nes emulator question:

Is there an emulator for nes that allows me to mute sfx, but keep the background music playing? I want to record the game soundtrack, but the sound effects are ruining it...

The best thing you can do if you're recording right from what you're playing is get to a safe zone and just stand there. Unless there is an "alarm" sound effect or something, that should work. I'm not 100% positive if there would be something like that or not. If there is an emu like that, then it would probably have different channels that you could shut off... but that could potentially edit out some of the music if the SFX are going over that specific channel.

Actually, I just checked FakeNES... it has the option to turn off channels, but I didn't look to see if it can record music. Hope some of this helps.

I use the NESten emulator. It allows you to systematically strip layers of sound away to just a single channel if you want.

I used this feature to sample sounds for music of my own and I highly recommend it.

OK, just downloaded RockNes and a NES ROM. I try running the emulator and my crap computer shows an error message saying:
"A required .DLL file was not found."
I'm completely new at this emu/ROM stuff; any ideas on what is wrong?

You could also try to find the nsf files for the particular game, and you directly have the soundtrack there. (Try google for "nsf" + "game name")

So it's a sound problem, then? That would make sense, since not too long ago part of my program was eaten by a virus and .wav sounds no longer work, but the sound card's still good, of course. I guess if the emulator requires sound to run, I'm out of luck.

Yeah, I downloaded Nestopia and I'm getting the exact same message. I've got to get some upgrades for my computer soon. They're not even providing support for Windows 98 as of next month. #@ck Mr. Bill Gates.

Does it tell you which .dll files you need? I'm thinking these emulators may be pointing to a different directory, but I'm not really sure. Also, how fast is your CPU? If it's not that fast, you may not want to run Nestopia. I used to run Win98SE, and I think I used to use VirtuaNES with no problems. You could try running that, and if you have a problem getting that to work, you could also try FCE Ultra, and JNES... not the most accurate emus, but you should be able to get one of them to work.

O.K., I'll try some of those others tomorrow. You're right--my computer is slower than molasses, and is missing a memory stick to boot (pun?!).
*UPDATE/EDIT*
Thanks, Roth! VirtualNES did the trick. All I had to do was download a different version of ActiveX. Now, on to that Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde challenge...

I don't mean to double-post, but I've got a different emulator question.
On my slow (98SE) computer, VirtuaNes runs fine. On my laptop with XP installed, the sound and picture are kind of choppy. Does some setting on the emu need adjusting, or something? I'm afraid to touch some of those controls for fear I'll screw something up.
I love the snapshot function, though. I'm going to have lots of fun with that.