What emulators do you prefer?

[Chaos.Tiki]

On my everlasting hunt to improve the ol Artcade Console, I came to GameEx. Now I see there is a heafty list of emulators and was wondering, what emulators does everyone here prefer for their setup?

Right now I got ZSNES, Nestopia, Project 64, and Kega Fusion.

[Adultery]

Swap ZSNES for bSNES.

I use pSX and love me some Future Pinball. MESS does a great job on Atari stuff too.

[nullPointer]

It's a pretty broad question that comes up every so often. There are definitely a few solid favorites (bsnes is a widely respected emulator project for example), but for the most part it's pretty subjective. Here are a couple of good places to start:

fRequEnCy's emulator reccomendations

Headkaze started a thread a while back asking for emulator ratings. As you can see the answers are fairly wide ranging.

Possibly the best answer is to try out different emulators and pick the ones that work best for you. Interface, configurability, accuracy, and performance will likely all play a role here, but different users place different values on each of those categories.

One thing I've discovered is that for more modern systems (PlayStation / N64 and newer), it's often preferable to run a few different emulators depending on what game you're running (at least where multiple emulators exist for a system). For example, I give Project64 1.7 preference for N64 emulation, but 1964 seems to be the only emulator that runs GoldenEye correctly on my system, and Mupen64 seems to be just about the only emulator in existence that can run Shadows of the Empire correctly from start to finish (without altering settings mid-game). Here's a fantastic guide for suggested emulators/configurations for N64 emulation:

Bighead’s N64 Multiple Game Configuration List

You'll likely find similar situations for PlayStation emulation.

Getting back to the original question here are some of my favorite emulators, simply based on being quality software in thier own right. I'll toss out a couple obvious ones and some less obvious suggestions which are brilliant software none-the-less:

BlueMSX: The interface for this emulator is simply fantastic; at no point was I left scratching my head (certainly can't say that for many legacy computer system emulators)

BGB: Some users just use VirtualBoy Advanced for all GameBoy emulation which is fine and good, but one needs to remember that the GBA itself wasn't entirely accurate to the original GameBoy / GBC hardware. For my money BGB is the best GB / GBC emulator on the grounds that it emulates those systems and only those systems.

VBA-M: Speaking of VBA, this is actually my preferred emulator for GBA. It's an offshoot of VBA whose aim was to correct some of the bugs remaining in that emulator, as well as add features to the already extensive set of features offered by the original VBA.

Mednafen: Learning curve is a bitch (although that certainly shouldn't dissuade the discerning emulation enthusiast), but this one is brilliant for PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 and Virtual Boy. Plus this one is actively updated.

ScummVM: One of the premier emulation projects around.

Kat5200: The most accurate Atari 5200 emulator I've found, not much else to say.

Stella: Same as above but for Atari 2600

ParaJVE: More of a simulator than an emulator. This thing just offers a really cool approximation of playing games on a Vectrex, complete with simulations of the original overlays. There's even an option to simulate the characteristic buzzing of the old Vectrex machines. This is also one of the few projects showing that Java is in fact a viable platform for emulation, so there's that.

Any how, the most important thing is to have fun, and see what's out there. Good luck.

[Adultery]

I agree on Stella and kat5200 for sure, but since these emulators are rarely played on my cabinet MESS does a good enough job for me.

Need Bliss on the other hand for INTV because I love me some "voice rom" action! (It's not as pleasing as it sounds).

I need to try 1964 though, because it bums me out that we can't play GoldenEye. You know if it does a good job with Perfect Dark too then? Loved that game!

[nullPointer]

Yep, I also use 1964 for Perfect Dark. I use the configuration suggested by BigHead seen at the link above. Seems to run very well, although I haven't played it from start to finish on 1964 (as opposed to GoldenEye). Never had any significant glitches.

[fRequEnCy]

NonMAME and NonMESS are great sources that I read frequently. Also there are many emulator sites out there that have ratings that the emulation community vote on. Google some sites will give you some examples. Also search turned up this post that links to a few topics with the same subject. Also feel free to ask about which systems you're curious about and we'll try our best to help.

[Chaos.Tiki]

So from what I reading, It seems that I should utilize both N64 emulators depending on the job. It also seems widely accepted that BSNES is the way to go for SNES games.

The SEGA Genisis emulator seems to be fine. But I do wonder about NES. I don't really like Nestopia that much.

Thanks for all the feedback. I'll start looking though all the links posted.

[nullPointer]

Yeah, you should definitely be good to go for Genesis emulation with Fusion (as well as SMS, Game Gear, 32X, and Sega CD!). Fusion is awesome.

I prefer nestopia myself, but if that’s not floating your boat you could give FCEUX a whirl. I’ve also heard people giving VirtuaNES and Jnes positive feedback, but I’ve not tried either of those. For that matter I know more recent versions of bsnes support some degree of NES emulation, but once again I haven't used bsnes for the purpose of NES emulation (what can I say, I really like nestopia).

[Adultery]

I too really dig NEStopia, and have tried many. I use it for VS games too.