What Emulators Are You Using - 2018?

[Jagosaurus]

Yeah, I also feel resolution and ease of use on modern TVs/monitors often gets overlooked when discussing the pros of emulation.

The XRGB type set ups are chasing that clean emu look from real hardware. I agree, it's often 2 dichotomous camps on the web but lots of here on RB use both.

I agree the SNES composite signal does fair better but take another look at the information block grid & Yoshi's saddle. Definitely crisper in emu.

I need to take a comparison shot of PS1. When I booted up Crash Bandicoot in ePSXe via VGA it looked very sharp. Interested to see the side by side! Screen shot might not do 3D polygons in action as much justice as footage though.

[chuckster]

So I probably will need to look more into that Wii Homebrew thing or how hard is it to get a retropi set up? Though before I even think about a retropi need to see if my analogue snes nt will have emulator support through unofficial firmware

As far as the Pi vs. Wii, I'd say Pi is easier to get up and running. I used Lakka, but all I did was slap the image onto a microSD, throw some games on it, and roll. My 360 controller, iBuffalo SNES pad, and my Hori RAP3 were all plug-n-play. If you've ever dealt with Retroarch it's really quick and painless. The Wii takes a bit more doing but there are plenty of tutorials out there that make it pretty easy.

The biggest difference is in output. The Wii only outputs 480p max (as far as I know),but can easily do 240p in S-video or component for top-tier analog video. The Pi can emulate at 1080p without all that much issue. It can do high-quality 240p but it takes a bit more hardware and tweaking. I say if you're more interested in easy and cheap 240p emulation, a Wii is the way to go. For HD emulation on the cheap, a Pi is a better option. I personally use the Wii with my main retro setup and the Pi with a CRT VGA monitor.

The Analogue St should be pretty awesome, but I say a Pi or Wii is still worth it while you wait, based on price. No telling when or if that firmware will come through.

[SpikeSlania]

That and with the Wii I get Mario Kart and Brawl. Does the Wii have good SMS and GG emulation?

[JoeAwesome]

There's something more true to form on the NES composite shot, Jag. Look at the blocks at the bottom of the screen; the trees covered in webs. The emulator scrubs the details out a little too much for me.

[chuckster]

I thought this comparison would be fun. I wanted to run games and compare the composite image on a LCD vs the emulators. Everything is 4:3, not stretched. I have the emulators connected to my LCD via VGA running at 640×480.

Are those emulation shots filtered? The CV one in particulat looks like it has a smoothing filter on it.

That and with the Wii I get Mario Kart and Brawl. Does the Wii have good SMS and GG emulation?

Yes, I also forgot to mention, the Pi and Wii have different strengths when it comes to consoles covered. On Pi you get good PS1 support along with better MAME performance. The Wii on the other hand has perfect GC and (duh) Wii support, especially if you have the first model.

As for SMS and GG, I don't play them enough to say what's good, but Gens Plus GX on Wii handles Genesis extremely well, and it also has support for both SMS and GG.

[Jagosaurus]

Bushes are brought up fairly often as looking better on original hardware & CRTs. Essentially the devs had the scanlines and 240p in mind when they created that foliage look. Emus definitely round them out. I can see this being true for several other similar sprites. I see the trade off there.

I still have my family NES from 1988. It's not going anywhere but I'm going to lean on emu more and more as time goes on. I need to do some work on my NES to get it up and running but my backup works (well she is temperamental ). Hoping my original doesn't need new caps...

I'm not abandoning the real deal completely but... original hardware failing, prices of XRGB/OSSC/10+ SCART cables/adapters, prevalence of LCDs, cost of games, save states (for time sake vs difficulty), emu improving overall, & taking up less real estate in the house have all gradually pushed me to emu over the past 18 months or so.

I'll always have a soft spot for the real hardware. I'm about to drop $85 to get HDMI out of my DC

I also see it as future proofing my set up in a way. I have all the .exes, roms, isos, etc all backed up. If my emu PC died for good, I could spend $150 and have 15+ systems up and running quickly.

Worth noting the no noticeable lag with the Buffalo SNES controller really helped. Before I could always tell there was just a hair of lag & I couldn't handle it outside of RPGs. Now I can emu tight platformers with no control issues. Hoping the new Sega USB controllers are similar but not counting on it.

[chuckster]

I've gotta say, the more I become attached to original hardware, the more I emulate. They are in no way exclusive in my mind and I embrace anything that makes retro gaming easier or expands the capabilities of old games.

[SpikeSlania]

Emulation is probably also the only way I will ever be able to play games like Snatcher, Panzer Dragoon Saga, and Neo Turf Masters. Well, we could probably list most of the Neo Geo games with Neo Turf Masters I mean Panzer Dragoon Saga is a maybe if I see a deal that I couldn't refuse, but I don't see me spending $400 on a game unless it's Steel Battalion with its controller. Now we just need emulation to figure out how to do Steel Battalion

[SuperDerpBro]

RetroArch + Fave Core + CRT-EasyMode Shader + RetroAchievements.org = Win

[funk_Farmer]

RetroArch is amazingly beautiful if a person takes the time and effort to get it set up properly. I recently switched over from OSX on my iMac to Ubuntu and have been playing around with RetroArch. I use it for snes emulation but I went back to Kega Fusion for all my Sega needs. Kega is probably my favorite emulator. Great video options and stuff.

The Wii is my usual go to device for emulation. Genesis Plus, Snes 9x, both work pretty much perfectly. Genesis Plus covers everything, SMS, GG, Sega CD, it all works great. I would definitely recommend softmodding a Wii for retro needs but it hits a wall when it comes to MAME, PSX, and to my disappointment it can't emulate N64 worth a crap. It helps that a person can get 64 games using the Virtual Console but the selection is pretty limited. I've been eyeballing a RetroPi mainly for MAME but I don't know when I'll dive into that.

Emulation nowadays pretty much makes everything look better by default. I was blown away how good N64 games look. They just look sharp, crisp, vibrant. I tried a couple texture and graphics mods for Banjo Kazooie and the two Zelda games but I wasn't that into it. They already look good enough without all that stuff. Definitely some great work went into those texture packs though. PSX emulation is another thing altogether. A lot of the graphics plugins available for emus like pcsx are just amazing. They can be applied to pretty much every game and with enough messing around a person can get some crazy good results. PSX emulation is worth checking out just for the plugins alone. I love original graphics but I'm not a purist. Not every game benefits graphically from emulation but there's a lot that do.