Emulating Consoles on Your PC

[PityOnU]

This thread is currently, and will probably continue to be for some time, a work in progress. Things are always changing, so this will need to be maintained/contributed to by the community. Feel free to post below with extra/updated information or new sections. I will add them into the guide for others to see (with credit of course).

Much of the formatting, images, and structure are borrowed from whoomph's thread discussing emulation status on the Wii.

Contents

• Abstract
• Motivation
• Handheld Consoles
• Living-Room Consoles
  • Nintendo Wii
  • Nintendo Gamecube
  • Nintendo 64
  • Super Nintendo Entertainment System
  • Sony PlayStation 2
  • Sony PlayStation
• Retro Computer Systems

Abstract

The goal of this thread is to contain the most up-to-date information regarding emulating consoles and playing commercial games on you PC. Listed will be data regarding which emulator(s) is/are best for that system, links to their support forums and compatibility lists, and a brief tutorial on how to configure them for optimal results.*

*Optimal results are different for various hardware/OS's, so you may need to deviate from the guides slightly.

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Motivation

The motivation for creating this thread comes largely from a recent post here on the forums where a gamer was excited to discover the ability to play Wii games on his PC. If this thread is properly created and maintained, it is my hope that it will serve to help keep users in the know about what their PC is able to do, and to avoid any missed opportunities to play their favorite games!

Another source of motivation for this thread is the possibility that the PC subforum here at GBATemp may be expanded soon. I figure that when this happens, it may be useful to have some quality gaming information already created to encourage community participation in what I'm sure will be a fast-growing section of the forum.

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Handheld Consoles

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Living-Room Consoles

• Nintendo Wii
• Nintendo Gamecube
• Nintendo 64
• Super Nintendo Entertainment System
• Sony PlayStation 2
• Sony PlayStation

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Nintendo Wii

Name: Dolphin Emulator
Homepage: https://dolphin-emu.org/
Compatibility: https://dolphin-emu.org/compat/
Download: https://dolphin-emu.org/download/
Support Forums: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/

Spoiler: Configuration Walkthrough

Coming Soon

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Nintendo Gamecube

Name: Dolphin Emulator
Homepage: https://dolphin-emu.org/
Compatibility: https://dolphin-emu.org/compat/
Download: https://dolphin-emu.org/download/
Support Forums: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/

Spoiler: Configuration Walkthrough

Coming Soon

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Nintendo 64

Name: Project64
Homepage: http://www.pj64-emu.com/
Compatibility: http://code.google.com/p/mupen64plus/wiki/GameCompatibility
Download: http://code.google.com/p/mupen64plus/downloads/list
Support Forums: http://forum.pj64-emu.com/

Spoiler: Configuration Walkthrough

Coming Soon

Name: mupen64plus
Homepage: http://code.google.com/p/mupen64plus/
Compatibility: Comes built-in to the ROM browser interface
Download: http://www.pj64-emu.com/downloads/project64/binaries/
Support Forums: http://www.emutalk.net/forums/113-Mupen64Plus

Spoiler: Configuration Walkthrough

Coming Soon

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Super Nintendo Entertainment System

Name: Snes9x
Homepage: http://www.snes9x.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4910
Compatibility: Almost all commercial games
Download: https://sites.google.com/site/bearoso/
Support Forums: http://www.snes9x.com/phpbb3/viewforum.php?f=6&sid=9dc5b90e032feb5c1e9c6f438d686343

Spoiler: Configuration Walkthrough

Coming Soon

Name: bsnes (now part of higan)
Homepage: http://byuu.org/higan/
Compatibility: All commercial games (but has higher system requirements than others)
Download: http://code.google.com/p/higan/downloads/list
Support Forums: http://board.byuu.org/

Spoiler: Configuration Walkthrough

Coming Soon

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Sony PlayStation 2

Name: PCSX2
Homepage: http://pcsx2.net/
Compatibility: http://pcsx2.net/compatibility-list.html
Download: http://pcsx2.net/download/releases.html
Support Forums: http://forums.pcsx2.net/

Spoiler: Configuration Walkthrough

Coming Soon

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Sony PlayStation

Name: ePSXe
Homepage: http://www.epsxe.com/
Compatibility: http://www.epforums.org/showthread.php?73805-New-ePSXe-v-1-7-0-compatibility-list-thread
Download: http://www.epsxe.com/download.php
Support Forums: http://www.ngemu.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?forumid=7

Spoiler: Configuration Walkthrough

Coming Soon

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Retro Computer Systems

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[PityOnU]

Reserved.

Also, feel free to create and post content for this, everyone! I am no guru, and I most certainly have not used/continue to use all emulators, so please post your experiences/information.

You can quote the post to copy formatting. Feel free to leave feedback regarding that as well.

I will continue to update as I have time.

Let's make this great!

 

[trumpet-205]

Add higan/bsnes to SNES emulator, the only emulator that has 100% compatibility on SNES games.

There is also PCSX2 for PS2, Gambatte for GB/GBC, VBA-M for GBA, Desmume-JIT for Nintendo DS, etc.

 

[Rydian]

I feel ZSNES should be removed and replaced with SNES9x as the top list, which, unlike ZSNES, has actually been updating for the past few years. ZSNES's compatibility is terrible nowadays.

I also agree that BSNES/Higan should be up there too since it's the only SNES emulator that actually plays every game to completion (but most people would prefer SNES9x so have it first I guess).

You should probably change the formatting a bit to better be able to list multiple emulators for a given system, since sometimes there's one game that one emulator plays that another doesn't, etc... and they have different intents as well, like some are meant for debugging while others are for TASing.

 

[Celice]

Add higan/bsnes to SNES emulator, the only emulator that has 100% compatibility on SNES games.

Is bsnes really 100% accurate? I remember byuu saying there's always going to be something that won't be 100% supported--but he's striving to be as damn-close as possible along the way.

 

[trumpet-205]

Is bsnes really 100% accurate? I remember byuu saying there's always going to be something that won't be 100% supported--but he's striving to be as damn-close as possible along the way.

It is. Unlike other emulators higan/bsnes is completely LLE. Byuu finished on emulating all enhancement chips (though you do need to download respective ROM) that SNES is using.

The only downside on higan/bsnes is performance. Some with older computer will opt for Snes9x because higan/bsnes runs slowly.

 

[the_randomizer]

I feel ZSNES should be removed and replaced with SNES9x as the top list, which, unlike ZSNES, has actually been updating for the past few years. ZSNES's compatibility is terrible nowadays.

I also agree that BSNES/Higan should be up there too since it's the only SNES emulator that actually plays every game to completion (but most people would prefer SNES9x so have it first I guess).

You should probably change the formatting a bit to better be able to list multiple emulators for a given system, since sometimes there's one game that one emulator plays that another doesn't, etc... and they have different intents as well, like some are meant for debugging while others are for TASing.

Seconded. I also ask that Zsnes be replaced with Snes9x for many reasons. For one, it's actually continuing to be updated, two, it's very accurate without high system requirements (i.e Higan), so it's a great alternative to those who can't run it. Three, many games with special chips (Star Ocean, Star Fox, Street Fighter Alpha 2), do not run at their correct speeds and run too fast. People may be comfortable with Zsnes and don't want to move and that's fine, but there are bigger and better emulators out there

All in favor of Zsnes being removed from the list, say "aye"

 

[Celice]

It is. Unlike other emulators higan/bsnes is completely LLE. Byuu finished on emulating all enhancement chips (though you do need to download respective ROM) that SNES is using.

The only downside on higan/bsnes is performance. Some with older computer will opt for Snes9x because higan/bsnes runs slowly.

Well, I finally decided to give this emulator a try, and man, that input lag is a little crazy... I checked out byuu's forum on the matter and there wasn't really a solution to it, other than there will always be a lag due to the nature of the emulation. I'm not on a runt system either :o Guess balance just isn't practical to play with for ready-response type games.

 

[trumpet-205]

higan/bsnes actually comes in 3 flavors: performance, balance, and accuracy.

Accuracy is 100% accurate, but also the slowest. Performance is the fastest, but sacrifice quite a bit on accuracy (though still better than Snes9x).

But "aye", Zsnes needs to be replaced with Snes9x.

 

[the_randomizer]

higan/bsnes actually comes in 3 flavors: performance, balance, and accuracy.

Accuracy is 100% accurate, but also the slowest. Performance is the fastest, but sacrifice quite a bit on accuracy (though still better than Snex9x).

But "aye", Zsnes needs to be replaced with Snex9x.

For the typical end user, most won't be able to distinguish difference between Snes9x or Higan's performance profile. I simply use Snes9x due to the simpler GUI (again, also my opinion).
Higan > Snes9x > SnesGT > Zsnes in terms of accuracy. Zsnes has become the IE 6 of Snes emulators.

 

[bobmcjr]

Before reading my long list of emulators, do not forget about RetroArch and Mednafen for older systems
Consoles:
I personally dislike project64. Very hackish emulation. Even though it has fancy plugins for input and such, I prefer mupen64plus variants. Video with glide64 on mupen64plus is excellent, complete with framebuffer support (E.G. the screen in mario kart, banjo kazooie puzzle piece fx, pause menus etc). At the very least add mupen64plus to that list. For NES, I recommend fceux. As said before, bsnes and snes9x are good options for snes emulation, and I also agree that zsnes should be removed. I find it amusing that my router has a zsnes netplay port setting still built in labeled as znes. PSX I'm not so sure about but either ePSXe or PCSX-Reloaded should be fine... For all pre sega saturn systems, I've never had any problems with Kega Fusion.
Handhelds:
GB/C: Gambatte. Very very accurate, has amazing HQ2x, HQ3x, and HQ4x scalers. GBA: VBA-M Atari Lynx: either Handy or Mednafen NeoGeo Pocket/Color: RACE or Mednafen Gamegear: Mednafen or Kega Fusion Wonderswan/Color: Mednafen NDS: DeSmuME PSP: PPSSPP

 

[Celice]

higan/bsnes actually comes in 3 flavors: performance, balance, and accuracy.

Accuracy is 100% accurate, but also the slowest. Performance is the fastest, but sacrifice quite a bit on accuracy (though still better than Snes9x).

But "aye", Zsnes needs to be replaced with Snes9x.

I've used all three versions--accuracy is running at a full 60fps, and as I said, I'm not on a runt system. But there does feel like there's a perceptible lag between a controller input and what happens "in" game. Like a sticky-effect: I can let go of the button, after pressing it, before anything even occurs on the screen, in multiple games. Looking around, I'm not the only person experiencing this on higan, either.

 

[the_randomizer]

Before reading my long list of emulators, do not forget about RetroArch and Mednafen for older systems
Consoles:
I personally dislike project64. Very hackish emulation. Even though it has fancy plugins for input and such, I prefer mupen64plus variants. Video with glide64 on mupen64plus is excellent, complete with framebuffer support (E.G. the screen in mario kart, banjo kazooie puzzle piece fx, pause menus etc). At the very least add mupen64plus to that list. For NES, I recommend fceux. As said before, bsnes and snes9x are good options for snes emulation, and I also agree that zsnes should be removed. I find it amusing that my router has a zsnes netplay port setting still built in labeled as znes. PSX I'm not so sure about but either ePSXe or PCSX-Reloaded should be fine... For all pre sega saturn systems, I've never had any problems with Kega Fusion.
Handhelds:
GB/C: Gambatte. Very very accurate, has amazing HQ2x, HQ3x, and HQ4x scalers. GBA: VBA-M Atari Lynx: either Handy or Mednafen NeoGeo Pocket/Color: RACE or Mednafen Gamegear: Mednafen or Kega Fusion Wonderswan/Color: Mednafen NDS: DeSmuME PSP: PPSSPP

PJ64 is active once more and has gotten a lot better. Mupen64 I didn't use for a long time due to a lack of good GUI front-end. However, I know someone making a good GUI for it.

 

[zerofalcon]

For NES emulation I recommend Nestopia, it runs better than FCEUX . FDS sound emulation is more accurate, on FCEUX sounds very ugly. Nestopia has NTSC filters and custom palettes.
This is how it looks with NTSC filter and custom palette.

Spoiler

 

[the_randomizer]

For NES emulation I recommend Nestopia, it runs better than FCEUX . FDS sound emulation is more accurate, on FCEUX sounds very ugly. Nestopia has NTSC filters and custom palettes.
This is how it looks with NTSC filter and custom palette.

Spoiler

Nestopis is supreme; extremely accurate and fast. It even runs full speed on the Wii.

 

[PolloDiablo]

These are my personal choices...

Spoiler: Nintendo

Dolphin (GameCube/Wii)
Project64 (Nintendo 64)
SnesGT (Super Nintendo) - I choose this one over Snes9X, because it has good Satellaview support and it fixes the music tempo in fast forward mode
Nestopia (NES/Famicom Disk System)
FCE Ultra mappers modified (Famicom Bootlegs)

DeSmuME (Nintendo DS) - only for good PCs.... for crappy ones I use No$GBA
VBA-M (Game Boy/Color/Advance)
Mednafen (Virtual Boy) - VBjin is a good option too
Pokemini (Pokemon Mini)

Spoiler: Sega

nullDC (Dreamcast)
SSF (Saturn)
Kega Fusion (SG-1000/Master System/GameGear/Genesis/CD/32X)

Spoiler: Sony

PCSX2 (PlayStation 2)
PCSXR (PlayStation) - I don't use ePSXe anymore because I'm having trouble running multiple BIN dumps (like the ones from Redump)
JPCSP (PlayStation Portable)

Spoiler: SNK

Final Burn Alpha (Neo Geo MVS/AES/CD)
Nebula (Neo Geo CD) - I use this one because FBA emulates the slow 1X speed of the real console )
Mednafen (Neo Geo Pocket/Color)

Spoiler: Atari

Virtual Jaguar (Atari Jaguar)
MESS (Atari 2600/5200/7800)
Mednafen (Atari Lynx)

Spoiler: Other Consoles

Turbo Engine (TurboGrafx 16/CD/SuperGrafx)
4DO (Panasonic 3DO)
CD-i Emulator (Philips CD-i) - this emulator sucks sooooo bad (just like the console)
Mednafen (WonderSwan/Color)
ScummVM (LucasArts adventure games)
ResidualVM (Grim Fandango / Monkey Island 4)

Spoiler: Arcade

MAME (General)
nullDC (Sega Naomi)
??? (Taito TypeX/Type X2) - there is no need to emulate this one, but I'm still looking for a nice frontend

Spoiler: Frontend/GUI

Mame Plus (frontend for MAME/MESS)
MedGui (GUI for Mednafen) - this GUI is not that good, but it's the best I was able to find

There is a really good master list in Emu-Russia.net
And another one from the Advanced Launcher Wiki

I'm missing some consoles (Colecovision, Intelivision), some computers (Commodore 64, PC-FX, MSX, CZ Spectrum, etc) and some arcade boards (CPS2, CPS3). I will update later...

 

[PityOnU]

Thanks for all of the feedback, all! I'll go through and get all of the information on the emulators you suggest it and update it when I have few minutes over the next few days.

Learning a lot myself!

 

[the_randomizer]

My personal favorites

Spoiler: Super Nintendo

Emulator: RetroArch 0.99 - Snes9x Next core (v 1.5.2.2)
Download: http://themaister.net/retroarch-dl/retroarch-win64-0.9.9.zip
Reason: Not as accurate as Higan, but more compatible and more accurate than Zsnes
Alt. Emulator: Snes9x 1.53 standalone, for those who just want to use Snes
Download: https://sites.google.com/site/bearoso/

Spoiler: Nintendo Entertainment System

Emulator: RetroArch 0.99/Nestopia Undead
Download: http://themaister.net/retroarch-dl/retroarch-win64-0.9.9.zip
Reason: Nestopia is considered to be the most accurate NES emulator while balancing high performance

Spoiler: Nintendo 64

Emulator: Project 64 2.1.0.X
Download: http://www.pj64-emu.com/downloads/func-download/122/chk,c9a6152b687ea3c0ece13bc38dc47cda/no_html,1/
Reason: With recent activity, the emulator is back from the dead and many people are working to fix game RSP-related issues;
games like World Driver Championship, Indiana Jones and Gauntlet Legends work properly with the right plugins

Spoiler: Nintendo DS

Emulator: DeSmuME 0.99 JIT
Download: http://desmume.org/download/
Reason: DeSmuME has received massive speed boosts thanks to the new JIT recompiler which makes speed comparable to no$gba

Spoiler: Playstation 2

Emulator: PCSX2 1.0
Download: http://pcsx2.net/
Reason: As of version 1.0, many games are more stable, many games now can be played to completion and you can play in 1080p requires
a beefy CPU (Intel Core i3 or i5 recommended)

Spoiler: Nintendo Gamecube/Wii

Emulator: Dolphin 3.5
Download: https://dolphin-emu.org/download/?ref=btn
Reason: Very high compatibility, more stable than in past versions, but requires a beefy CPU (Intel Core i3 or i5 recommended)

Spoiler: Sega Genesis

Emulator: Kega Fusion or Genesis Plus GX in RetroArch 0.99
Download: http://themaister.net/retroarch-dl/retroarch-win64-0.9.9.zip
Reason: Extremely accurate while being optimized to run on the Wii as well as on PCs and Macs.

 

[PityOnU]

Does anyone have the information (compatibility, downloads, support forum) for the highly recommended snes9x? The website they have seems really sketchy and I'm having trouble even finding a working download.

Thanks in advance!

 

[the_randomizer]

Does anyone have the information (compatibility, downloads, support forum) for the highly recommended snes9x? The website they have seems really sketchy and I'm having trouble even finding a working download.

Thanks in advance!

The main page is no longer maintained by the original people, but there is a forum that is quite active and reputable.
http://www.snes9x.com/phpbb3/

OV2, BearOSO and a few other people maintain the emulator and essentially brought it back from the dead. As far as compatibility goes, it's a lot higher than Zsnes and pretty close to Bsnes/Higan, only a few games don't work, but other than that, it's very comparable.

Snes9x 1.54 is in the works

Downloads, either mirror will work
http://www.snes9x.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4910
https://sites.google.com/site/bearoso/
http://www.s9x-w32.de/dl/
http://snesemu.black-ship.net/index.php?page=emus/snes9x/&list=all&filter=snes9x 1.53