Figured a thread like this would make for an easier comparison of the features of each rather than downloading the hundreds available ^_^
Genesis:
I've tried Kega Fusion and Gens plus. Gens+ doesn't play the menu music right on Sensible Soccer. I'm guessing that means it has problems with other games that use similar sound...Kega also has an option allowing you to record sound in WAV or GYM files. Gens+ has more video options though (I'm guessing with Kega you have to download the plugins, lame) and you can record movies with gens too (I'm assuming they're the equivalent of mame's INP files). Gens+ has online play too.
There's also the MESS emu which I never managed to get running, but then I haven't tried it in years either. I'd like to hear about this one...
NES:
FCEU XD version. I really haven't done much research at all with NES, but this one can do castlevania 3 [apparently the measuring stick for NES emus] and play online, so I'm fine with it.
SNES:
I use ZSNES, I haven't tried SNES9x in a long time though. The savestates in ZSNES are stupid, you can only do 9 per game (you wouldn't need more really, but it still sucks. They should be like Gens where you can name them and have as many as you need).
MAME:
Optimised Builds
Discussion of various emulators
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OmegaFlareX
- Posts: 891
- Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:15 pm
- Location: Virginia, USA
NES:
FCEUltra - I use a hacked version that has movie re-recording (to make tool-assisted stuff like Morimoto's infamous SMB3 vid), frame advance and some other cool features. The best things about this one are the color palette and sound. Both are superb.
VirtuaNES - Default color palette is garbage, but you can dump NNNesterJ's palette and load it into here for good results. Great emulator otherwise.
PCE:
MagicEngine - The one and only. I registered it a few years back. My PC sucks, so I can't use 1.0, unfortunately. I stick with 0.99b5. One weird thing about this emu - it has problems with certain roms. For instance, Wonderboy in Monsterland (J) [T-eng].pce will run fine the first time after I download it, but any subsequent runs will result in the graphics being all fucked up. Certain other roms won't even boot the 2nd time (1943 comes to mind). Awesome emu, but the last time I used it was several months ago to try out my Sapphire iso. My regionless, RGB-ified Duo kicks its ass.
Genny:
GensPlus - Genesis/MD, SMS, GG, Sega CD, 32X, it plays 'em all. I've ran into some compatibilty issues with obscure SMS/GG roms, but other than that, it's great. I also use a hacked version of Gens original when I want to make/watch TASes.
Kega Lazurus - I used to play SMS games on this, but its fullscreen is a little bit fuzzy. I might as well delete it, Gens+ is much, much better.
SNES:
ZSNES - All the way. I have to play at the lowest resolution (256x224 or something) and downgrade some sound options to ensure a near-steady 60fps (stupid old PC).
Snes9x - I would never have used this at all if the TASing community didn't use this for their speedruns. It's actually pretty decent, and runs surprisingly smooth on my crappy machine. The sound is WAY off, though. This is where ZSNES owns it.
Arcade:
Kawaks - great, fast, emulator, but it's limited to CPS/NG games ONLY and it has a technical problem with fullscreen, which is kind of hard to describe. Like, I can see the outside border of the window, and it flashes on and off at a seizure-enducing pace. Alt+returning a few times usually fixes it, but not always.
Final Burn Alpha - awesome! Runs everything Kawaks does, plus a bunch of great shmups (Garegga, Tatsujin Oh, 90's cave stuff, etc.). No problems with full screen, and almost all the games run at 100% speed for me. DDP, for whatever reason, is slower than a retard nailed to the floor. Strangely, Feveron never slows down, and even ESPra.de is about twice as fast as DDP. That's the only pock mark on this otherwise gift from the emu gods. Mine is a hacked version with movie re-recording, speed controls, and frame advance, whee!
FCEUltra - I use a hacked version that has movie re-recording (to make tool-assisted stuff like Morimoto's infamous SMB3 vid), frame advance and some other cool features. The best things about this one are the color palette and sound. Both are superb.
VirtuaNES - Default color palette is garbage, but you can dump NNNesterJ's palette and load it into here for good results. Great emulator otherwise.
PCE:
MagicEngine - The one and only. I registered it a few years back. My PC sucks, so I can't use 1.0, unfortunately. I stick with 0.99b5. One weird thing about this emu - it has problems with certain roms. For instance, Wonderboy in Monsterland (J) [T-eng].pce will run fine the first time after I download it, but any subsequent runs will result in the graphics being all fucked up. Certain other roms won't even boot the 2nd time (1943 comes to mind). Awesome emu, but the last time I used it was several months ago to try out my Sapphire iso. My regionless, RGB-ified Duo kicks its ass.
Genny:
GensPlus - Genesis/MD, SMS, GG, Sega CD, 32X, it plays 'em all. I've ran into some compatibilty issues with obscure SMS/GG roms, but other than that, it's great. I also use a hacked version of Gens original when I want to make/watch TASes.
Kega Lazurus - I used to play SMS games on this, but its fullscreen is a little bit fuzzy. I might as well delete it, Gens+ is much, much better.
SNES:
ZSNES - All the way. I have to play at the lowest resolution (256x224 or something) and downgrade some sound options to ensure a near-steady 60fps (stupid old PC).
Snes9x - I would never have used this at all if the TASing community didn't use this for their speedruns. It's actually pretty decent, and runs surprisingly smooth on my crappy machine. The sound is WAY off, though. This is where ZSNES owns it.
Arcade:
Kawaks - great, fast, emulator, but it's limited to CPS/NG games ONLY and it has a technical problem with fullscreen, which is kind of hard to describe. Like, I can see the outside border of the window, and it flashes on and off at a seizure-enducing pace. Alt+returning a few times usually fixes it, but not always.
Final Burn Alpha - awesome! Runs everything Kawaks does, plus a bunch of great shmups (Garegga, Tatsujin Oh, 90's cave stuff, etc.). No problems with full screen, and almost all the games run at 100% speed for me. DDP, for whatever reason, is slower than a retard nailed to the floor. Strangely, Feveron never slows down, and even ESPra.de is about twice as fast as DDP. That's the only pock mark on this otherwise gift from the emu gods. Mine is a hacked version with movie re-recording, speed controls, and frame advance, whee!
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shadowstar
- Posts: 62
- Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:36 am
Is that so? I used the same CV3 ROM for both Nesticle ages ago and FCE Ultra recently and while everything is messed up in Nesticle, FCE displays it just fine.shadowstar wrote:Anyway, note that playing Castlevania 3 properly isn't due to the emulator - if the ROM image is fixed prior to use, there shouldn't be a problem.
Not on PC but just got me a new Zodiac for a bargain £82.
It's happily running the following if anyone fancies some handheld emu goodness:
LJZ - NES, SNES, GB, Genesis, NeoGeo Pocket, Wonderswan
CaSTaway - Atari ST
PMAME - MAME
ScummVM - Monkey Island, Broken Sword etc.
FrodoZ - C64
It's happily running the following if anyone fancies some handheld emu goodness:
LJZ - NES, SNES, GB, Genesis, NeoGeo Pocket, Wonderswan
CaSTaway - Atari ST
PMAME - MAME
ScummVM - Monkey Island, Broken Sword etc.
FrodoZ - C64
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shadowstar
- Posts: 62
- Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:36 am
Yo DO realize that Nesticle is worthless, right?Ganelon wrote:Is that so? I used the same CV3 ROM for both Nesticle ages ago and FCE Ultra recently and while everything is messed up in Nesticle, FCE displays it just fine.shadowstar wrote:Anyway, note that playing Castlevania 3 properly isn't due to the emulator - if the ROM image is fixed prior to use, there shouldn't be a problem.
Also, a lot of emulators are fixed to run the broken CV3 ROM images floating around. It's a documented problem.
Bluemsx is a great emulator for the MSX. It runs Undeadline, Zanac EX, Salamander, and a great number of other games.
Kigb is a great GBC emulator. It runs some games that Visual Boy and Visual Boy Advance don't. It even runs the US GB b/w Rampart (don't ask me why the Japanese version of the b/w GB Rampart works on VBA and the US version doesn't).
For Master System/Game Gear, Meka rocks. Very good compatibility and a preset Joystick configuaration that can be reconfigured.
Kigb is a great GBC emulator. It runs some games that Visual Boy and Visual Boy Advance don't. It even runs the US GB b/w Rampart (don't ask me why the Japanese version of the b/w GB Rampart works on VBA and the US version doesn't).
For Master System/Game Gear, Meka rocks. Very good compatibility and a preset Joystick configuaration that can be reconfigured.
A lot of emulators finally emulated that effect....though not all. I used to run CV3 on my old 486 under Nesticle, and have had the same rom image since then. Now I run it under FCE Ultra with no graphics or scrolling problems.shadowstar wrote:Yo DO realize that Nesticle is worthless, right?Ganelon wrote:Is that so? I used the same CV3 ROM for both Nesticle ages ago and FCE Ultra recently and while everything is messed up in Nesticle, FCE displays it just fine.shadowstar wrote:Anyway, note that playing Castlevania 3 properly isn't due to the emulator - if the ROM image is fixed prior to use, there shouldn't be a problem.
Also, a lot of emulators are fixed to run the broken CV3 ROM images floating around. It's a documented problem.
Since everyone's preferences are different, I'll just list the emulators I use and why.
Arcade - M.A.M.E. We all know why.
Atari (old model) - Stella. Simply because it's the only reliable working one I could find ages ago.
CPS1 - CPS2 - Nebula. Upgraded from Final Burn about 2 years ago. Good interface, good compatability.
Game Boy/GBC - Visual Boy. Don't know if Visual Boy Advance has fixed the reguar GB speed problems, so I stick with the dedicated code. A good alternative if you like tweaking is No Cash Gameboy.
GBA - Visual Boy Advance. Good compatability, good stability.
Genesis/Master System/Game Gear/Sega CD - Gens or Kega. I forget why I have Kega, since Gens takes care of everything. Maybe that was when I was ripping PS4 tracks.....
MSX - MSX2 Plus. Only half-decent emulator I could find. Hate the interface.
N64 - Nemu. Truly kickass emulator, if your machine has the guts. Tried Corn and a host of other emulators over the years, found this one to be the overall best.
NES - FCE Ultra. Probably the best there is. Great compatability, accurate emulation. Also plays Famicom disk roms. Still have a copy of NESticle on this comp for archival/nostalgic reasons.
PC-Engine/TG-16 - Magic Engine. 'Nuff said.
Playstation - EPSXE/VGS. For beauty, EPSXE delivers, but VGS is also worthy if you don't much care for d3d and whatnot. Good luck finding a full copy of VGS nowadays though
Saturn - Snails Saturn. Hey....it plays Radiant Silvergun (with jacked music), so I dunno what else to say. Never tried any other game with it sooo....... Note: It's been a while, but I believe this is merely a hacked and renamed version of GiriGiri. Supposedly it was a completely new emulator, but turned out to be a big lamefest.
Sega System 32 - Modeler. Plays the Spider-Man arcade game, so it's gold in my book. Might have some control issues.
SNES - SNES9x. Personal preference. ZSNES had slightly better compatability the last time I checked, but I absolutely hate the interface, so SNES9x gets my nod.
Pinball - VPinmame in conjunction with Visual Pinball. It works, it's good, but I don't have the time to make tables anymore, so I leave that up to everyone else.
Misc. New Arcade - Zinc. I still use it because I havn't taken the time to find an emulator that better runs SFEX2+.
Arcade - M.A.M.E. We all know why.
Atari (old model) - Stella. Simply because it's the only reliable working one I could find ages ago.
CPS1 - CPS2 - Nebula. Upgraded from Final Burn about 2 years ago. Good interface, good compatability.
Game Boy/GBC - Visual Boy. Don't know if Visual Boy Advance has fixed the reguar GB speed problems, so I stick with the dedicated code. A good alternative if you like tweaking is No Cash Gameboy.
GBA - Visual Boy Advance. Good compatability, good stability.
Genesis/Master System/Game Gear/Sega CD - Gens or Kega. I forget why I have Kega, since Gens takes care of everything. Maybe that was when I was ripping PS4 tracks.....
MSX - MSX2 Plus. Only half-decent emulator I could find. Hate the interface.
N64 - Nemu. Truly kickass emulator, if your machine has the guts. Tried Corn and a host of other emulators over the years, found this one to be the overall best.
NES - FCE Ultra. Probably the best there is. Great compatability, accurate emulation. Also plays Famicom disk roms. Still have a copy of NESticle on this comp for archival/nostalgic reasons.
PC-Engine/TG-16 - Magic Engine. 'Nuff said.
Playstation - EPSXE/VGS. For beauty, EPSXE delivers, but VGS is also worthy if you don't much care for d3d and whatnot. Good luck finding a full copy of VGS nowadays though
Saturn - Snails Saturn. Hey....it plays Radiant Silvergun (with jacked music), so I dunno what else to say. Never tried any other game with it sooo....... Note: It's been a while, but I believe this is merely a hacked and renamed version of GiriGiri. Supposedly it was a completely new emulator, but turned out to be a big lamefest.
Sega System 32 - Modeler. Plays the Spider-Man arcade game, so it's gold in my book. Might have some control issues.
SNES - SNES9x. Personal preference. ZSNES had slightly better compatability the last time I checked, but I absolutely hate the interface, so SNES9x gets my nod.
Pinball - VPinmame in conjunction with Visual Pinball. It works, it's good, but I don't have the time to make tables anymore, so I leave that up to everyone else.
Misc. New Arcade - Zinc. I still use it because I havn't taken the time to find an emulator that better runs SFEX2+.
To those who say Nesticle is obsolete: do the newer emulators have frame-by-frame replay? Recording yourself playing and then replaying it one frame at a time was great for getting that perfect screenshot.
I'm obviously out of the loop, the only emulator I've used in the past 5 years is MAME (and Raine for a brief period).
I'm obviously out of the loop, the only emulator I've used in the past 5 years is MAME (and Raine for a brief period).
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OmegaFlareX
- Posts: 891
- Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:15 pm
- Location: Virginia, USA
Yes, they do.Davey wrote:To those who say Nesticle is obsolete: do the newer emulators have frame-by-frame replay?