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.