to use a patch, just leave the rom and patch in the same folder, and rename the patch so that the its filename matches the rom's (for instance, fe6.gba/fe6.ips).

You're on your own to get the roms, though, since they're illegal and we can't post links for downloading them here.

[Sniped_]

Thank you both for the answers, I appreciate it, but shantatto, VBA Link Emulator=? is that just the normal Mac VBA or what?

[Intoner Two]

ah, nothing ^^ that's just what I have my folder w/ the program named as...my bad -I think it was the page name I downloaded it from or something- it's just VBA

[Starwolf_UK]

VBA is Visual Boy Advance. VBA Link is one of the many branches of Visual Boy Advance since work stopped years ago.

VBA-M collects all the branches into one emulator but...no Mac version.

I leanred most (if not all) of the above by entering "Visual Boy Advance" into this really neat search Engine called google...

So you're just left with bog-standard Visual Boy Advance and...Mac uses tend to have all sorts of glitches with the newer version. You'll just have to try trial and error until you find a verison that works fully for what you want.

[Sniped_]

Sorry for another probably idiotic question, but Finn, when you say less "support", do you mean less help with problems I encounter? Or the Mac VBA doesn't support most of the ROM's people make?

[Celice]

It doesn't receive as much work and development, I would suppose, as it's not the most sought after program. So it may have less features, run worse, or the like.

You could always emulate the Windows program :/