Suggested emulator for GB/SNES

[paulie]

I have not used emulators on my PC for over 10 years, but recently was able to connect my PS3 controller to my PC; now I want to give emulation a go again.

I am looking for suggestions for good emulators for Gameboy and SNES that support Xbox360/PS3 controller support (my PS3 controller fakes that it is a 360 controller I believe).
They should also support save states, but I believe that is quite common right?

Additionally, the GB emulator should support Gamegenie for Gameboy cheats.

Basically I do not demand that much from the emulators, but I am totally clueless as to whether which emulators support controller usage.

Any suggestion is appreciated!

 

[Vipera]

As for the SNES, Higan is the best. If stuff hasn't changed since the transaction from BSNES -> Higan, it has 100% compatibility with NA titles.

EDIT: apparently it can emulate GB games too. But I would suggest something else for that.

 

[joeyjoey396]

As for the SNES, Higan is the best. If stuff hasn't changed since the transaction from BSNES -> Higan, it has 100% compatibility with NA titles.

EDIT: apparently it can emulate GB games too. But I would suggest something else for that.

This is off-topic, but do you know if Higan uses real SNES audio? Because some Super Mario World rom hacks with custom music break on Snes9x and ZSNES is having save state errors for me.

 

[trumpet-205]

Higan is a cycle accurate emulator. It literally turns your PC into a SNES. No other emulator tops Higan when it comes to accuracy.

 

[matpower]

For SNES, you have two choices, SNES9x and Higan. SNES9x is really good, got cheat support and works with the PS3/Xbox 360 controller, Higan is 100% accuracy, but it is kinda heavy, I think it also got controller support and cheat support. IMO I prefer the SNES9x, there is no need to have 100% accuracy besides for one game (AFAIK, the Accuracy core of Higan is for some obscure title and it only lacks a single shadow ).

For GB/GBC, you should use BGB, it has excellent Game Boy and Game Boy Color accuracy, as well as near flawless link support. It has a lot of options for color palettes and even enabling Super Gameboy colors and borders, though it doesn't emulate all of its functions and IIRC, Game Genie support.

If you want to check each emulator in depth and check some alternatives, I recommend you to read this for SNES and this for GB/GBC.
#RealConsoleMasterRace

This is off-topic, but do you know if Higan uses real SNES audio? Because some Super Mario World rom hacks with custom music break on Snes9x and ZSNES is having save state errors for me.

Higan should have perfect LLE audio AFAIK. It turns your PC into a SNES (Cycle Accuracy emulation).

 

[Issac]

I've always prefered ZSNES, but I can't give any reason for it other than that I like it. I've heard a lot of good things about Higan, but I never got it to work for some reason... will have to look into that sometime.

 

[Vipera]

This is off-topic, but do you know if Higan uses real SNES audio? Because some Super Mario World rom hacks with custom music break on Snes9x and ZSNES is having save state errors for me.

From a point of view of my personal experience, all the games I tried were perfect. Also make sure to have a decent PC/Laptop, as the emulator had bad FPS when I played it on my old PC (dual core processor but the shittiest graphics card in the world).

 

[matpower]

I've always prefered ZSNES, but I can't give any reason for it other than that I like it. I've heard a lot of good things about Higan, but I never got it to work for some reason... will have to look into that sometime.

Well, ZSNES is dead and got a lot of issues with games, like Star Fox running faster than it should or Kirby's Dream Land 3 with transparency problems.

 

[the_randomizer]

Well, ZSNES is kinda dead and got a lot of issues with games, like Star Fox running faster than it should or Kirby's Dream Land 3 with transparency problems.

Oh the stories I could tell about just how poorly it emulates games and how dead it is
http://emulation-general.wikia.com/wiki/ZSNES

But, I won't, I might make a thread, but it hasn't been updated since 2006 IIRC, at least, I think it's been that long. Higan > Snes9x > SnesGT > SNEeZE (?) > Zsnes in terms of acccuracy

I've always prefered ZSNES, but I can't give any reason for it other than that I like it. I've heard a lot of good things about Higan, but I never got it to work for some reason... will have to look into that sometime.

I recommend Snes9x as it's still very accurate, has the same audio emulation as Higan (cycle-accurate) and games with special chips, like Star Ocean and Star Fox, run at their proper speed. Those Super Mario World hacks take advantage of Zsnes' outdated emulation core and exploits it, so on real hardware, they're useless.

 

[matpower]

Oh the stories I could tell about just how poorly it emulates games and how dead it is
http://emulation-general.wikia.com/wiki/ZSNES

But, I won't, I might make a thread, but it hasn't been updated since 2006 IIRC, at least, I think it's been that long. Higan > Snes9x > SnesGT > SNEeZE (?) > Zsnes in terms of acccuracy

Yeah, I even removed the "kinda" because it is dead for sure.
Also updated link: http://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/ZSNES
The only use for ZSNES is for playing old ROM Hacks that needs its speedhacks.

 

[Issac]

Well, ZSNES is dead and got a lot of issues with games, like Star Fox running faster than it should or Kirby's Dream Land 3 with transparency problems.

Is that so? I'm not too fond of Star Fox and haven't played Kirby's DL 3 so I haven't personally experienced those I do like the ability to turn off different layers of the graphics if that's needed, which it was in Chrono Trigger a long time ago. The fog in the future had transparency issues. But yeah, that is probably possible in other emulators as well.
Oh yeah, I do fancy the rewind button in ZSNES!

 

[paulie]

Thanks for the many fast replies!
Will try Higan and BGB, since a quick search on these emulators showed promising, will report once I have tested them (which will not be before tomorrow unfortunately.

 

[the_randomizer]

Is that so? I'm not too fond of Star Fox and haven't played Kirby's DL 3 so I haven't personally experienced those I do like the ability to turn off different layers of the graphics if that's needed, which it was in Chrono Trigger a long time ago. The fog in the future had transparency issues. But yeah, that is probably possible in other emulators as well.
Oh yeah, I do fancy the rewind button in ZSNES!

Oh the issues are there, Earthworm Jim 2 has broken sound effects due to inaccurate SPC700 (sound) emulation, Super Mario RPG randomly locks up, Der Langrisser locks up randomly as well, sound is off in Super Mario World (the warp pipe and mushroom sounds), the only real good thing is playing ROM hacks that require badly written emulation code lol.

 

[Issac]

Oh the issues are there, Earthworm Jim 2 has broken sound effects due to inaccurate SPC700 (sound) emulation, Super Mario RPG randomly locks up, Der Langrisser locks up randomly as well, sound is off in Super Mario World (the warp pipe and mushroom sounds), the only real good thing is playing ROM hacks that require badly written emulation code lol.

I never experienced any lock ups in Super Mario RPG when I completed that game all those years ago Guess I got lucky. Seems like most games with issues were those I wasn't interested in or had the actual cartridges off
Hmm, seems like byuu's site is broken, at least no links works for me. I'll have to try higan again to see if I get it to work better this time.

 

[the_randomizer]

I never experienced any lock ups in Super Mario RPG when I completed that game all those years ago Guess I got lucky. Seems like most games with issues were those I wasn't interested in or had the actual cartridges off
Hmm, seems like byuu's site is broken, at least no links works for me. I'll have to try higan again to see if I get it to work better this time.

This site? http://byuu.org/

Should be working fine XD Failing that, I recommend Snes9x.

 

[Issac]

This site? http://byuu.org/

Should be working fine XD Failing that, I recommend Snes9x.

Yes that one. None of the links work for me, and when I check the source code of the page, every link is <a>Emulator</a> with no href="...". I guess he uses some javascript or something that refuses to work for me.

Nah, I do not like Snes9x at all. So Higan it is, or ZSNES if all else fails xD

 

[the_randomizer]

Yes that one. None of the links work for me, and when I check the source code of the page, every link is <a>Emulator</a> with no href="...". I guess he uses some javascript or something that refuses to work for me.

Nah, I do not like Snes9x at all. So Higan it is, or ZSNES if all else fails xD

What's wrong with Snes9x if I may ask? Like, Zsnes just sucks ass, there's no advantage, at all, to using it on top of horrible sound emulation. Download link http://www.emulator-zone.com/download.php/emulators/snes/higan/higan_v094-64bit.7z Slightly outdated but should be the same.

The Higan site is undergoing changes so hence no direct download.

 

[FireEmblemGuy]

Byuu just redid his site pretty recently, it looks like the menu items are mostly there but the actual links aren't. You can still probably find higan elsewhere just by Googling; I think the latest version is 094

 

[the_randomizer]

Byuu just redid his site pretty recently, it looks like the menu items are mostly there but the actual links aren't. You can still probably find higan elsewhere just by Googling; I think the latest version is 094

Found a link above, might be slightly outdated, but still Higan nonetheless. I can see people hating Zsnes, but Snes9x? Makes no sense.

 

[Issac]

What's wrong with Snes9x if I may ask? Like, Zsnes just sucks ass, there's no advantage, at all, to using it on top of horrible sound emulation. Download link http://www.emulator-zone.com/download.php/emulators/snes/higan/higan_v094-64bit.7z Slightly outdated but should be the same.

The Higan site is undergoing changes so hence no direct download.

Thanks for the link mate!
Also, I can't put my finger on it. It's something that lived with me since I began playing with SNES emulators, around 1998. I started out with ZSNES and I like the interface, and how it all works. Later I tried out Snes9x because all my friends thought filters were super cool (I think it looks like shit), but I never liked the interface for some weird reason, the image always got stretched in a weird way when trying to get it full screen, and it was slow on my old computer I had at the time. And that feeling stuck with me. It doesn't feel good to use it.
It's just simple as that. It has nothing to do with the accuracy of the emulation or anything, just... a feeling. I really feel uneasy using it.

Oh well, this got quite off topic I guess I'll see if I can get higan to work.
(I also tried to get RetroArch to work, which it didn't... trying to have an all-in-one solution. There's just something with setting up emulators and me that doesn't work. I never got N64 or PSX, PSP and PS2 to work (well) either (except on my phone, works flawlessly)).


/speeded ramblings