Ultimate Emulator / System
Atari 2600
The cartridge era, preserved in Ultimate Emulator.
RazorATARI plays your Atari 2600 cartridges with joysticks, paddles and the console's own switches, and no firmware to find. Support is experimental, so some cartridges will not run yet.
1977
Platform Atari
- Core
- RazorATARI
- Firmware
- Not required
- Game files
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.a26
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- Players
- Up to 2 on one PC
- Online
- Native Multiplayer
- Rendering
- Original resolution
01 / Current support
Where Atari 2600 stands today.
Status describes the core, not every game. Compatibility is always title-dependent.
- Experimental
- Included with limited coverage.
- Core
- RazorATARI, a first-party core included with Ultimate Emulator. It is chosen automatically for Atari 2600 games.
- Unrated
- No comparable per-core performance rating is claimed.
- Release note
- Cartridge support is experimental.
02 / Your collection
The files it plays.
These are the Atari 2600 game files RazorATARI opens. Ultimate Emulator does not supply games; add them from your own collection.
Game files
.a26
Set up
03 / Firmware & BIOS
No external firmware required.
RazorATARI is complete on its own. Systems shows Atari 2600 as Not required: add your games and play.
04 / Input
How it plays in your hands.
Connect a controller and it is mapped automatically. Change the layout for every game, for this system only, or for a single game in Settings → Controllers.
Atari 2600 in Ultimate Emulator
- Two controller ports. Each can hold a Joystick, Paddles, a Driving controller, a Keypad or a Booster-Grip.
- The console's own switches are there too: Reset, Select, the left and right Difficulty switches and the Color switch.
05 / Picture
The original picture, on a modern screen.
Window mode, Fit and Integer Scale, aspect ratio, pixel filtering and effects come from Settings → Graphics, for every system or for one game.
- Resolution
- Drawn at its original resolution, then scaled to your window with Fit or Integer Scale and your choice of pixel filtering and effects.
- Side border crop
- Off or Symmetric. Hides equal strips at the left and right of Atari games; content in those strips is hidden too.
- Display persistence
- An Atari-only picture option, off by default.
- Renderer
- Shown for information. The system's built-in engine chooses how it draws, with a safe fallback.
06 / Your progress
In-game saves and save states.
In-game saves
- Atari 2600 cartridges have no save memory, so there are no in-game saves to keep.
Save states
- Available for local play: Quick Save and Quick Load, saved states in the State Manager, Auto-Save and Auto Resume.
- Coordinated multiplayer sessions have their own state policy.
Rewind is not integrated with this core.
Learn more
07 / Play together
Together on one PC, or across two.
A system profile does not make a single-player game multiplayer. The game decides how many can play.
- On one PC
- Up to 2 players, one controller each, in games made for more than one player. No account needed.
- Across PCs
- Native Multiplayer, with ROM Mode. Each PC runs the game and the players' inputs are shared. Online sessions need Premium for everyone taking part.
08 / Honest compatibility
What to know before you play.
Current limits of the included core, as of this release.
Known limitations
- The cartridge board is detected automatically. A game whose board cannot be determined is declined rather than run incorrectly.
- Region
- NTSC and PAL. PAL is chosen from region tags in the file name, such as (Europe) or (PAL).
09 / Gaming History
Why it mattered.
How Atari 2600 works in Ultimate Emulator is this page. Why it mattered is in the Gaming History collection.