SNES / N64 Emulators

Lebada3 · 05-30-2013, 07:45 PM #1

Any SNES or N64 Emulators out there?

What are the most popular/best.

Thanks,

**ExtremeDude2** · 05-31-2013, 02:34 AM #2

There are emulators for almost anything, the SNES would probably be SNES9x and the best n64 would be PJ64.

***Shonumi*** · 05-31-2013, 03:26 AM #3

(05-30-2013, 07:45 PM)Lebada3 Wrote: Any SNES or N64 Emulators out there?

Obviously, yes. Wikipedia should be able to fill you in.

(05-30-2013, 07:45 PM)Lebada3 Wrote: What are the most popular/best.

Best is not always equal to most popular. You need to define what "best" means to you anyway. Is it speed, portability, available options, enhancements, accuracy? It's pretty much a toss-up between SNES9x and higan in terms of overall popularity (in the Linux community at least). For embedded devices, however, SNES9x is preferred due to higan's high requirements. SNES9x is generally faster, but higan is more accurate. SNES9x also runs well on very old hardware (1GHz Celeron circa 2001). Note, SNES9x is very accurate at this point (though not completely accurate); if you're anyone but byuu himself, or you can spot timing errors in microseconds with your naked eye, you probably won't care about accuracy, so you can float either way. higan does have some options that allow it to be less demanding on hardware, at least I've heard. I myself stick with SNES9x, never having come across any issues with it, been using it for almost 10 years now.

For N64, your options really boil down to PJ64 or Mupen64Plus. PJ64 runs fine on all OSes (natively on Windows, and through WINE on Linux and OS X), and it boasts the best compatibility as well as the largest community. It's being actively developed(?) again and has been open-sourced. Mupen64Plus runs natively on Windows, Linux, and OS X. After some thorough testing I did a while ago, I found it's compatibility to be quite good (higher than I expected in some cases). There are 3rd party GUIs for the latest versions, but it can take some effort to setup correctly. For the games I play, Mupen64Plus runs them perfectly, so I stick with it. Most people will want to use PJ64 however, since it's easier to use and configure.

**NaturalViolence** · 05-31-2013, 06:32 AM #4

Best generally means least number of issues.

In other words bsnes and pj64.

As for most popular that would definitely be SNES9x or zsnes for snes and pj64 for n64.

**ExtremeDude2** · (This post was last modified: 05-31-2013, 06:35 AM by ExtremeDude2.)

(05-31-2013, 06:32 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote: In other words bsnes and pj64.

There is no bsnes

**NaturalViolence** · 05-31-2013, 06:38 AM #6

"Higan" then. He renamed it fairly recently.

***Shonumi*** · (This post was last modified: 05-31-2013, 01:37 PM by Shonumi.)

(05-31-2013, 06:32 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote: Best to me generally means least number of issues.

Fixed. Best can mean a lot of different things depending on what you want. If you feel it's pretty cut and dry that "best" means "xyz", then you merely have a strong idea of what you value the most, although it might not necessarily apply to others. Consider the case of SNES emulation; most emulators are mature enough that it's difficult to actually encounter issues of any sort. I've played through dozens of SNES games on SNES9x over numerous versions coming up on ten years, and I can safely say that each game was a flawless experience. You really have to try to find anything that's outright or partially broken nowadays (and good luck with that). The chances of getting major issues is so slim in SNES9x that it may be pointless for quite a few people to decide to use higan over it (which generally seems to be the case, since you said SNES9x is more popular).

Today, really, the only SNES emulators with real issues are those for your phones. Some don't emulate SuperFX chips, have speed issues, or can't boot certain games. A handful are really good, but not quite as good as desktop emulators in terms of compatibility (or features).

"Best" to me is an amalgamation of factors; no single category dominates my decision. I take into account compatibility, ease of use (my definition of easy to use is a bit more technical/advanced than average), number of options and features that I find relevant, program portability, as well as the look and feel of the emulator itself.

**NaturalViolence** · 06-02-2013, 04:54 AM #8

NaturalViolence Wrote:Best generally means least number of issues.

It's almost as if I put that word in there on purpose to avoid this sort of thing.

to me != generally/on average

Having been around a number of emulation forums for the last few years I've seen this question asked a lot by newbies. And what they almost always mean is "which one will give me the fewest issues?". Regardless of what the best means to you or me that's likely what he's looking for. I added the word generally in order to make that more clear (apparently to no avail).

He also wrote "most popular/best" implying that he things best = most popular. Which is why I then listed the most popular emulators just in case that is what he wanted.

***Shonumi*** · 06-02-2013, 06:37 AM #9

NaturalViolence Wrote:to me != generally/on average

Having been around a number of emulation forums for the last few years I've seen this question asked a lot by newbies. And what they almost always mean is "which one will give me the fewest issues?". Regardless of what the best means to you or me that's likely what he's looking for. I added the word generally in order to make that more clear (apparently to no avail).

The thing is, that's your perception of what people define as the best, based on what you've seen and where and whom you've heard things from. You're trying to generalize a subjective opinion that's going to vary given the audience you look at. The communities you've looked at aren't going to always share the same generalizations as the communities you haven't participated in.

I've been around emulation communities since around '04, and I saw that same question asked around a lot. Surprisingly, "fewest issues" was hardly what a lot of people were looking for when it came to being the "best". More often than not, it was speed, rather than compatibility. After that, it was features and enhancements. This was true to some extent when GBA emulation was taking off and much more so when DS emulation began. A lot of people could not have cared less if issues cropped up during gameplay, as long as it could be played at a decent speed. Until Desmume 0.9.9 (or if you couldn't try the SVN builds with the new JIT recompiler), a number of people still considered NO$GBA the best DS emulator based on speed alone.

SonofUgly · 06-05-2013, 12:30 PM **#10**

For SNES go with either Snes9x or the balanced bsnes core w/ RetroArch. Snes9x is pretty good all around, easy to use, good performance and very high compatiblity, but there may be a few glitches here or there. Balanced bsnes will play all (but 1 IIRC) games without glitches, but using higan can be a bit unuser-friendly so using RetroArch will bypass that - also has great shader support if you're into that kinda thing.

As for N64 it's kinda a mess, PJ64 is the most popular, but I've never liked it much myself, always ran into a bunch of annoying things. Been using Mupen64Plus recently and it's pretty nice, though it is command-line and has about the same compatibility as PJ64 and 1964. If you want the best experience and don't mind messing with multiple emus/plugins check this site for the game you want to play and follow its settings (it is using outdated builds though, but as not much has changed it's still pretty accurate):
http://bmgcl.atspace.cc/n64mgcl/N64ConfigList.htm
Also if you're interested in pure accuracy there is a cycle-accurate (like bsnes) N64 emulator in the works:
http://www.emutalk.net/threads/54131-Announcement-Cycle-accurate-N64-development-underway/
Its still got a ways to go before it's complete, and it'll require one helluva CPU to run though.