Atari 2600 Emulators for Windows 10

Stella Atari 2600 emulator

Stella is the best Atari 2600 emulator we have encountered so far to play Atari 2600 games on a Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Vista or XP computer.

Latest version 6.1.1 (4 April 2020)
Works on Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Vista, XP (32/64 bits)
Emulates the Atari 2600
Supports .BIN and .ROM cartridge image files
Comments: It is maintained regularly. It has a nice, vintage looking point and click interface. Since the Atari 2600 is a game computer, the program starts with a folder explorer from which you can launch your games. As simple as that.
Project website https://stella-emu.github.io

Play Atari 2600 games with the Stella emulator on Windows 10, Windows 8 and Windows 7

So, what do you need to do to play Atari 2600 games (like River Raid) on Windows with the Stella emulator?

Download the Stella Binary zip

Windows 32 bits: Stella-5.x.x-win32.zip
Windows 64 bits: Stella-5.x.x-x64.zip

Copy the contents of the zip file to an empty folder of choice
Create a folder for your Atari games in the Stella folder
Search for an Atari game file and copy it to the game folder you've created
Start Stella with Stella.exe (in either the 32 or 64-bit folder)
Click the Options button
Click the Config files button
Click the Rom path button and click to the folder you've created for your games
Click on the Ok button and exit the menu
Double click on the game file (riverraid.bin) to start the game

In-game options

When playing a game, you can enter the options menu by pressing the tab key. For in-game functions (which are essential when you want to start playing a game), you need to familiarize yourself with the function shortcut keys. Those are:

F1 - Select
F2 - Reset / Start game
F3 - Color TV
F4 - Black & White TV
F5 - Port 0 difficulty A
F6 - Port 0 difficulty B
F7 - Port 1 difficulty A
F8 - Port 1 difficulty B
F9 - Save state
F10 - Change state number (0 to 9)
F11 - Load state
F12 - Snapshot image