are there any sites that i can get and play free nintendo games on my pc? what is an emulator?

Definition:

An emulator, in the most general sense, duplicates the functions of one system with a different system, so that the second system appears to behave like the first system.

Unlike a simulation, it does not attempt to precisely model the state of the device being emulated; it only attempts to reproduce its behavior.

The idea behind emulators is that by using an emulation software you can play video games on a system other than the one it was developed for originally.
Examples: SNES Roms can be emulated to play on a PC. Xbox games can be emulated to play on an Xbox 360, making them backwards compatible.

I downloaded and extracted all these different nes emulators but I cannot play any of the games on my pc. How do I make it work?

that one I"m not sure of I had a friend install a chip in my X-box which now has a different hard drive in it and an emulator installed
it even has Atari 2600 games on it

you could always check out this sight


http://www.megagames.com/news/html/emulators/emulators.shtml

this may be of some use to you



http://www.zolved.com/synapse/view_content/28038/How_to_install_some_popular_gamesemulators_on_Ubuntu

I once had a chip in the xbox and i used to have access to over a thousand classic nes games and i miss it so bad! my xbox is broke and the cd that had all the games is damaged. I am mad. I really like kid icarus!

i still have the original NES and that game along with several others lol
I still have the codes memorized from that game as well as Mike Tysons Puchout , Contra and so on lol

DOn't forget about RC Pro Am lol

cool i love em all the games makes me feel young again. i am still having trouble downloading. i got that 500 internal server error message on the 1st site you mentioned. the error screen popped up after i picked an emulator and clicked download.

even the music on some old games is pretty cool like in gunsmoke, ect..

i give up

The easiest emulators you can find are NES, SNES, and GBA. PS1 and N64 emulators do exist, but since there are a lot of games that need extra controls, it can be difficult from a keyboard. Currently, I have SNES and GBA emulators on my PC and my iPod touch (awesome!).

The emulator programs themselves don't really take much to work. You just download and it's there, no need for setup. I may be wrong on the SNES part since I've had it for so long.

For an NES emulator, I've downloaded VirtuaNES here:
http://www.emulator-zone.com/doc.php/nes/virtuanes.html

If you're still looking for ROMs (the games themselves), then I'd suggest sites this this:
http://www.romnation.net/srv/roms/nes.html

You can pretty much google NES roms and a lot of sites will have them. The only problem is that some of the really popular ones might be tougher to find due to Nintendo asking for them to be removed.

Once you have a game, it would be best to make and put it in a ROM folder so you can find it later on. On most emulators I've used, to open a game, you just press File on the menu bar and click on the game you'd want to play. If you're unsure about the controls, Options on the menu bar can lead you to your control configuration. You can change it there also. It's a little weird playing with the directional pad on the right side instead of the left. ^^

I'm actually thinking of buying a USB converter for my SNES and NES controllers since I still have them in perfect condition. But that's just optional stuff.

I hope this helps at all.

http://nr.emuparadise.org/
I have found this to be a good site to get emus.
As far as roms go though, the best place to get them is in the torrent world. I have a complete NES rom set that I downloaded several years ago and it is just over a gig in size. Another fun emulator to try is MAME. Also it is much more fun to not try to use your keyboard, any pc game pad can be used in most emulators or for authenticity and nostalgia try this
http://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-NES-RetroPort-controller-adapter-DS/dp/B000PDOTXG

Maybe I'm just a geek, but this one of the coolest pc mods ever. http://loot-ninja.com/2008/08/19/retro-nes-to-pc-mod/

http://nestopia.sourceforge.net/

http://www.romnation.net/

www.everyvideogame.com

Roms are great and its totally worth downloading an emulator, but if you just want to play online a bunch of the classics are available here.