NES Emulator

[jhollon]

I have FCU i think and have tried nestcle with no sucess. Can someone out there tell me the NES emulator that works best with GameEx and is easy to work with? Also tell which version number if you don't mind.

thanks,

jeff

[rootnik]

I've been playing around with gameex for the past couple of days. I've tried just about every emulator, and I think fceu works the best with it.

FCEU isn't my favorite emulator for NES, but it plays nice with Gameex.

[WTB]

I use VirtuaNES and it works fine. I've never had any issues. The version number is .92.

-Matt

[rootnik]

I use VirtuaNES and it works fine. I've never had any issues. The version number is .92.

  -Matt

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I checked that emulator out earlier today. It gave me some kind of warning everytime I loaded the rom. I do have version .90 though.... i'll find a newer version.

Right now I am looking at Nestopia. LOTS of options here that FCEU doesn't have, and it seems to run some games better.

[rootnik]

.92 does the same thing (gives a popup message at the load of every rom)

How we you able to get around this?

There seems to be at least 1 thing that is wrong with every emulator I try.

Jnes - doesn't exit completely... just unloads the rom, no commandline support

FCEU - runs some games to fast

Nestopia - Runs WAY to fast in full screen mode if you have the menu bar hidden (ran SMB3 at 260 FPS!)

RockNES - uses a launcher, command line support too limited

VirtuaNES - Popup message after loading rom

I've also tried these and ran into problems that I can't remember off the top of my head right now:

Nesticle

Nester

Edit: I've played around with Nestopia some more, got it running very good. I'm sticking with this one

[WTB]

... Interesting. I've never had any popups using virtuanes. I don't even know what you're talking about. But... I did check out nestopia and I think I'm going to switch. It seems to have a lot more "finish" to it as well as some extra options.

-Matt

[rootnik]

... Interesting. I've never had any popups using virtuanes. I don't even know what you're talking about. But... I did check out nestopia and I think I'm going to switch. It seems to have a lot more "finish" to it as well as some extra options.

  -Matt

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hey Matt,

Here are some tips to save you a little time with Nestopia:

The command line option "-view show menu : no" doesn't work.

You can get around this by putting {ESC} in the "Emu Keys to Send" field in your Gameex emulator settings. Don't use a dely in these settings. A delay may cause GameEx to exit the emu.

Change your timing options in Nestopia to "auto frame skip" if you have problems with games running too fast in full screen mode.

The ONLY problem I am having now is getting the mouse to hide during emulation. I'll figure that out soon enough...

Edit: Mouse Pointer Solution

Download this and unzip: http://storage.gate2.net/MH_1.2.zip

Run the MouseHider program, click options and set it to minimize and run on system tray. Set seconds to 1. Close the program.

In the GameEx config program, set "Emu_# Also Launch" to MouseHider.exe

Set "Emu_# Launch After" to: taskkill /im mousehider.exe

save and exit.

thats all!

[djrobx]

FCEU - runs some games to fast

Which games? FCEU runs every game I've tried flawlessly here.

Go to dxdiag and force the refresh rates to 60hz. Then enable Vsync in FCEU. You'll get silky smooth scrolling. Also try the HQ2X mode, it's fantastic for the NES games.

I used Nestopia for quite a long time before FCEU. For some reason it just will not update as smoothly as FCEU (the game that really got me to switch was Zanac AI). The {ESC} trick works most of the time but not always. I am MUCH happier with FCEU now that I have it configured right. I am using the latest "stable" version (there's a newer but less stable version).

-- Rob

[rootnik]

Which games?  FCEU runs every game I've tried flawlessly here. 

Go to dxdiag and force the refresh rates to 60hz.  Then enable Vsync in FCEU.  You'll get silky smooth scrolling.  Also try the HQ2X mode, it's fantastic for the NES games.

I used Nestopia for quite a long time before FCEU.  For some reason it just will not update as smoothly as FCEU (the game that really got me to switch was Zanac AI).  The {ESC} trick works most of the time but not always.  I am MUCH happier with FCEU now that I have it configured right.  I am using the latest "stable" version (there's a newer but less stable version).

-- Rob

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for the tip w/ dxdiag.

Super Mario Bros was one of the games the FCEU was running to fast for me.

I'm pretty happy with Nestopia right now though. It has a few options that FCEU doesn't, such as screen clipping. FCEU left an ugly 8 pixel border on the left side of my screen on some games. Nestopia does the same thing, but gives me the option of clipping those 8 pixels off the screen.

As for {ESC}, it hasn't let me down yet. I even did some testing and set the delay to 5000. It hid the menu and did not exit. The Author has done a great job thinking out possible conflicting situations with the sendkeys functions.

[djrobx]

SMB works perfect with FCEU here. It's one of the games I play the most!

[BlueBull]

I've been using FCEU for 2 or 3 years now. When some of the early versions were too buggy I used jnes as an alternative for the games that wouldn't run. But with the latest version of FCEU everything is rock solid!

[nintari]

I cant seem to get some games to load right....

for example when launching Metroid (U).zip it says can not load (U).zip

In FCEUlra it runs fine... what should I putin for the exe?

[djrobx]

Sounds like you may need to put quotes around the ROM name.

[nintari]

Ok I got it I had quotes inthe wrong place

now all I need is to get ESC to work to go back to gameex

[djrobx]

Set MapKeys = true

-- Rob

[hab]

I use jnes no problems 1.42

[Smiff]

only prob i have with FCEU is that it switches res too many times when starting up.. um this is nothing to do with gameex.. any ideas please anyone?

edit: actually a bigger problem with FCEU, which i should probably be asking on FCEU forum but ill ask here once excuse me, is that with Vsync on audio is very bad, and with it off video is not smooth.. anyone have any ideas about this please? ive tried fiddling with buffer size and secondary buffer etc.

[djrobx]

Is your refresh rate set to 60hz? Run dxdiag and go to the More Help tab. Click override... and input 60hz.

Triple Buffering is a better alternative to Vsync, if your video card supports it. It prevents tearing just as well, but without the CPU usage penalty.

I have not seen any problems with the way FCEU does resolution changes. The only problem I had with it was that it remembers game controllers by GUID, which means if you switch USB ports, you'd have to re-define your settings. I took the source and fixed that though.

-- Rob

[Smiff]

thanks, but i have refresh rates managed by powerstrip, as i have to for proper TV output.

so emulators i just set to use the correct res that ive already set in powerstrip.

no other emus have problems with this strangely. i'll have to check my refresh rates, perhaps FCEU is supersenstive to slight differences in rate.

triple buffer isnt available in the FCEU menu (its: Wait for Vblack, lazy wait for VBlank and Double Buffer). I use triple buffer for pj64 and zsnes to name two, but all other emus sound basically fine whatever i do.. this is some particular peculiarity with FCEU.. i noticed it was fine windowed and not full screen, then realised it was the different buffering that was related.

weirdly though, even with the vsync options on, FCEU (unlike other emus again) still doesnt run smooth, lots of pausing and tearing.

so somethings wrong i cant figure out what atm :/

edit: and watch closely when FCEU starts, it does two res switches - desktop to fullscreen to desktop to fullscreen. you might only notice this when you're vnc'd into the machine?

edit2: about "remembers game controllers by GUID" - gah, do any emus not do this? it seems a very common problem. you don't want to publish that source do you?

[djrobx]

FCEU is the only emulator I use that remembers controllers by GUID. All the rest remember it by controller number (most are using SDL anyway). I know because I run them on several machines over a network, and that made it impossible to share the same config on two machines. The config would show joystick # 255 instead of # 0 when the joystick "moved".

Looking at my config it seems I'm using the "double buffering" setting, and it works perfectly with no tearing.

I've attached my modified binary and along with the source changes for the game controller.

fceu_nojguid.zip

[Smiff]

sorry i didn't realize what GUID was.

ok i've got VirtuaNES to apparently work ok (except for some emulation issues e.g. whats the borders on left and right Mario 3?)

you can set it to Exit on Escape by pressing SHIFT+ESC in its key config (hurray for engrish manuals).

then doesn't need MapKeys and seems to integrate with GameEx ok..

the mysterious sound problem seems unique to FCEU.

[Smiff]

ooh i think i see the problem with VirtuaNES:

"Because a NES header is illegal

There can be the thing that does not work normally

Do execute?"

error on loading some roms. damn. and you get stuck not being able to see the error or to get back to GameEx.

whats the easiest way to remove this (either fix the header or kill the msg), anyone know? doesnt seem to be an emu option for it.

roms did check out with GoodNES. games seem fine despite this warning. i don't understand the NES header i guess ill have to learn some more..

[djrobx]

Maybe you can just sendkeys in an <enter> to clear the dialog? Hitting <enter> shouldn't hurt if the dialog doesn't appear, no?

[Smiff]

thats a good plan. i was going to edit the source to remove the check (or that dialogue), dont even have any dev stuff set up atm and not keen

virtuanes is open source though. btw that check was added to vNES about v.62 or something.

edit: ok sendkeys={enter} seems to work with a delaybeforekeys of 1000, its not totally slick but itll do for now.. until someone compiles a build of virtuanes without that check

god i love gameex.