What Emulators are for what Systems (List)

[djvj]

Just converted my modules folder to the new emu-based HL2 and created a listing so I know what emu does what systems. I know this list is not complete, but it matches what I had modules for. I know this is something a few have asked for over the years, so it may help some of you who come across it:
 

List moved to:

http://www.rlauncher.com/forum/showthread.php?2803-Best-Emulator-For-Each-System

 

 

If anyone wants to help complete it, please post below.

Edited January 27, 2016 by djvj

[johnodon]

This is great info. I'll tell you what I would love to see added...best (preferred) emulator for each system. I know that it is completely subjective but I would like to hear it from the people that know best such as yourself dj. I know it is kinda backwards thinking in the new world but I'm still a little lost on which emulator is best for which system.

BTW...add ColecoVision to BlueMSX.

John

[brolly]

It's not subjective at all, there is usually a best (or maybe a couple) emulator for each system. On many cases you'll need more than one emulator to play most of the games though, especially on later systems.

Nice work djvj, a few errors I spotted: you added Gamecube and Wii under Desmune and not Dolphin. Gambatte also emulates GB, Makaron also emulates DC, Pheonix should be Phoenix, you can add at least Atari 7800 and Atari 2600 to MESS, WinApe also emulates CPC. WHDLoader should be WinUAELoader. Why do you have cdiemu listed as WcdiEmu?

That list can be made much larger, but I think you should focus on what you currently have modules for and move from there.

[sudopinion]

.

Edited July 17, 2013 by sudopinion

[dustind900]

the vast majority of incompatibilities/problems are overlooked in the face of features and/or ease of use.

Please provide an example, because I dont know too many people out there that would run an incompatible/problematic emulator just because it's easier to use or has a cool feature. Plain and simple there is almost always one or two that work better than the rest.

Edited October 5, 2012 by dustind900

[sudopinion]

.

Edited July 17, 2013 by sudopinion

[mesk]

Here is my personal list.Im hoping it can help some of the newer emulation enthusiasts in choosing their emulators.I do take compatibility over features in choosing the emu's I use.

System                 Emulator

Atari 2600             Stella  

Atari 5200             Kat5200

Atari 7800             Prosystem 

Colecovision          MESS

Mattel INTV          Nostalgia

Arcadia 2001         MESS

Sega SG1000          Fusion

Famicom              Nestopia

Nintendo FDS       Nestopia

Nintendo NES       Nestopia

Sega Master        Fusion

TurboGrafx16       Mednafen

TurboGrafx16CD   Mednafen

Sega Genesis       Fusion

Sega CD             Fusion

Super Nintendo    bsnes v.88

Super Famicom    bsnes v.88

3DO                   4DO

Sega 32X            Fusion

Jaguar                Virtual Jaguar

Satellaview          Snes9x

Nintendo 64         pj64 1.6.1

Sega Saturn        SSF

Sony PSX           Mednafen WIP

Dreamcast          NullDC

Playstation 2       PCSX2 v1.0 

Nintendo GCN      Dolphin

Nintendo Wii        Dolphin

Vectrex              ParaJVE

Adventurevision  MESS

Atari Lynx          Mednafen

Gameboy           Gambatte

Gameboy Color   Gambatte

Gameboy ADV    VBA-M

Game Gear        Fusion

Virtual Boy       Mednafen WIP

Nintendo DS     Desmume

PSP                JCSP

Pong              DICE

Naomi            Demul

Atomiswave    Demul

Edited October 7, 2012 by mesk

[brolly]

You are actually giving me reason with that last post of yours, that's precisely why there is usually a best emulator for a specific system. BSNES is for example the best SNES emulator no one can argue with that, why? Because it's 100% accurate and runs all games just the way they should.

The best emulator = the one that more accurately emulates a specific system. There's nothing subjective on that, the only scenarios where that happens would be on cases that there are more than one very accurate emulator each of them with several different options. Or on cases that there is no real winner due to current emulation status still not being mature enough.

For about 70-80% of the systems I'd say there is a definite winner and then some good alternatives that you might need for some particular games.

I'd like to hear about your alternatives for the non-working problematic games on SSF though

[sudopinion]

.

Edited July 17, 2013 by sudopinion

[brolly]

When you are talking about emulators accuracy is what really matters, if you have a 100% accurate emulator then you have a perfectly emulated system and you won't have compatibility issues, because all games will work perfectly fine with it. Personally I don't give any relevance to filters, save states and even less to cheats as I don't feel they make any difference when the goal is to emulate a system. That being said, most of the top emulators have those kind of features. Sure some people will disagree with the options made, like it happens with just about everything, but if I make a best emulators list for 10 or 20 systems I'm positive most of the people would agree with it.

For example would you suggest anything other than BSNES for SNES? Or WinUAE for Amiga or CD32 or CDTV? Or Stella for Atari 2600? And the list could go on, these are clear picks that I don't think anyone could even question. I never said this could be done for all systems, but for the most part yes which doesn't mean you might need an alternate emulator to play some oddball games that might have issues with the selected one.

What games run faster on Yabause? I tested pretty much all Saturn titles when doing the db and didn't notice any slowdown effects on SSF. The 2 emulators are not even on the same league, Yabause still has a long long road ahead.

[sudopinion]

.

Edited July 17, 2013 by sudopinion

[4sskicker]

Dear All,

I have a newby question;

I have just set-up MAME and in my old set-up (HS 1.0 final) I only used MAME but now I want more wheels, same goes for Genesis games and MegaDrive (I want to set-up 2 different wheels for those). My question is can I use the same emu/rom folders or should I copy paste and rename them?

f.e. in ini file of MAME can I use the same paths (emu/roms/video) for SNK Neo Geo?

I was not able to find an answer to this issue so I thought I could try it here. If you can not/will not answer it I will just try it and find out myself but I do not want to upset HS is this is not the proper way to do it.

To return to the topic/discussion I feel that the emu depends on the user, new users could/should use the most common emu but old users (like myself) who have run emu's before using HS maybe do not want to switch (I'm old and do not like change) and stick to the emu they are familliar with.

fe for NES I use Nestopia and SNES Zsnesw because i have done so for years. Some systems I am setting up for the first time and use the most popular/common. Dreamcast/Naomi/Atomiswave i have a hard time with and whatever emu I can get to work first I will use

[djvj]

Stay on topic please, if you have any issues, make your own thread. Discussions here should revolve around updating the list or correcting mistakes, that's it.

I'm among the crowd that thinks there usually is a preferred emu. There will always be a grey area, like psx, but generally one stands out.

[djvj]

It's not subjective at all, there is usually a best (or maybe a couple) emulator for each system. On many cases you'll need more than one emulator to play most of the games though, especially on later systems.

Nice work djvj, a few errors I spotted: you added Gamecube and Wii under Desmune and not Dolphin. Gambatte also emulates GB, Makaron also emulates DC, Pheonix should be Phoenix, you can add at least Atari 7800 and Atari 2600 to MESS, WinApe also emulates CPC. WHDLoader should be WinUAELoader. Why do you have cdiemu listed as WcdiEmu?

That list can be made much larger, but I think you should focus on what you currently have modules for and move from there.

Thanks brolly.

cdiemu exe is actually called wcdiemu.exe, so that's where I got it from. I'll change it and remove the w.

List is updated with many emus I believe are preferred (I know brolly will give me more). Thanks for you suggestions mesk, the ones I am unsure of are Nintendo and Sega ones. I only marked the ones I believe are the best.

Edited October 6, 2012 by djvj

[Trnzaddict]

Djvj, is there any reason project 64 1.7 isn't listed? I know people argue that's it's buggy, but if you pair it with the glide video plugin they have at emucr it's better than 1.6. Some food for thought.

[4sskicker]

djvj, sorry, point taken.

[djvj]

Are you saying you can't use the glide plugin with 1.61?

[djvj]

Added

Jagulator

Flash Game Player

E-Z Flasher

Parachute

Snes9xPP

SNESGT

Turbo Engine 16

Edited October 7, 2012 by djvj

[Trnzaddict]

Are you saying you can't use the glide plugin with 1.61?

You could but for example, California Speed for me has messed up music tempo's in 1.6.1, this is not present in 1.7. There are little fixes for games that improve emulation unfortunately it's not stable for some but I switched to Glide for 1.7 and I have not had any issues and glide makes games for hdtv's beautiful and it's not very taxing on the gpu.

[djvj]

So I would still put 1.61 as preferred and 1.7 for a few exceptions. There are enough threads about why 1.61 is better. Don't need to get into it again here.

Added:

RealSpectrum

ZXSpin

Edited October 7, 2012 by djvj

[Johnny Mazzic]

Your recommendations have help me a lot, I changed several emulators for your recommendations and greatly improved emulation (I didn't try AAE for example), thank you very much djvj.

Saludos!

[djvj]

Cool man, hopefully this will help many who don't know about all the emulators out there.

[horseyhorsey]

Amstrad CPC - CPCE is my prefered CPC emu these days

[ghutch92]

Is there a preferred emulator for the Sony Playstation?

[brolly]

Xebra unless you like to use fancy filters in which case you have to go with epsxe or psxfin which have lots of issues with several games.