What Emulators Are You Using - 2018?

[marlowe221]

I have used emulators on and of for years now. Once I started expanding my collection of original carts, I used emulation on my PC as a way to test games - I didn't want to spend my limited retro game budget on a game that I would never want to actually play.

But at this point, I am finding that maintaining old hardware is becoming more and more of a chore. Lately, my 7800 has developed an odd controller issue that is most likely caused by a cold solder joint that needs to be reflowed. As simple as that repair is, my desire to actually take the console apart and reflow the joint (which might not even be the problem) is pretty low.

I just want to play the damn games!

The idea of a Pi set up is pretty appealing. But what about input lag and/or display lag on a modern screen? Is that an issue on the Pi 3?

[Jagosaurus]

Lag is going to depend on the TV itself and the controller from my emulator experience.

[Sarge]

Emulators can introduce that lag, too. I don't know how it is on the Pi, but with the SNES Classic, the default emulator has lower input lag that Retroarch. The TV is usually the biggest chunk, though; if you've got a Game Mode, use it. On my TV, it drops the lag from an unconscionable 118.1 ms to 26.5 ms.

[Xeogred]

I'd love to get a PVM.

[samsonlonghair]

I'd love to get a PVM.

You and me both. My old 27' Trinitron was great when I found it, but now I want to scale down to something that fits on a bookshelf.

[Xeogred]

Checking out bsnes v.075 right now since Super Mario All-Stars seems terrible in snes9x.

So far I'm digging it. Which video driver do you guys prefer? It defaults to Direct3D and I can't really see a difference when I change it, but there's also no confirmation so I don't know if it's even changing? (it's easy to see the changes in snes9x)

Smooth Video, turned that off right away and looks better. Not really sure what Synchronize Video and Synchronize Audio are about.

[Tanooki]

There is an interesting maintained fork of bsnes called bsnes-classic. Runs nicer than higan, but has the benefits of it.

[sevin0seven]

Here's my list of what I currently used on pc:

Mesen - NES/FC - emulator that enables hdpack (custom highres) on NES:

sample:

Mega Man(first one)

..it is also known to passes more test ROMs than any other emulator currently available. Great options that includes save states, online play, cheats, movies, rewinding, overclocking, remove sprite limit, custom palettes, stereo effects, and much more.

Phoenix Project - 3DO & Jaguar - probably the best 3DO emulator i've used (better than FreeDo imo). Jaguar emulators compatibility is also high. Also support Colecovision, SG-100.

Kega Fusion - Genesis/32x/CD, etc - Indeed, the best Sega console emulator out there.

TeknoParrot - Arcade - able to play select Arcade games; mostly racing, shmp, fighting games. (ex. Samurai Showdown - Edge of Destiny, Intital D Arcade Stage 6, Mario Kart Arcade GP DX, Raiden III/IV, etc)

MAME32UI - Arcade - the version I used.

ePSXe - PS1 - love the options on this emulator, still best out there.

PPSSPP - PSP - when I want to play PSP game on a bigger screen still improving

Project64 64DD - N64/N64DD - because I can play N64 and N64DD games on PC

mGBA - GBA - As of yet, it's the most complete GBA emulation effort.

Citra - 3DS - still WIP; but I like what I can play so far.

Dolphin - Wii/Gamecube -

[Tanooki]

Is Citra finally to a level that really has some good support? I haven't checked on it in a year. I know it had been low compatibility and pretty slow even on i7 type hardware. Also I don't recall if it needed a BIOS download or if it just ran around that internally.

MGBA I had never heard of before, that I'd like to try as that old vgba thing that died years ago had an -X fork that was good but that went dead too. Marat with this emulator is pretty solid, but he's more general I think with things not that that is a bad thing but it took the guy like 15 years to actually bother re-writing sound core for his older Nintendo emulators which sounded awful and now are great.

[Jagosaurus]

I'd love to get a PVM.

You and me both. My old 27' Trinitron was great when I found it, but now I want to scale down to something that fits on a bookshelf.

Better be a deep bookshelf. Those guys are long.

@seven, great list.