Original ZSNES developers reunite, emulator gets a revival as Super ZSNES with a swath of new features

CMDreamer · Apr 28, 2026

Scarlet said:
View attachment 570290

If you've emulated a SNES game, you've probably heard of ZSNES. Originally released way back in 1997 and seeing active development for the ten years that followed, it was to many their first glimpse of console emulation on the PC. Though nowadays BSNES and Snes9x are the more popular options, it's hard to deny the impact ZSNES had. After almost 20 years since its last release the emulator's two original developers, zsKnight and _Demo_, are back with a new and completely re-written emulator.

At its core, Super ZSNES is a direct upgrade from where the original ZSNES project left off. It's more accurate in its CPU and audio cores, features fast-forward, rewind, save states, and a whole heap of modern emulation features, and most interestly, makes use of a brand new "Super Enhancement Engine". This new engine allows the developers to enhance games individually, providing tailored upgrades in genuinely meaningful ways. For its initial release seven popular games are supported, with the enhancements including high resolution internal drawing, texture and normal mapping, overclocking where games struggled on original hardware, wide-screen where the games internally support it, uncompressed audio replacement, and 3D rendering on perspective-style Mode 7 games.

The games currently supporting enhancement are:

F-Zero

Gradius 3

Mega Man X

Super Castlevania 4

Super Ghosts & Ghouls

Super Mario World

Super Metroid

With this being an early release some bugs are to be expected, and some special chips are still not implemented. Regardless it remains an exciting time for SNES fans, with the emulator currently being available on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android, with an iOS release coming soon.

Source

Oh My!!!

I started my emulation adventure with ZSNES, very fond memories!

Just found out about this on a YT video from MVG.

Latiodile · Apr 28, 2026

AndorfRequissa said:
they could always allow a direct download of the apk. dont have to go through the google store to do that.

they could also do like ppsspp where there's a paid version just for support, a free version and a direct apk

VinsCool said:
Just tried SuperZSNES, it's whatever?
There is a bunch of input lag that feels a little too much for my liking, and that's about it.

that's.... exactly what I was worried about when I heard it was made in unity, the 3d nes emulator suffers from exactly the same issue (I haven't tried it in literally 10 years since it's a paid thing on steam now, but it was really bad when it was free)

MarkDarkness · Apr 28, 2026

This is insanely cool.

NinStar · Apr 28, 2026

Not trying to diminish the work of the developers, but this feels like the type of novelty you try a few times then never bothers with it again (like 3dSen).

I can hardly see myself replacing something like Snes9x with Super ZSNES, even if they add support for every single game I care about.

NitroShell · Apr 28, 2026

Scarlet said:
View attachment 570290

If you've emulated a SNES game, you've probably heard of ZSNES. Originally released way back in 1997 and seeing active development for the ten years that followed, it was to many their first glimpse of console emulation on the PC. Though nowadays BSNES and Snes9x are the more popular options, it's hard to deny the impact ZSNES had. After almost 20 years since its last release the emulator's two original developers, zsKnight and _Demo_, are back with a new and completely re-written emulator.

At its core, Super ZSNES is a direct upgrade from where the original ZSNES project left off. It's more accurate in its CPU and audio cores, features fast-forward, rewind, save states, and a whole heap of modern emulation features, and most interestly, makes use of a brand new "Super Enhancement Engine". This new engine allows the developers to enhance games individually, providing tailored upgrades in genuinely meaningful ways. For its initial release seven popular games are supported, with the enhancements including high resolution internal drawing, texture and normal mapping, overclocking where games struggled on original hardware, wide-screen where the games internally support it, uncompressed audio replacement, and 3D rendering on perspective-style Mode 7 games.

The games currently supporting enhancement are:

F-Zero

Gradius 3

Mega Man X

Super Castlevania 4

Super Ghosts & Ghouls

Super Mario World

Super Metroid

With this being an early release some bugs are to be expected, and some special chips are still not implemented. Regardless it remains an exciting time for SNES fans, with the emulator currently being available on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android, with an iOS release coming soon.

Source

It’s made in Unity which is……. Weird………

Lily · Apr 28, 2026

Ettino · Apr 28, 2026

ZSNES,....now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time,.......long time.

Anyway, I like it! Just spend an hour playing Mario World in 16:9 on my 4k TV. It looks and play great. I wonder if this will work with SMC rom hacks too.

Scarlet · Apr 28, 2026

RedoLane said:
There's also a Linux version! I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned, since it's right there on the website.

That one was actually added after I wrote the post lol, I’ll edit it in though.

VinsCool · Apr 28, 2026

Ettino said:
ZSNES,....now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time,.......long time.

Anyway, I like it! Just spend an hour playing Mario World in 16:9 on my 4k TV. It looks and play great. I wonder if this will work with SMC rom hacks too.

It does, in fact, work with SMW hacks as long as the header name matches, with few hit and miss if extensive ASM and GFX hacking was done, but yeah, it does kinda work surprisingly.
I'm pretty sure this could also work for any game with a header name match, which is weird considering that using the checksum database would have made more sense, but I can't say if this was done that way to make it easier to maintain.

SeriousBandicoot99 · Apr 28, 2026

Is this also support Final Fantasy 3/6 and FF3/6 romhacks both .smc and ,sfc?!

lordelan · Apr 28, 2026

Great to have an old friend back.
Dunno if I'm going to use it and whether I like the enhancements or not but ZSNES was my entry point to Street Fighter in general and other great SNES games on PC.

DeadSkullzJr · Apr 28, 2026

Tested Super ZSNES. Definitely some bugs that need to be squashed. Overall everything I chucked at it was playable, even a few ROM hacks. Some users report about having input lag, I personally didn't feel any bad input lag on my end. The graphical features aren't anything to write home about right now. Most of them we've been doing for decades now, albeit with more sophisticated options available. I suspect that these features will mature over time as the emulator gets better. Not entirely enthusiastic about the newer interface aesthetics, but I'm sure that will mature as time goes on too, we will see. I remember juggling between ZSNES and Snes9x when I was younger, so it's honestly neat to see ZSNES come back in some form, even if it's a little weird for the moment lol.

Evilengine · Apr 28, 2026

Really cool to see the developer coming back with it, almost nostalgic.
And I was thinking SNES emulation is pretty much fully developed, but this seems like the beginning of something bigger.

This is interesting, if you really want to modify games and have new ideas, like bigger field of view or stereo 3D. I also prefer hard raster CRT look over soft filter but with the ability to draw your own, could be fun to create new games based on existing ones.

Flame · Apr 28, 2026

Wow; thats super!

Blasingame · Apr 28, 2026

I think taking advantage of the GPU is a smart move. Much more headroom with VRAM and less street on the CPU. Perhaps in future iterations they can focus on cycle accurate emulation and the use of shaders.

gbazone · Apr 28, 2026

I remember loading up the DOS version of this in like 1998. Hell, the first GBA emulator was DOS as well (DOS in Windows anyway).

The Real Jdbye · Apr 28, 2026

I don't like the UI. It doesn't look retro, it looks like they just discovered Photoshop and used the bevel/emboss effect and slapped some other random effects on top. It just looks cheapened.

The original UI perfectly captured the 16-bit aesthetic and this doesn't do a very good job at that. The font choice in particular is questionable.
I understand that the font was probably chosen for readability but it looks so fugly that it shouldn't be the default. If they want to have a high readability font as a secondary option that's fine.
Hopefully it can be themed, so that you can replace the font with a more appropriate one, and make the whole thing more low res, so that it actually looks 16-bit.

Ettino · Apr 28, 2026

The SDD1 games, Star Ocean and Street Fighter Alpha 2 are not support with this version FYI. I remember those 2 are pretty hard to emulate back in the old days. Haven't try Super FX games yet.

shadowflare7799 · Apr 28, 2026

Over the years I preferred snes9x but this is pretty cool what the zsnes team is doing now. Anyway, I have such nostalgia over the zsnes emulator takes me back to 2003 on the days of playing contra 3 over zsnes and zbattle.

ChronoCrossfangirl2002 · Apr 28, 2026

x65943 said:
New Vs Original

View attachment 570296

this takes me back, i had a shitty windows 7 laptop i tried upgrading to w10 one night years back because it could barely run SMW

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