53 replies to this topic

[HuckleCat]

I'm starting this thread as a way to assist people in finding the "best" emulators for whatever system they're after. Feel free to help me add others, but try to keep it to the "better" ones.

A good site to start with is http://www.emucr.com/ . They have the most recent builds, almost daily, of PCSX2, PCSXr, Dolphin, and many others.


Playstation 2 - PCSX2. Speed is still an issue for them, but it gets regular updates. So far it's the best and most complete one

http://code.google.com/p/pcsx2/


Gamecube - Dolphin. Believe it or not, Gamecube emulation is almost perfect. Also regularly updated, this one is coming along.

http://code.google.com/p/dolphin-emu/


Playstation - PCSX Reloaded or PSx. PSx is older, but many games work perfectly with it, while PCSX Reloaded is actively worked on. (It's an outside continuation of PCSX) Some games work better in one than the other.

http://pcsxr.codeplex.com/

http://www.zophar.net/psx/psx.html


Dreamcast - NullDC or Makaron. Dreamcast emulation is almost perfect now. Both Makaron and NullDC are actively worked on, the only issue is that games that require WinCE won't run right. (Not many require this.) Demul is coming along, but so far NullDC is the best one.

http://forums.ngemu....ldc-discussion/

http://dknute.livejournal.com/

Saturn - This is tricky, as the Saturn is a pretty hard machine to emulate. There are some out there, but none really work well enough to enjoy playing anything yet.

Jaguar - Same deal. Some are out there, but nothing really playable.

3DO - Ditto.

Genesis - I use Kega Fusion. It's by Steve Snake, and emulates pretty much every Sega 8 and 16 bit system. (Even Sega CD and 32X games)

http://www.eidolons-...x.php?page=Kega


Super Nintendo - BSNES. Not Snes9x, or Zsnes. BSNES. This is a newer emu, and the author has gone completely for accuracy. It is now easily the best SNES emu out there. (It even runs FX games perfectly.)

http://byuu.org/


PC Engine/TurboGrafix/TurboDuo - I use Magic Engine. It's older, and the full version actually costs money, so I really won't recommend it. Here's a place to find other ones -

http://www.zophar.net/tg16.html


NES - Nestopia. It supports the most mappers and seems to be the most accurate that I've seen. There may be better ones out there...

http://sourceforge.n...jects/nestopia/


Sega Master System - Kega Fusion. See Genesis, above.


Nintendo GB/GBA/DS - Just get WinDS Pro. It's a collection of 4 or 5 emus for the Nintendo handhelds, and is updated pretty regularly. I use VBA for GB/GBA titles and NO$ for the DS stuff. The main site is not in english, but it's pretty easy to figure out.

http://windsprocentral.blogspot.com/


Apple 2 - AppleWin. The latest build can usually be found in the Emulators directory on Asimov.

ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/


C64 - I use WinVICE. It works really well. There may be a better one though, I'm not sure...

http://viceteam.org/


Amiga - WinUAE. This is almost perfect, and is easily the best Amiga emu out there.

http://www.winuae.net/


Atari 2600 - Stella. The author can actually be found here on this forum, and it is actively worked on.

http://stella.sourceforge.net/


Atari 5200 - If you want just a 5200 Emu, Kat5200. Others are good for 5200/800 emulation.

http://kat5200.jillybunch.com/

Others - http://www.zophar.net/a5200.html


Atari 7800 - Emu7800. Does the job, for the most part.

http://emu7800.sourceforge.net/


That's all I'm listing for now. These are pretty much the ones I use. I stuck to console and computer ones, and left out the arcade ones, like MAME, and the NAOMI board emus. Feel free to help out, anyone, and I hope this helps out a little to those that are not up-to-date or are flat out new to emulation.

Edited by HuckleCat, Fri Aug 6, 2010 10:28 AM.

[S1500]

I honestly can't recommend MESS for anything, sadly. It's more quantity over quality for that.

[NE146]

It's funny, despite being an eager devourer of even the earliest emulators, as I sort of lost a lot of interest in the PC-based ones a long while ago, in favor of console-based emus (xbox, wii, 360, etc.). I just get zero enjoyment seeing/playing a game while sitting at an office desk vs. slunched on a couch with a tv & a pad in my hand.

However obviously the PC is superior to the hacked consoles in many ways with the varieties available, and other things such as updates & speed (especially for the higher-end systems). And emulating an Apple 2E on a console is obviously off too. So you gotta have both.

[HuckleCat]

NE146, on Fri Aug 6, 2010 11:48 AM, said:

It's funny, despite being an eager devourer of even the earliest emulators, as I sort of lost a lot of interest in the PC-based ones a long while ago, in favor of console-based emus (xbox, wii, 360, etc.). I just get zero enjoyment seeing/playing a game while sitting at an office desk vs. slunched on a couch with a tv & a pad in my hand.

However obviously the PC is superior to the hacked consoles in many ways with the varieties available, and other things such as updates & speed (especially for the higher-end systems). And emulating an Apple 2E on a console is obviously off too. So you gotta have both.

It is better playing on a TV, I totally agree. I sort of "cheat", as I have my PC hooked up to my HDTV, and use a corded Xbox 360 pad with my PC. So while I'm playing on a PC, I'm doing so from my couch.

[Blackjack]

Don't forget the Colecovision - Mekaw works fine

and Odyssey 2 - O2em

[HuckleCat]

ColecoVision - Meka, or ColEm. ColEm is a straight-up Coleco emu, while Meka does the Colecovision, as well as other 8-bit Sega machines, such as the Game Gear and SMS. Both have been updated this year.

http://fms.komkon.org/ColEm/

http://www.smspower.org/meka/



Lynx - Handy. The main site says the latest version is .90 (from 04), but Zophars site has .95 (from 07).

http://handy.sourceforge.net/

http://www.zophar.net/lynx/handy.html


Odyssey 2 - O2EM.

http://o2em.sourceforge.net/


Thanks to BlackJack for pointing out O2EM and Meka. (I found that Meka now has a Win version, so no need for Mekaw.)

To any moderators - Guys, is there any way I could get permission to keep editing my original post, to keep this stuff at the top? Thanks in advance...

[mbd30]

If you have an older computer then you might want to use ZSNES or SNES9X instead of BSNES. But it is the most accurate by a mile.

For Neo Geo/Capcom arcade titles I recommend Final Burn Alpha or Nebula instead of MAME. You can use high quality graphics filters with them.

Epsxe is another worthwhile PS1 emulator. It hasn't been updated in a couple years though.

[godslabrat]

HuckleCat, on Fri Aug 6, 2010 10:28 AM, said:

I'm starting this thread as a way to assist people in finding the "best" emulators for whatever system they're after. Feel free to help me add others, but try to keep it to the "better" ones.

Thank you! Great idea for a thread.

HuckleCat, on Fri Aug 6, 2010 10:28 AM, said:

NES - Nestopia. It supports the most mappers and seems to be the most accurate that I've seen. There may be better ones out there...

http://sourceforge.n...jects/nestopia/

Is there anything decent for OSX?

[remowilliams]

HuckleCat, on Fri Aug 6, 2010 10:28 AM, said:

Saturn - This is tricky, as the Saturn is a pretty hard machine to emulate. There are some out there, but none really work well enough to enjoy playing anything yet.

SSF seems to work nearly perfectly.

HuckleCat, on Fri Aug 6, 2010 10:28 AM, said:

3DO - Ditto.

FreeDO will play a whole bunch of stuff without issue.

[HuckleCat]

Saturn (update) - As Remowilliams has pointed out, SSF does work really well. A new update has come out recently, and after testing it with Shining Force 3, I can feel good about recommending it. The main site is in Japanese, but I have also given a link at EmuCR to grab the latest version.

http://www7a.biglobe.../ssf/index.html

http://www.emucr.com...1-alpha-r5.html



As for FreeDO, while it works ok, it still has issues. (I tried it with Quarantine, StarBlade, and Guardian War.) If you really want to try it, Google it, and go for the 1.8 release.



For OSX emus, try out here:

http://www.bannister...tware/index.htm

This guy ports alot of popular stuff to OSX, including Nestopia, and even the newest version of BSNES.


Thanks to Remowilliams for pointing out SSF!

Edited by HuckleCat, Wed Aug 11, 2010 8:02 PM.

[scotty]

How about Atari ST? I use STEEM, and have no issues.

[HuckleCat]

Atari ST - Yes, as Scotty pointed out, Steem is a good one, as well as SainT, which is a newer one.

http://steem.atari.st/

http://leonard.oxg.f...ainT/saint.html



DOS - DOSBox, or Aeon. Both are great for playing those cool old PC games from before Windows took over everything.

http://www.dosbox.com/

http://www.aeonemulator.net/


Thanks to scotty for reminding me about the ST and Steem!

[NE146]

HuckleCat, on Fri Aug 6, 2010 12:36 PM, said:

It is better playing on a TV, I totally agree. I sort of "cheat", as I have my PC hooked up to my HDTV, and use a corded Xbox 360 pad with my PC. So while I'm playing on a PC, I'm doing so from my couch.

Yeah that's a nice way to go. With my house setup I prefer an xbox 1 purely for it's portability from room to room, plus.. it's cheap. But definitely if I could make a pure PC emulation box to sit near a specified entertainment area that would be the way to do it.

[roadrunner]

How do i use the Saturn emulator SSF? It looks like i need a actual Saturn game disc to use it.
I use the Saturn emulator Yabause, it doesn't play too many games. Most will crash or not load up.
Maybe my PC isn't fast enough to correctly emulate the Saturn.

How fast of a computer does one need to correctly emulate the Saturn, Dreamcast, N64, and Playstation?

[HuckleCat]

roadrunner, on Mon Aug 16, 2010 5:42 PM, said:

How do i use the Saturn emulator SSF? It looks like i need a actual Saturn game disc to use it.
I use the Saturn emulator Yabause, it doesn't play too many games. Most will crash or not load up.
Maybe my PC isn't fast enough to correctly emulate the Saturn.

How fast of a computer does one need to correctly emulate the Saturn, Dreamcast, N64, and Playstation?

I'm running an Athlon dual-core at 2.6 GHz, with an Nvidia 8500gt and 2 gigs of ram. (Win7) SSF, NullDC and the PS emus work great for me. As for the N64, I really don't know. I"ll have to look into that, as I really haven't messed with a 64 emulator in a long time.

As for SSF, yeah, it's trying to find a real disk. The best way around this is to get daemon tools. This will setup a "virtual" drive that you can load images onto, and the emu will then see the images as actual disks.

[roadrunner]

HuckleCat, on Tue Aug 17, 2010 6:46 AM, said:

roadrunner, on Mon Aug 16, 2010 5:42 PM, said:

How do i use the Saturn emulator SSF? It looks like i need a actual Saturn game disc to use it.
I use the Saturn emulator Yabause, it doesn't play too many games. Most will crash or not load up.
Maybe my PC isn't fast enough to correctly emulate the Saturn.

How fast of a computer does one need to correctly emulate the Saturn, Dreamcast, N64, and Playstation?

I'm running an Athlon dual-core at 2.6 GHz, with an Nvidia 8500gt and 2 gigs of ram. (Win7) SSF, NullDC and the PS emus work great for me. As for the N64, I really don't know. I"ll have to look into that, as I really haven't messed with a 64 emulator in a long time.

As for SSF, yeah, it's trying to find a real disk. The best way around this is to get daemon tools. This will setup a "virtual" drive that you can load images onto, and the emu will then see the images as actual disks.

Thanks for the info.
I'm only running at 1.73Ghz so i guess that leaves me out of emulating the Saturn, Dreamcast, and PS1.
I can't figure out how to burn the ISO or Cue files to a blank CD or DVD.
I tryed to emulate the TG16 CD games but couldn't figure it out.

I have a question about the Nintendo DS emulator NO$GBA
I can't get any games to load up.
I get the message
Could not read the data.
Turn power off and re-insert DS card.
Do i need the bios to run this emulator?

I had better luck with the DS emulators Desmume and Ideas.
I got games to load up and play but the game speed is really slow, it's almost unplayable.

[HuckleCat]

roadrunner, on Tue Aug 17, 2010 2:05 PM, said:

Thanks for the info.
I'm only running at 1.73Ghz so i guess that leaves me out of emulating the Saturn, Dreamcast, and PS1.
I can't figure out how to burn the ISO or Cue files to a blank CD or DVD.
I tryed to emulate the TG16 CD games but couldn't figure it out.

I have a question about the Nintendo DS emulator NO$GBA
I can't get any games to load up.
I get the message
Could not read the data.
Turn power off and re-insert DS card.
Do i need the bios to run this emulator?

I had better luck with the DS emulators Desmume and Ideas.
I got games to load up and play but the game speed is really slow, it's almost unplayable.

For NO$GBA, I just did the same file/load of .nds games that I did with IdeaS and Desemmue. You should not need the bios for those. I know that Desemmue has updates pretty regularly, so that may be the best one to keep trying. As for the speed, yeah, some DS games slowdown for me too. They also seem to have broken/poppy sound.

For anything that wants a CD and won't directly load an image, Daemon Tools is a must.

The PS1 emus should run ok for you, btw. Also, give NullDC a try, it may work better than expected, as it uses your video card heavily.

[roadrunner]

HuckleCat, on Tue Aug 17, 2010 3:50 PM, said:

roadrunner, on Tue Aug 17, 2010 2:05 PM, said:

Thanks for the info.
I'm only running at 1.73Ghz so i guess that leaves me out of emulating the Saturn, Dreamcast, and PS1.
I can't figure out how to burn the ISO or Cue files to a blank CD or DVD.
I tryed to emulate the TG16 CD games but couldn't figure it out.

I have a question about the Nintendo DS emulator NO$GBA
I can't get any games to load up.
I get the message
Could not read the data.
Turn power off and re-insert DS card.
Do i need the bios to run this emulator?

I had better luck with the DS emulators Desmume and Ideas.
I got games to load up and play but the game speed is really slow, it's almost unplayable.

For NO$GBA, I just did the same file/load of .nds games that I did with IdeaS and Desemmue. You should not need the bios for those. I know that Desemmue has updates pretty regularly, so that may be the best one to keep trying. As for the speed, yeah, some DS games slowdown for me too. They also seem to have broken/poppy sound.

For anything that wants a CD and won't directly load an image, Daemon Tools is a must.

The PS1 emus should run ok for you, btw. Also, give NullDC a try, it may work better than expected, as it uses your video card heavily.

Thanks for all the info.
I get bad sound too on Desmume, i get no sound at all on Ideas for some reason.

[Ze_ro]

Anyone got any recommendations for these? (by which I mean, stuff you've actually tried and are happy with... not just random Google searches)

• Sharp X1
  
• Sharp X68000
  
• NEC PC-8801
  
• NEC PC-9801
  
• Fujitsu FM-Towns

--Zero

[HuckleCat]

Ze_ro, on Thu Aug 19, 2010 1:44 AM, said:

Anyone got any recommendations for these? (by which I mean, stuff you've actually tried and are happy with... not just random Google searches)

• Sharp X1
  
• Sharp X68000
  
• NEC PC-8801
  
• NEC PC-9801
  
• Fujitsu FM-Towns

--Zero

Funny and ironic that you asked this, as 2 days ago I discovered the X68000 while looking up stuff about Wings of Fury (Broderbund). This series of machines is basically what the Amiga/ST would have become if they had progressed more. Too bad it was only released in Japan. Funny though, the Wings of Fury for the X68000 has you against the US as Japan, as opposed to the other way around.

Anyway, XM6 is an awesome emu for the X68000. Recently released was an unofficial build that adds English to it, to make it more usable.


X68000

http://www.emucr.com...-v20100814.html

The main site, (Japanese) is

http://www.geocities.jp/kugimoto0715/


As for the others, I really don't know. If you're looking at all for the NEC PC-FX, try Magic Engine FX, by the guys who make Magic Engine. I know that works well. For the others check out http://www.zophar.net/. He's got a few listed for each of the systems you're looking into.

Edited by HuckleCat, Thu Aug 19, 2010 9:37 AM.

[Hatta]

You should really give Mednafen a nod. Best multi-console emulator around. NES/GB[C|A]/TG-16/Lynx/NGPC/PC-FX all work great. Virtual boy, SNES, and Genesis are on the way. Why bother installing and configuring half a dozen emulators when one will do everything you need?

Edited by Hatta, Thu Aug 19, 2010 1:00 PM.

[HuckleCat]

Hatta, on Thu Aug 19, 2010 1:00 PM, said:

You should really give Mednafen a nod. Best multi-console emulator around. NES/GB[C|A]/TG-16/Lynx/NGPC/PC-FX all work great. Virtual boy, SNES, and Genesis are on the way. Why bother installing and configuring half a dozen emulators when one will do everything you need?

My problem with many of the multi-system emus is that the author is spreading themselves out, instead of perfecting one thing at a time. I'll pick accuracy over having "all my eggs in one basket" any day. That being said, I went and grabbed the latest build of Mednafen just now, and tried it out. (I'm actually pretty curious about its PCE/PC-FX abilities.)

A big glaring issue popped up right away - no gui. If this was 1995, and Win95 was a new thing, I'd forgive this. Due to this, many people are not going to have anything to do with it. They want to be able to start something up, go to file/load and off they go. Most people don't want to mess around at a command line anymore, and they don't want to deal with the issue of sorting through front-ends to find a good one.

Nowadays there are great emus for each system that not only have simple guis, but also have insane accuracy. Why wait for someone to fiddle with SNES code, only to deal with the end result from a command line, when BSNES is practically perfect?

It seems like a good emulator, and I'll be trying it out more tonight to see how it compares with others, but right now I wouldn't recommend it to anyone just yet.

[HuckleCat]

Ok, after messing with Mednafen some more, I can honestly say it's not bad. One thing I do like about it is the rewind option. It's pretty cool. The NES part does have better sound than Nestopia, however, the Game Boy emulation is not quite as accurate as VBA. I still need to try out and compare the PCE/PC-FX stuff. Also, and I hate to bring it up again, not having a gui can be a big deal - especially when others just as good or even better have this. It's really up to the author, of course.

Some people, like the author of Makaron, makes his emu for himself, as a hobby, and really cares not what others ultimately say. Then you have guys like the author of WinUAE, or StephenA, who makes Stella, who seem to value greatly the input of others. If the author of Mednafen is of the latter, I guess my input would be to integrate a gui before adding any more consoles. Too many simple folks who just want to relive Contra or River City Ransom will double-click the exe file and think it's broken because "nothing happened".

Anyone who does not mind dealing with a command-line should check it out.

However...

Nintendo NES (Update) - After seeing that Mednafen had better sound than Nestopia, I got curious about other newer NES emus. Nintendulator is awesome. The author is going for accuracy right down to the hardware flaws of the NES, and the end result is the best NES emu I've messed with so far. In the off-chance that it runs slow for you, check out FCEUX. It's also very accurate. I recommend both of them over my previous suggestion Nestopia.

http://www.qmtpro.co.../nintendulator/

http://www.emucr.com...-svn-r2041.html

[Hatta]

Generally what the Mednafen folks are doing is taking existing open source emulators and reworking them into their framework. The NES emulation is FCEU, the GBA emulation is Visual Boy Advance, the upcoming SNES emulation is bsnes. So the author gets the advantage of the hard emulation work being done by others.

IMO, the lack of a GUI is a bonus. Why deal with half a dozen different GUIs from different emulators when you have one easy to use command line app? Typing "mednafen smb3.nes" is quicker and easier than any GUI could ever be. If you absolutely need a GUI, there are plenty of frontends to choose from. If you go that route, at least you get a consistent interface, which is still better than managing a ton of different emulators. It's *definately* a plus if you want to include it in a cabinet.

[HuckleCat]

Hatta, on Sat Aug 21, 2010 8:19 PM, said:

IMO, the lack of a GUI is a bonus. Why deal with half a dozen different GUIs from different emulators when you have one easy to use command line app? Typing "mednafen smb3.nes" is quicker and easier than any GUI could ever be. If you absolutely need a GUI, there are plenty of frontends to choose from. If you go that route, at least you get a consistent interface, which is still better than managing a ton of different emulators. It's *definately* a plus if you want to include it in a cabinet.

Actually, you can just drag and drop a rom onto the Mednafen exe and it'll work. As for typing it out as opposed to just clicking the mouse button 5 times, well, whatever works for you. I did notice one thing while looking at your other topic, though.

You're using Linux.

I really should have been more clear when making this thread that it focused more on Windows. (What about the Mac user? How is the command line going for him?) I can understand though why you feel the command line is easiest to work with. At least half of everything on a Linux box is from a command line. Still, for the average windows user, file/open is just easier to deal with, no matter what picture you have to double-click first to get there.