Handheld Emulation Options: Is PSP Still On Top?

[Gunstar Hero]

Hey guys I know I usually post about 4 or 5 times a day in this forum but my newfound interest in the Sega CD has had me post a lot over at Sega-16. Also after the holidays I was extremely busy and haven't been on here that much since then but now I am going to post here and at Sega-16 more often because they're my two favorite sites .
Sorry just thought I'd get that out of the way and announce my return to activity on this forum



Ok now on to the thread:

With the arrival of many new handhelds capable of emulation, I really want to stack them up. I have a PSP 1001 with CFW and (to the best of my knowledge) the best emulators for it. NES, Genesis, Gameboy and Gameboy Color emulation is practically perfect I should get those out of the way now. My reason for looking into new handheld emulators are for N64 SNES and Sega CD emulation. SNES is pretty darn good on my PSP but certain games are abysmally slow (Super Mario RPG, every Kirby game on the system, Battletoads, Starfox just to name a few). N64 emulation is almost achievable but still slow and a battery draining nightmare. Sega CD is great on some games but awful on gems like Sonic CD and Dungeon Explorer.

My question is, what handhelds are considered better for emulation??? I know this topic has probably been discussed before but with new handhelds coming (GCW Zero has caught my attention) I thought it was time to update this question.

And by the way my question does not apply to just the systems I listed, all "retro" systems in general should be addressed when looking at the different options for handheld emulation

[jonjandran]

There are some decent one's on the market but they all have flaws.

The Yinlips YDPG29 and the DroidX360 can do Atari,Nes,Genesis,Snes,PS1, and N64 pretty much near perfect.

But neither have real analog joysticks.

The upcoming JXD S7300 is supposed to have true analog and it will play all those emulators near perfect. We'll see.

[kedawa]

I've been keeping my eyes on the JXD S7300 as well. The specs are impressive, and if they can keep the quality high and the price low, it could well be the best portable system for homebrew/emulation.

[Gunstar Hero]

I've been keeping my eyes on the JXD S7300 as well. The specs are impressive, and if they can keep the quality high and the price low, it could well be the best portable system for homebrew/emulation.

Does this run off of android apps? And if so what emulators are in the android store?

[jonjandran]

Does this run off of android apps? And if so what emulators are in the android store?

Yes Android.

There are emulators for all systems in the Android Store.

[kedawa]

And best of all, you can map touch points on the screen to physical buttons, so any game that uses a virtual dpad/buttons can be played with the physical controls, even if it doesn't support them natively.

[PreZZ]

Just get the cheapest android tablet you can find, and I use a wii classic controller pro with it. Better than psp and no cfw bullshit to install. You can also use a ps3 controller with a cheap app called sixaxis on app store. wiimote one is free as most emulators too

[PreZZ]

Also not sure psp can emulate n64 properly, tablet is pretty good with mario kart and mario 64, havent tried others yet

[TheChristoph]

There's a new machine on Kickstarter right now that looks very exciting for handheld emulation: the GCW Zero.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...aming-handheld

[Rickstilwell1]

Surprisingly enough. SNES emulation on the Nintendo DS via R4 runs a little bit better than on the PSP. The way its speed hacks work make things a little more smooth than the PSP version. It's not a 100% good emulation of the system but it's a bit more playable and even Star Fox can run.

[Dr. BaconStein]

I have been waiting for the S7300 since it was first announced back around October. It would have been nice if it was out in time for Christmas, but I'm still excited as it looks like it will finally be available this week or next week. Not only does it look like a great emulation machine, but it would make a nice 7" tablet, as I've never really owned one.

[kupomogli]

The best SNES emulators on the PSP are SNES9XTYL versions by Ruka. Ruka isn't the original creator but he/she has developed the best ones. SNES9XTYL++ Beta was the first one and you can find it online, but none of the PSP sites have it where you can download from their sites. Unfortunately Ruka's site is no longer available. Maybe you can find if you can download it from a site that still placed it on their site. Also, I'm not sure if ++ was Slim or Phat or if a future one he/she developed was Slim. Most games ran extremely well.

Just saw a comparison of PSP emulation compared to the GCW emulation on Wololo.net. Starfox runs 60fps on the GCW.

[WCP]

Emulation on the PSP is pretty good for the early stuff, but I think the screen is a problem. First, the widescreen aspect ratio is not kind to retro gaming. You either have to play it "pillarboxed" (black bars on the sides), or you have to play it in a "stretch" mode. Either way is a compromise. The second problem, is that when the level is scrolling, you get this garbled mess of pixels on the screen that just looks crappy.

Now, I may be off base here, but I think I heard something about how the final version of the PSP's screen doesn't have the garbled mess problem. I have the old school original, so I'm only going by my experience with that. Still, nothing can be done about the aspect ratio. I want to play 4:3 games on a 4:3 screen.

[IHatedSega]

I cant wait for the Vita to be cracked.

[kupomogli]

I've been keeping my eyes on the JXD S7300 as well. The specs are impressive, and if they can keep the quality high and the price low, it could well be the best portable system for homebrew/emulation.

It's showing for preorder on one site for $150.00. The screen is much larger with widescreen instead of full, higher resolution, dual analog, and better specs than the other handheld posted here. It all depends on whether it's a well built product or cheaply constructed.

This one has had multiple products, so you could always check out the product quality of the previous versions.

I don't buy into this stuff when I have a PC that could do the same thing. Although if it's easy enough to do other systems or portables I own without jumping through any difficult hoops, I'll do it for my other systems.

[DK1105]

For emulation on a handheld I only really use my phone. I still have an old G2 and it runs most emulators without any problem. If you are going to be using emulators though a slide out keyboard is a must. Not really a fan of touch controls.

[TheRedEye]

With all of the Windows 8 tablets at CES this year I'm holding out for one of those with a clip-on USB gamepad.

[o.pwuaioc]

There's a new machine on Kickstarter right now that looks very exciting for handheld emulation: the GCW Zero.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...aming-handheld

Except it doesn't do N64.

[Gunstar Hero]

Except it doesn't do N64.

Thats what I was worried about when considering the GCW Zero.

It looks like tablets are the way to go so far but how are jailbroken iPhones? I have an iPhone and am hesitant about jailbreaking it but if it gives good emulation...

[The Dord]

Looks like the GCW zero will pass its original goal!