What Emulators Are You Using - 2018?

[isiolia]

A newer, but middle of the road PC, used with Windows would run ~$150 from PC Liquidations so there's cost as well (compared to ~$40 for Pi).

So, I get the Pi appeal. Just hasn't been the right timing for me personally with multiple existing options I own. Even then, I'll be tempted to go with another dedicated emu PC once mine dies.

At this point, a Core2 system can be had for little more than a Pi3 would cost, if any. $150 can get you a half decent Ivy Bridge machine, which is still a solid platform in general (all of my "good" machines at home are that era). Might take a little more knowledge when shopping though, especially compared to buying a Pi3 starter kit on Amazon all day any day for a set price.

Even so, I've had several Pis, and if I want to emulate something in the living room I tend to just use a Pi3 with RetroPie, at least right now. It's great to be able to grab a prebuilt SD card image and have it just work (if you're not super picky I guess). All I mean is that, if I was finding that not up to the task, I would just go straight for PC hardware instead of trying other single board computers.

[Jagosaurus]

Sure. Budget PC build for an emulator machine could be a cool dedicated thread.

You can one click ship for about $150, just rough figures. Of course we could piece together a more capable rig for a lower cost with online sales and ebay.

I've watched some really cool videos on YouTube of RetroArch running on Android TV set top boxes. This little box could also be your YouTube, Plex, OTT TV, Netflix, Hulu, etc device. Honestly surprised we haven't seen more of a push for that. Upgrade every couple of years.

Too many potential projects . Sometimes I have to remind myself to chill out & play the games

Still on my list to try SS & DC emu soon. I read SSF comes with some added bloatware and/or spyware these days. I'll be trying Yaba & nullDC.

[chuckster]

@Tanooki, I've never got anything working outside of FreeDO. I think 4DO gave me DirectX errors and/or not loading isos. I didn't know there was some newer options. On FreeDO I've tried 3 or 4 games, and they've all ran fine.

Regarding the Pi setups, have you guys seen the Odroid? I'm not expert on this scene but looks like a similar device with 2GHz processor versus 1.2GHz (pi3), and 2GB RAM versus 1 GB RAM (pi3). A decent jump for an extra $28.

Some guys on another forum I frequent (a college football forum mainly believe it on not) are using these now. They made the jump from the pi3 to better run N64 & PS1. I have no experience with either device so not sure how the loading of GUI/OS would differ for emulators, if any.

I personally wanted a Pi over the Odroid or Beaglebone because of the community. I knew from modding the Wii that It's not as easy to find non-PC emulator troubleshooting advice and I was worried that BB or Odroid would be worse (they may have identical instructions as the Pi, I don't know). This has already came in handy when I was having trouble setting up PC-Engine CD and PC98 emulation on the Pi. I also had my eye on the RetroTink for high quality analog output and as far as I know it's only been tested with the Pi.

In the end PS1 and MAME were my main concern and they both run fine for what I want to play, and much better than the Wii, so I'm pretty happy. I certainly wouldn't say a Pi is the best option out there but as a fun, portable addition to the setup it has been great so far. I even brought it over to a friend's birthday party last weekend and we had a blast through composite on a small CRT. It was much easier to pack than the Wii as well.

EDIT: I also say a guide to emulation with various machines and emulators would be a very welcome addition to the site, but a bear to research thoroughly and keep up to date.

[Jagosaurus]

I was going to start diving into USB controller options by system, which emus support analog sticks, etc. Think it would helpful to start a separate thread for that instead? We could cover some options for each platform emu and keep folks from having to dig through this thread on the emulators themselves.

So far we've brought up the Buffalo SNES pad, the iNext 64 USB controller, & Mayflash USB adpater for Genesis and N64. There are also certain atari emulators that have support for specific adapters and controllers. The Retro Freak controller adapter is recognized by PCs. I think there's a solid dedicated discussion we could tackle. I also want to know which controllers and device to avoid!

[SpikeSlania]

I always have been original hardware or bust. But now I'm starting to come around to the idea of emulating since I have realized my collection is going to last what? 10-30 more years before cd rot and decay take them So I'm looking for a more console approach to emulation. I do have Analogue's snes preordered, so if the unofficial firmware from their nes makes the jump to their snes I will probably be all over that. Also was thinking about buying a Wii and trying to set up the homebrew channel, I'm tempted by their DOS ports that support controller use. I do have 2 pcs with my older xp running magic engine and mednafen with a Mayflash Saturn usb adapter, but haven't touched it since I bought a pc engine duo I'm weird like that with running emulator's on pc not holding my attention, but Sega throws a bunch of genesis roms on a ps3 disc, and I'm hooked

[Jagosaurus]

I always have been original hardware or bust. But now I'm starting to come around to the idea of emulating since I have realized my collection is going to last what? 10-30 more years before cd rot and decay take them So I'm looking for a more console approach to emulation. I do have Analogue's snes preordered, so if the unofficial firmware from their nes makes the jump to their snes I will probably be all over that. Also was thinking about buying a Wii and trying to set up the homebrew channel, I'm tempted by their DOS ports that support controller use. I do have 2 pcs with my older xp running magic engine and mednafen with a Mayflash Saturn usb adapter, but haven't touched it since I bought a pc engine duo I'm weird like that with running emulator's on pc not holding my attention, but Sega throws a bunch of genesis roms on a ps3 disc, and I'm hooked

I previously had a XP PC I saved from work being used as my dedicated emu PC connected to my TV. It was a legacy customer voice mail system headed to the recycling bin that found its way to my truck . It was more than enough juice to run up through 5th gen.

What you'll run into is Direct X issues. Current emus are looking for a version of DX above what is compatible with XP (maxes at DX 9 IIRC).

I was stuck hunting down old versions/builds of emus released during XP hay-day which obviously were behind the times in accuracy, compatibility, & features.

Bc of this, I ended up then saving a Windows 7 PC from work . Much better experience. I know eventually I'll have to upgrade it when Direct X outpaces W7.

Now, XP can run older PC games in compatibility mode. That's a plus!

[Tanooki]

Despite the fact I generally don't emulate anymore I had that list. I have been fairly regularly since I got the Core Grafx II firing up the Magic Engine emulator in short bursts. You can only mine out so much reviews/data on the old games as it's not a hip/cool thing for everyone to make a site over into overkill like Nintendo and Sega stuff.

Having a smokemonster package of PCE/TG stuff you can just throw that against trusty old Magic Engine and really work things out. It's fun having a moment of discovery I have been unable to really experience as a 'new' thing from a dead console probably going on 15 years now. I mean yeah I had that Duo back in the day but the US TG library is shit outside of a few gems on those HuCards but the PC Engine has a wall of amazing stuff their horrible management denied us (NEC was a stupid as Sega was with Tonka in the SMS era.)

[Jagosaurus]

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.

To be honest, I was surprised. When I start playing in composite, I know it doesn't look as good as the emus but whoa... big side by side difference. S video does improve the composite image but I'd say it's a 20% improvement at best. Of course, your mileage will vary on each TV.

If you're not going to drop the money on a XRGB or OSSC RGB to HDMI setup and you're not keeping a CRT around, I think these images speak for themselves...

NES Composite on LCD


NES Emulator on LCD


4 more examples in spoiler tab

Genesis Composite


Genesis Emulator

Notice the word "out"

Genesis Composite


Genesis Emulator


SNES Composite


SNES Emulator

[chuckster]

This is a huge perk of emulation that is glossed over most of the time. PQ on most modern emulators and advanced shaders will be excellent and equal to or better than original hardware in some cases. A $150 discarded office PC can provide video quality that can surpass that of a $200-400 scaler with original hardware.

Of course these two solutions are the end result of two very different mindsets, so they are not strictly comparable. I'd say the person waiting on an OSSC or BVM has already decided emulation is not acceptable.

But for those just getting into retro gaming--especially on a flat-panel--dumping your games to ROMs and setting up an emulation PC can be a very high-quality gaming experience.

[SpikeSlania]

I can't really see a difference in your snes comparison shots Get the Super Mario World hack for Genesis and take pictures of that! But yeah, I will be moving in a week and won't have space for a desk to set up my pc since I decided on having 2 recliners instead in front of my tv 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