(noob) Retro Virtual machine or comparble what to use and setup

[Gridsmtr75]

HI, new to the wiki here from united states.  I have been trying out emulators for long time and i have some time now to sit down and start with some of the retro home pc market. I am somewhat familiar with Commodore and amiga however i wanted to take time to learn and use Amstrad cpc starting now.  I currenlty have acquired a Dell Intel laptop here are my specs: 
OS Name Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
Version 10.0.22621 Build 22621
System Manufacturer Dell Inc.
System Model Latitude 5520
System Type x64-based PC
Processor 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1145G7 @ 2.60GHz, 1498 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 16.0 GB

After doing some research and poking around with Amstard I tried on Retro arch first i was able to get the game to load which is in .dsk format but i am stumpped on how to get it work with keyboard of the laptop or should i use a control pad? which one is recommended for older Retro Home computers from Amstrad , AMiga, C64, Zx spectrum and MSX?

I came across this Gem of an app and having a hard time with understanding how to load the games and get it working - https://www.retrovirtualmachine.org/

are there any straigh forward Tutorials that can help me get this going. My main goal is to have Amstrad running on my new laptop along with other Game and Computer systems making my own Retro station. 

What AMstrad game pack do i DL? there are so many to choose from do i need TApe format or floppy .dsk format type games? 

PLease help. Thank you !!!

[Gryzor]

First of all, welcome here! Always nice to see people discovering the machines

So, about RVM:

-First you need to create a machine. Click on the three lines at the top left, Create Machine
-Amstrad CPC->Next->Amstrad CPC6128->Next->Amstrad CPC6128->Create. Save it wherever you want.

Now you should be able to see the machine in the main window. Click on it, the machine launches in an Off state. Move the cursor to the top to reveal the row of icons. Press the Power button.

Now go to the top again, and towards the right, click on the Disk button (second from left). The screen changes to show two drives:  the internal one (bottom right) and the external one (above the internal one, but you won't need this for now).

Now it's a bit hard to see, but the internal drive on your screen has an Eject button (bottom right). Click on it. A menu opens. Click "Insert". A standard file Open dialog opens. Choose your disk image and you're set.

If you don't know how to run games, I'll be happy to assist.

I'm also planning to do a post on a few modern games that should get you started, if you're looking for classics there are tons of "best of" threads here and elsewhere

[eto]

• Disk images you can get from CPC-power.com or cpcrulez.fr

Other "Collections" are usually not well maintained and not necessarily everything works as expected.

• A huge collection of reviews is here: https://www.cpcgamereviews.com/
• Search on youtube for "best amstrad games" and watch the videos for recommendations. 

[Gridsmtr75]

the first two sites came up with Not Found
The requested URL was not found on this server.  i am in the US..

[Gridsmtr75]

First of all, welcome here! Always nice to see people discovering the machines

So, about RVM:

-First you need to create a machine. Click on the three lines at the top left, Create Machine
-Amstrad CPC->Next->Amstrad CPC6128->Next->Amstrad CPC6128->Create. Save it wherever you want.

Now you should be able to see the machine in the main window. Click on it, the machine launches in an Off state. Move the cursor to the top to reveal the row of icons. Press the Power button.

Now go to the top again, and towards the right, click on the Disk button (second from left). The screen changes to show two drives:  the internal one (bottom right) and the external one (above the internal one, but you won't need this for now).

Now it's a bit hard to see, but the internal drive on your screen has an Eject button (bottom right). Click on it. A menu opens. Click "Insert". A standard file Open dialog opens. Choose your disk image and you're set.

If you don't know how to run games, I'll be happy to assist.

I'm also planning to do a post on a few modern games that should get you started, if you're looking for classics there are tons of "best of" threads here and elsewhere

Hi thank you for the info i undertstand this part of starting up a rom however it is compatiblity or getting to work with either Keyboard of laptop or desktop and or generic gamepad working with all required keys and such that has always been my issue with trying to play games from this era such C64, amiga , msx etc.  

[Jean-Marie]

the first two sites came up with Not Found
The requested URL was not found on this server.  i am in the US..

The links which were posted were wrong. Here are the correct ones :
CPC-Power
CPCrulez
CPCGamereviews (click on the title header to download)