Emulation is the term used when you want to make something work from a specific system, using something that is not the original platform.In our case, play a CD-i title without the need of any dedicated player.
This quest isn’t new. Back to the early days of the interactive system development, Philips tried many ways to emulate CD-i titles to make it easier to develop new titles.Its succeeded with the development of a Nubus CD-i board for Macintosh, an ISA & PCI boards for Sun and Windows computers.
Here you will find the different ways to emulate a CD-i title using a software, no boards (this is a future subject).Some of them are abandoned by their creator, others are still under development.
Philips CD-i (CD-I) emulators collection available here. You will get a free direct download link, Google drive link as well as OneDrive link. Now you don’t need a physical console and not required, when you run the Philips CD-i emulator on your (computer or smartphone) the features and functions as similar to Philips CD-i console The same experience can be played in the emulator the same. The Philips CD-i (an abbreviation of Compact Disc Interactive) is an interactive multimedia CD player developed and marketed by Royal Philips Electronics N.V. It was created to provide more functionality than an audio CD player or game console, but at a lower price than a personal computer with a CD-ROM drive at the time.NameCD-iceStands forCD-i Console EmulatorAuthorPete DabbsLatest VersionInitial DEMO releaseRelease Date20/08/2001Websitewww.cdice.emuhp.comDownloadTry it!ScreenshotsDescriptionPete Dabbs worked on the CD-i conversion of Rise™ of the Robots.He was a coder for more that 15 years in the game industry.His passion to the CD-i and in particular to the game he worked on make him decided to do the first step to program the very 1st emulator that enables to play a CD-i title.CD-ice is known for emulating only one game, Rise™ of the Robots.But more titles are working still with some issues, known working titles are: Micro Machines, Escape from Cybercity®, Defender of the Crown, Zelda™ – The Wand of Gamelon, Flashback, Whack a Bubble, Lemmings, The 7th Guest, Striker Pro and Tetris®.NameTinyCDIStands forTiny CD-iAuthorDavid HaywoodLatest VersionVersion 1Release Date28/10/2009Websitewww.mamedev.emulab.it/hazeDownloadTry it!ScreenshotsDescriptionThis is a ‘Tiny’ MAME build containing the CD-i code from MESS using a fixed gamelist like MAME.Most games will lockup or crash at some point due to imperfectons in the emulation, a couple of them do however play well. Hotel Mario™, The Apprentice (no sound), Dimo’s Quest, Alien Gate, The Joker’s Wild™, Tetris® and a number of others seem to be perfectly playable. Digital Video titles won’t work because MESS doesn’t emulate the MPEG card. For most games only one revision has been added for testing purposes, while multiple revisions exist in the TOSEC dats. Non-games haven’t been added at all for now. I haven’t marked games as working / not working because most of them haven’t been tested far enough to make a good judgement on that, the main guarantee this tiny build gives however is that if your CHDs match the expected ones, you’re getting the same results as everybody else; something which is hard to know in MESS which lacks any kind of fixed set list. I (Haze) take no credit for the work here, I’ve just been converting images and testing them. The driver is mostly by “Just Desserts / Harmony” and progress can be followed at the MESS forums. The CHDs used by this should be compatible with future versions of MESS. The package is provided as a ‘tiny’ package which extracts over a full MAME source.NameCD-i EmulatorStands forCD-i EmulatorAutorCD-i FanLatest Version0.5.2, 0.5.3-beta4Release Date30/09/2005, 08/07/2018Websitewww.cdiemu.orgDownloadTry it!ScreenshotsDescriptionThe CD-i Emulator program provides a fairly complete software emulation of the hardware of an actual physical CD-i player.You can download a time-limited edition, but I ask a modest payment for the unlimited edition.The time-limited edition emulates for at most three minutes between CD-i player resets and does not support permanent saving of NVRAM data such as game highscores and other CD-i title settings. The unlimited edition does not have these restrictions.The version 0.5.3 beta releases are limited editions, unless you have already activated an unlimited edition on your machine or you’re using a Philips Mono-I player system ROM (200 F1, 210 F1, 220 F2).In order to actually run CD-i software, the emulator needs copies of the CD-i system ROMs. These ROMs are copyrighted and cannot be freely redistributed, but you can easily obtain them via the serial port of a physical CD-i player using the CD-i Link program.The World of CD-i is proudly the official tester of CD-i emulator.All titles testes are done by BurnCycle.Each title have his compatibility rated, just search for a title on the site.Don’t hesitate to contact him for compatibility questions.
Check the titles list compatibility.NameMAMEStands forMultiple Arcade Machine EmulatorAuthorOpen-SourceLatest Version0.208Release Date27/03/2019Websitewww.mamedev.orgDownloadTry it!ScreenshotsDescriptionMAME is a multi-purpose emulation framework.MAME’s purpose is to preserve decades of software history. This is achieved by documenting the hardware and how it functions. The source code to MAME serves as this documentation. The fact that the software is usable serves primarily to validate the accuracy of the documentation. Over time, MAME (originally Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) absorbed the sister-project MESS (Multi Emulator Super System), so MAME now documents a wide variety of (mostly vintage) computers, video game consoles and calculators, in addition to the arcade video games that were its initial focus.MAME is capable of useful CD-i emulation using the cdimono1 driver for Philips Mono-I player ROMs.Philips - CDi EmulatorsCdi Emulator ApkNameDescriptionCD-i EmulatorThis emulator provides a fairly complete emulation of the hardware of an actual physical CD-i player. CD-iceThis is the first CD-I emulator. It was written by Pete Dabbs using his own code for BIOS made mostly from scratch and the Rise of the Robots game source code, thus no BIOS file is needed. At this point this emulator can only play 'Rise of the Robots.'Philips Cdi Emulator MessCdi Emulator OnlineCdi Emulator For WindowsEmulators on:WindowsLinuxMacintoshConsolesiOS (iPhone)AndroidWindows MobileOthersOther ReleasesMusicHacksSavestatesCheatsMoviesTranslationsROMs (Public Domain)FrontendsTechnical DocumentsExtendersUtilities:GeneralAuditingCheatingDevelopmentGame ModificationMusic Playback / ManipulationPluginsAffiliatesGame Hacking.org
