g1smd - 5:17 pm on Nov 4, 2011 (gmt 0)

It ignores the request because your RewriteCond pattern matches index.php only without parameters attached in the URL request.

I would NOT strip out parameters. If you do anything, do this:

- Link to the URL www.example.com/emulators/Atari from the pages of your site and set up an internal rewrite to fetch content from the path /emulators/index.php?folder=Atari

- Set up a redirect that triggers only on external URL requests for www.example.com/emulators/index.php?folder=Atari and redirects to www.example.com/emulators/Atari.