[General Discussion] 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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Vkamicht

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)

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.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Elixir

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).

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Originally Posted by Dark Nation

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

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).

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Originally Posted by orion_mk3

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by orion_mk3

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!

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.

How ya doing, buddy?