The Emulation Thread
 

Discuss anything and everything about Emulators and ROMs here. For starters I'll talk about what emulators I use:
Kega Fusion: All things Sega related. The best Mega Drive/32x/Mega CD emu out there. The pre-Mega Drive emulation isn't bad either.
ZSNES: Fast, runs most SNES games, enough said there...
Nestopia: Fully supports the Famicom Disk System, which can play the true (and Japan only) Super Mario Bros. 2.
Also I have one gripe: for all those who prgram emulators, PLEASE make at least some of your code in i386 assembler. Pure C++ is just too damn slow for all but the fastest PCs. The fact that most NES Emus run slower than Zsnes really pisses me off.

H2Kaillera: Arcade Games like MAME featuring Online play! Mostly used for King of Fighters and Marvel Vs. Capcom
Neorage X: Lots of NeoGeo fighting goodness with now obscure titles
ZSNES: I also agree with this for my SNES needs. Very reliable.

NES
FCEU is the one most supported by the emulation community. You name it, it can do it. And with help of Bisqwits' site, it can do rerecording too.

SNES
ZSNES and SNES9X are both well supported. SNES9X is leading a bit with rerecord support, which ZSNES doesn't have yet.

Genesis
GENS - See FCEU section.

GB/GBC/GBA
Visual Boy Advance - Does a great job and there's a hacked version that supports rerecording.

PSX
ePSXe - The premier emulator

MAMEoX has to be the best emulator for playing arcade games on your xbox.

There's basically no slowdown, and if there is there's a warning before the game starts if the emulation isn't proper. There's options to change the framerate throttle, the region, the speed of the games, everything. Hell, it has stuff I don't even understand. It's free, so I would definitly try it if you're into alot of arcade games.

Zsnes - The best snes emulator and its compatible with Zbattle to play a friend online but it currently only supports 2 players. Snesx9 supports 4.

ePSXe - Tons of plugins to make it run faster for your computer and it does a much better job at smoothing out the games than what the ps2 does. It also supports Kaillera but its not perfected.

Chankast - I just got this one and I was hesitent on trying it cause I thought no current dreamcast emulator works but if u get ur options right u can get games to run smooth. You may need a fast computer but I've already played Marvel vs Capcom 2 with good results ^_^. No online for this one.

Gens - Havn't tried it much but I was able to play games smoothly although I couldn't get the sound to run right but I was able to play on Netplay with no problem and it supports sega cd.

MAME - My favorite emulator of choice. Tons of roms, no problems during gameplay and just about all the games runs great when playing online. I've played mvc, kof 98-03, samurai showdown, metal slug , and lots of street fighter games on this. It's just so awsome ^_^ I just wish 3d games ran better and newer games were supported, I'd like to play MvC2 online and CvS2. In any case, this is my Arcade emulator of choice.
Did I also mention that this supports 4 players with certain games as long as u have a decent connection :)

SNES9x and ZSNES- I have both but I usually use SNES9x for playing the games. Mostly for it's 4 player online support

Gens- I can play any Genesis game on this with no slowdown whatsoever. Another Kaillera favorite.

ePSXe- I love the versatility of this emulator. The ability to basically customize every aspect of it really helps for PC's that use difference plug-in's and the like.

Project 64: Only game I've had trouble playing with this is Snowboard Kids 2 where the audio and game don't sync particularly well, and when I "Sync game to audio" I get a framerate slowdown. Other than that this emulator is perfect.

Visual Boy Advance- I have no trouble at all playing any and all GBC/GBA games on this emulator. Waiting for an online multiplayer option that will be the icing on the cake for this emu gem.

I want a PS2 emulator. Isn't there one that was almost developed by now?

It would be great to have a PS2 emulator on your computer.

Does anyone else use bsnes for SNES emulation? Definately not as polished as any of the emulators that have been around for a long time, but it shows incredible promise. It's built to be as accurate possible to the actual SNES hardware, and it's one of the few emulators that runs Star Ocean properly (ZSNES and SNES9x both have bugs with it)

There is currently one under developement here:
http://www.pcsx2.net/

They seem to move forward with large steps.
0.9 seems to be able to play many games in adequate speeds.-

I would try it, but it would run so damn slow on my 700MHz Athlon. Until bsnes is optimized for i386 processors, I'll lay off until I get a faster PC. Kega Fusion is a great example how an accurate emulator can be fast (it runs at the same speed as Gens). On everything but 32x, I get over 100fps on default settings.

Have fun with that. Even the Dreamcast isn't properly emulated yet, most games don't run at full speed. Gamecube emulators "exist" too, but that doesn't mean they're any good. Actually, Gamecube emulators are fuck useless. Unless you have a 5GHz Pentium 4 with a Radeon 9800 graphisc card, you're not going to be able to play them at even 50%.

Come on now, emulation of current generation consoles is pointless.

Most current generaation Emus probaly could run on a 2GHz PC (not including the 360 of course). The reason most can't is because it takes at least 10 years after a system comes out for emulators for it to mature (and for emu developers to give enough time to optimize the emulator's code). Look at how far ePSXe still has to go to run as well as Kega Fusion, Zsnes, or even Genecyst. Most emulator development doesn't heat up until the system is discontinued (the GBA being a notable exception).

I have been playing online alot with Mame32k and notice a lot of sound distortion and slowdown of music. I notice it to while not on net play and was wondering if changing the Buffer Size, and or Sample Rate would help with this.

What do they do and what are those two for anyway...

Thanks!

Can someone please tell me if there is a working version of Rage of the Dragons for MAME yet, god.

I actually have the 0.64 version of mame since it was so popular. I never really had any problems with it. So i'm guessing maybe you just need to try a different version or depending on your soundcard you may can to mess around with the sound options till you get it right.

Do you suggest going through the sound options through Mame, or my computer, and what options should I pick through and how? Anyone know...

you should check the options within mame. You might want to try this version:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/b6kczk
Its simpler and runs faster. I also have the Filter settings checked in and I'm at 48000 in the sample rate. Give it a shot, hope that works for ya cause I know that it runs well for me.

EDIT: I also tried finding Rage of dragons but rom servers are so slow. But from what I hear you need a hacked version of nebula with some neorage bio or something like that. Not really sure if thats the real case though

Thanks Shenlon! I will give it a shot.

P.S. What setting is you buffer size, mine is at the default of 120

Oh! I just got Rage of the Dragons, but you'll have to settle for Neorage.

Speaking of which, is there like an online client for Neorage or anything? I want to try dying against other people in Power Instinct: Matrimelee, Samurai Showdown V, or Rage of the Dragons as well.

These are my picks:

MAME:
Too fucking difficult. For some reason, different versions of the program are selective in what games they will play, I'll try again one day though =\

GB/GBA:
Visual Boy Advance, no contest. I've never had problems with the program, and it has a wide assortment of options from how the screen is emulated to actual video/audio recording and screenshots.

SNES:
ZSNES and Snes9x are my choices. While I prefer Snes9x, ZSNES has grown on me. I just don't like ZSNES's GUI very much.

Genesis:
Gens works excellently, and I don't know of any other really good ones :p

Playstation:
I personally prefer PSXeven, but ePSXe works too.

NES:
Not sure, I have to get a new one.

For Genesis, do yourself a favor and get Kega Fusion, once you wean yourself off of Gens, you'll wonder why you ever used it in the first place (though it could be because you didn't know about Kega).
As for NES emus, try Nestopia, it plays most games well and has full FDS support (if you play FDS games that is).

No one here using BlueMSX? Or even an MSX emulator for that matter?! Shame too, for many of the best games are on MSX. I suppose the release of Subsistence will rid many of the users of the MSX emulator. (It supports ColecoVision! ya!)
BlueMSX in itself is a fantastic emulator, and no other emulator comes close to the level of quality with its GUI.
http://www.bluemsx.com/images/theme_DIGIbluev2_L.jpg
Honestly, what beats this?

Yeah, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 runs really smooth in Chankast. It took me a while to find those two files needed to start playing, but I did it. The only problem with it is the sound and the strange old-looking window thing you need to use to configure your joypad/controller. I tried to emulate Ikaruga. Everything went fine with the first level, but when I went underground, the bullets do not appear at screen. It's not a good idea to play a 2D shooter if can't see the bullets...

SNES
Zsnes - I've been using it for 6 years now, nuff said. It runs everything, it's fast and it's got a great GUI. Also, it has a good lot of settings and supports online multiplayer.

NES
Fceu - Fast and smooth. NESticle were gross, so I switched. This has been working out fine for me. The joypad support is a little weak in my opinion.

PSX
ePSXe - Feels like the one and only for PSX-emulation. Maybe a little annoying to set upp everything in the beginning.

GBA
Virtualboy Advance - Just like Fceu, fast and smooth, it runs everything gameboy related.

my emulators:

gba - visual boy advance: the best there is for gba emulation.
gb(c) - bgb. more accurate in sound emulation than vba is.
nes - fce ultra- plays just about everything accurately.
sms - meka is the best here.
n64 - project64.
playstation - epsxe
genesis - kega fusion for sound accuracy, gens for multiplayer.

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this question or not, but it's been bugging me.

What's the go-to site these days to find new and interesting translations of Japanese games? I lost interest in that scene shortly after Star Ocean was translated, so most of the sites I used to visit are now defunct. But there are a few hard-to-crack nuts like Mystic Ark and Lennus 2 that were always listed as "incomplete," and I've always meant to find a new translation news site to check in on them.

I stopped reading here for a while but try: http://donut.parodius.com and check if it is up still.

http://romhustler.net/
Has 7z versions of the ROMs (for Genesis, NES and SNES). Each ROM contains every known variant, such as the Jp/EU/US versions, plus any trainers, hacks, translations. It even has the bad dumps of the ROMs shown.

That's one of the sites I used to visit. Very little in the way of updates since about 2003, though.

Thanks a bunch. I'll check that out right away!

I'm having trouble getting ePSXe to work right. First, it asked for a bios plugin, and I got scph9002-PAL for it. Then it asked for a video plugin, and I got Pete's OpenGL2 Driver 2.8 for it. No more problems after that point.

However, when I go to Run ISO and pick a game, this is what my screen keeps saying:

http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/4...xeshot11ex.jpg

http://img356.imageshack.us/img356/2...xeshot29al.jpg

Then it says something about missing rendering or something and then it crashes. Can someone help?

Just realize that 7z files are readable on very few emulators, Zsnes and Kega Fusion/Gens not being one that supports it. Either extract the files or use QuickPlay so they'll be readable under your emulators that don't support 7z.

Also Lady Miyomi, I don't know what graphics plugins you used, but the ones found here should work perfectly well under ePSXe.

Every (dumped) Neogeo game is supported by MAME. Kawaks has all of them up to 2002 (they havent added the newest bunch of 2003 stuff that was just put into MAME recently). Kawaks play them online, MAME doesn't cause no one updates the online ver anymore.

Thus, Neorage is officially obselete by now. I think the only game that it supports that other emus cant do better is Metal Slug 5, which needs a non-hacked-to-get-it-boot ROM dump first.

as for my picks of emus:

Kega for megadrive/genesis, as Gens is a piece of total turd and lacks tons of stuff both for video and sound. With it's own idiocy to switch desktop resolutions on every startup. Oh and Kega also has way the fuck better netplay. Is there honestly any reason to use Gens anymore?

FCE Ultra for NES. Well for the once-a-year event when i play Mappy.

Zsnes for snes. same as FCE ultra.

VICE for C64. Way more accurate then the other c64 emus I tried. And has sound emulation that actually sounds like the real machine.

pSX for playstation. It's a new emulator that just came out and its aim is to be 1:1 hardware accurate. Thus it doesn't have 9987927398273482934824 plugin options and 2048x1600 resolution with 8x fsaa and crap like that. It just WORKS instead.

SSF for Saturn. I need a faster CPU.

MAME for arcade and Kawaks for a few arcade fighter games (the Marvel vs series, Garou and Zupapa).

I also have Project64 for n64 but it can't emulate -anything- fine. Plugin based emulators all suck ass.

Anyone know whether the emulators can harm the computer? Seems a bite scary with those bios files..

Huh? That's the first time I've seen this question.

The answer is no. I've been using them for years and I've never encountered any problems.

The BIOS files don't tap into your actual BIOS. The emulator relies on them for booting things. It is a BIOS for the emulator. Go ahead and download them with no worries. Just be sure you're not downloading a virus =p You can think of these BIOS files like .dll's of sorts. Just separate files required to run things.

Does anyone else use pSX instead of ePSXe? I find ePSXe to be very inaccurate in terms of sound and graphic reproduction, whereas pSX is pretty accurate. It isn't compatible with as many games as ePSXe, doesn't have nearly as large a userbase, and has no plugins, but I use it more than I use ePSXe when I can.

Anyone aware of a good emulator (and plugins for that emulator) to run PS1 games on Mac OS X? I have a quad-core G5 that I suspect could make PSX games look, sound, and run pretty damned awesome, but I can't seem to find an emulator that runs too well. PCSX is okay, but it seems difficult to get good plugins for it. FlareStorm was all but nonfunctional, and there was one other whose name escapes me that was functional but pretty generic. Dunno if I can get anything equivalent to the functionality of ePSXe with all the good plugins for the Mac, but if it's at all feasible...help?

ePSXe is good, but I use PSXeven to run some games that it glitches out on (ie: Lunar:SSSC).

I still can't find an emulator that runs Koudelka without the cutscenes locking up ;__;

NES - NEStopia is the emulator of choice for me, just seems to be the first one that popped up during a search of NES Emulators. Doesn't matter much, since I've only played Double Dragon I/II/III and Contra on it.

SNES - I personally use SNES9x because I prefer it's user interface over ZSNES's interface. Works fine for me.

Genesis/MasterSystem/32x/CD - Fusion is an awesome emulator for all of Sega's Systems in one (well, except the Saturn and the Dreamcast). Emulates fine, good speed, good sounds (well as good as the hardware, Genesis sounds horrible compared to SNES)

Playstation - ePSXe. No question about it, this emulator has served me well with a ton of different plugins for versatility. I like my games to look smooth, so I like the texture smoothing and Hi-Res options.

Nintendo 64 - Project 64. I haven't used anything else, but this one works fine for me.

GB/GBC/GBA - VisualBoyAdvance is the emulator of choice here, runs everything great and has loads of features. The only exception here is if I happen to be playing the Pre-GBA Pokemon games, in which case, I use TGB-Dual.

NesterJ is plain and simple with not much in the way of frills. Good for quickly just getting into an NES rom.

NESticle had a weird hand cursor that I didn't like.


I saw my friend playing Kirby64 on an emulator several weeks ago, and it looked high res and very smooth, although I'm guessing it was his laptop screen that made it look good. I wonder if N64 stuff still looks pixelly or whether it was a feature of the emulator or something.

pSX is more accurate BECAUSE it doesnt use the plugin hackfest hell.

Yes, I use pSX a lot more than I use ePSXe. I just got sick and tired of screwing around with the settings whenever I wanted to play a different game. My only problem with pSX is the dithering. I'm not sure whether the dithering appears on the actual PSX hardware (I was told by the pSX developer that it does), but it's kind of annoying playing a game, and constantly seeing this faint grid pattern. ePSXe doesn't emulate dithering, for some reason.

Another downside to pSX is you can't fix certain graphical problems because there's no plug-ins to configure. Suikoden, for example, has this annoying flicker at the top of the screen, and as far as I know, there's no way to fix this at the moment. I haven't used any of the newer versions of the emulator, though, so I don't know if this was fixed or if we can use plug-ins now.

I don't know why you have to keep changing the plugin settings for games and whatnot, but I haven't had to. My settings work for most games, and for those that don't work, the plugins are pretty self-explanatory on how to fix and such. I just turn everything on high, and it works for the most part. Then again, I don't play much outside of Final Fantasy, and those don't take much for the most part.

A lot of games need different settings.

Has anyone ever heard of a good homebrew snes emulator for GameCube?

I use ePSXe more often that pSX mainly because of the filters available. They can make the games look much better than on a real playstation or pSX.

Plus it isn't really hard to change the plugins.

Seconded. I don't find it that hard to change things since everything has a description next to it (well, for Pete's Plugins anyways). It's very easy to use for me, and I'm not a big expert on computing.

As for a Gamecube Emulator, The best right now is Dolphin I think, but even then, it's more or less not playable. You'd be better off with a real Gamecube for that.

I had an actual PSX for about a day (then it broke, I got it off eBay). I played Metal Gear Solid on it and compared it to pSX and ePSXe. If remember correctly, the PSX did show the grid pattern. I agree that it can be kind of irritating, but if it shows up through a real PSX, I don't mind it showing up using pSX.

And as for the certain graphical problems, that's when I have to use ePSXe. I think FF8 doesn't play correctly on pSX (there's a big black bar at the bottom of the screen), so I had to use ePSXe for that.

So you'd play a bugged game even if there is a patch to fix it?

It would depend on how much the bug bothered me. I don't consider dithering to be a bug, and I don't really mind playing while it shows. After a while I just forget about it.