What is your favorite Nintendo emulator?

[Ninja_with_ Glasses]

Which Nintendo emulator is your favorite?

[treismac]

Being able to adjust the level of scan lines in the VirtuaNES gives it the edge.

[Bloodreign]

Either my toaster or top loader NES systems are best emulator!

[BetaWolf47]

I switch between Nestopia and FCE Ultra X, depending on my mood. One of them has slight input lag, for whatever reason. You can't really go wrong with either one, or VirtuaNES and RockNES.

[Berserker]

The Windows version of Nestopia is the best that I've tried. I say "Windows version" because the program is vastly different on other platforms - the Linux version (last I tried it) was pretty barebones, and the Mac version is done by Bannister which means you're expected to pay to unlock full functionality.

Neither seem to have certain features I like most about the Windows version, such as adjustable screen borders and support for custom palettes (so I can't use FirebrandX's fucking fantastic NTSC palette (http://www.firebrandx.com/downloads/fbx2pal.zip)).

Probably the one thing I don't like about the Windows version is that it resets your control configuration if you happen to start it up without having your USB controller plugged in, which is kind of annoying, but I still think it's the best.

[Drixxel]

NESten has been my go-to NES emulator for years now, although I keep FCE Ultra around.

[NE146]

Whatever the one on the Xbox is.. a port of FCE Ultra I believe. It's just 10x better to shove that on a tv and be able to play it wherever like it was an actual console rather than sitting at a computer (and yes I know some of you have a computer next to your entertainment center TV).

[Sparkster]

FCEU for sure. Of course you MUST use the actual console to play the game as it's meant to be played, but for ways that the games were not meant to be played (in other words mega-cheating), FCEU wins hands down for me.

Just a few things I've done thanks to FCEU:
Finished Dragon Warrior 1 in about 2 minutes
Finished Mike Tyson with a single punch
Permanent starman in SMB
Finished Transformers - you know that crappy Famicom game where you don't even want to play anymore after 30 seconds

[treismac]

Finished Transformers - you know that crappy Famicom game where you don't even want to play anymore after 30 seconds

I understand playing a crappy game for a minute or two just for the hell of it, but what compelled you to finish Transformers for the Famicom?

[Sparkster]

I understand playing a crappy game for a minute or two just for the hell of it, but what compelled you to finish Transformers for the Famicom?

I love Transformers. But this was one of the worst games ever. Finding out that I could use FCEU to get to the last level was very useful, 1 shot kill the final boss, and also find the invulnerability cheat.

Finding these codes makes crappy games somewhat tolerable. And so sometimes you just want to see the ending just to get it out of your life!

[treismac]

And so sometimes you just want to see the ending just to get it out of your life!

Yeah, man. I'm with you on that one.

[Hwj_Chim]

Nestopia runs at full speed and runs all of the roms I have. So no reason to look for another emulator.

[treismac]

I checked out Nestopia out of curiosity, and I have found it wanting in an important area of emulation: handling speed blur. In a game like Adventure Island II, the background starts blurring/waving a bit when master Higgins starts haulin' ass- especially when he hops on a skateboard. I don't get this at all on the original hardware and it is barely noticeable on the FCE Ultra and even less noticeable on the VirtuaNES. Maybe I need a more powerful graphics card or a faster computer to use Nestopia to its fullest. Anyone care to experiment and compare notes?

[Berserker]

I checked out Nestopia out of curiosity, and I have found it wanting in an important area of emulation: handling speed blur. In a game like Adventure Island II, the background starts blurring/waving a bit when master Higgins starts haulin' ass- especially when he hops on a skateboard. I don't get this at all on the original hardware and it is barely noticeable on the FCE Ultra and even less noticeable on the VirtuaNES. Maybe I need a more powerful graphics card or a faster computer to use Nestopia to its fullest. Anyone care to experiment and compare notes?

I've run it for years on my moldy old 2.2ghz Athlon machine that has a cheapo Geforce 6600 in it and I've never seen any kind of blurring with Nestopia, or any NES emulator. The fact that you're seeing it on all of them to some extent leads me to believe that it might be an issue with your monitor.

Do you have any non-emulated games you can test on it? You'll want something that runs at 60fps (since that's what all of these NES emulators are running at - that could be what your monitor's having trouble with) that can get things moving around really fast on the screen.

[treismac]

I've run it for years on my moldy old 2.2ghz Athlon machine that has a cheapo Geforce 6600 in it and I've never seen any kind of blurring with Nestopia, or any NES emulator. The fact that you're seeing it on all of them to some extent leads me to believe that it might be an issue with your monitor.

Do you have any non-emulated games you can test on it? You'll want something that runs at 60fps (since that's what all of these NES emulators are running at - that could be what your monitor's having trouble with) that can get things moving around really fast on the screen.

I don't really have much in the way of PC games besides some retro game collections- nothing where the character (er... screen) runs as fast as Adventure Island at any rate. What I will do is take a flash drive with a the different emulators and some roms, and test them on one of the computers at the computer lab at my alma mater.

[treismac]

I have noticed that Nestopia has a far superior picture to FCE Ultra and the VirtuaNES. I can only imagine this is due to the RGB Palette it uses. Do any other emulators have RGB settings?

[treismac]

I don't really have much in the way of PC games besides some retro game collections- nothing where the character (er... screen) runs as fast as Adventure Island at any rate. What I will do is take a flash drive with a the different emulators and some roms, and test them on one of the computers at the computer lab at my alma mater.

Well... the computers or at least their monitors were worse than mine at home. I suppose I will have to stick with emulator that work best with my out of date technology.

[RP2A03]

Well... the computers or at least their monitors were worse than mine at home. I suppose I will have to stick with emulator that work best with my out of date technology.

I don't know much about emulators, but it may be possible that the blur you are experiencing is caused by a filter. It may also be caused by a slow monitor or retinal retention. Have you tried using a cathode ray?

[dgdgagdae]

Interesting thread, I was about to start a similar one, but luckily I searched first.

I've used Nestopia, but I have terrible screen tear with it when I go full-screen. If I turn on v-sync, then it has input lag. I saw input lag mentioned earlier, whoever that was may want to try turning off v-sync. Any advice here would be greatly appreciated. I've never been able to turn off the screen tearing without experiencing input lag.

FCE Ultra doesn't work well for me. If I go full-screen, the palette gets all messed up. The same thing happens if I use Nester.

I see that NesterJ has gotten a few votes. I've tried it and it worked well. It just looked immature.