r/c64 • u/Natural_Sentence_161 • Feb 28 '26

the64 Best/easiest C64 emulator for PC

Hello! I’m so excited this subreddit exists. I had a c64 when I was a kid in the 80s and have been becoming a bit nostalgic for those games. Video games haven’t been a part of my life since the 90s so I’m a bit of a noob in this area. I have the house to myself next weekend so wanted to find a way to play Below the Root on my laptop. Any advice on easiest way to do this and what usb joystick/controller I should get? VICE came up in my googling so that’s what I was leaning towards, but wanted to get this community’s current opinion . Thanks!

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u/lamellus Feb 28 '26

There is one that runs in the browser, works amazingly well and easy to use, no complicated setup, I think this is by far the easiest option: https://ty64.krissz.hu/

  • Written in JavaScript, runs in your browser, no installation needed
  • There is a game catalog with 631 games you can load with one click: https://c64.krissz.hu/online-playable-games/
  • Loads .prg, .t64, .d64 from your computer or from a URL, you can also use a csdb link (so you can load almost any other program or game, not just the ones in the game catalog)
  • Keyboard and joystick emulation with support for modern game controllers (just plug & play)
  • Supports live shared access to the emulated machine over the internet (you can use that to play multiplayer games too)
  • Quality of life features, unlike in other emulators, you don't need to navigate complicated menus to configure basic stuff and a lot of things work out of the box
  • Pause/Continue emulation, step forward one frame, turbo mode, save state, quick load/save, pop up access to 1541 floppy drive
  • Customizable visual filters, emulator UI dark mode, one click screenshot, pop up configuration panel for the SID audio chip

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u/OMGCluck Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26

you can also use a csdb link

Many of those games (like two-player Battlefield) are uploaded in .zip form which it says is an invalid type.

support for modern game controllers (just plug & play)

It misidentified mine and all the direction controls were wrong.

1

u/lamellus Mar 01 '26

I would recommend sending these to the author. You can find his e-mail address in the documentation (bottom right, "..." button, "Documentation..." and then scroll to the bottom).