Question about SNES emus

[thepenguin55]

Which is considered the best? I always hear about SNES9x. What is the latest version of SNES9x? I mostly want it so I can play Satellaview games.

[Miretank]

snes9X and zsnes are the most popular I guess. Both of them have a great compatibility rate. The advantage of zsnes over snes9x IMO is that the emu is updated oftenly. You can find it here: www.zsnes.com/ .

SNES9X's latest version is 1.43 for Windows and 1.50 for Linux.

[Agozer]

Snes9x 1.502 has a Windows build.

[ScottJC]

ZSnes is better. I hate snes9x's sound and gui.

[Doomulation]

ZSnes is better. I hate snes9x's sound and gui.

Beg to differ. What's best is all about everyone's opinion. ZSnes and Snes9X is pretty much just as good, both of them.

[Clements]

bsnes is more accurate than both apart from certain special chip games (notably SA-1 and SuperFX1/2) and special controller games (Multitap, Mouse, Scope). The accuracy is about 99.9% with those excluded, as all games dumped have now been tested with it. The sound is much better with bsnes over ZSNES/Snes9x, and bsnes has some nice custom video options as well.

However, basically due to the precision of the emulation, the emu does not implement triple buffering perfectly, so all sorts of sound problems can occur when it is enabled. The emulator also does not have some of the stuff that the others have like save states, movie dumping etc.

[Exophase]

bsnes is more accurate than both apart from certain special chip games (notably SA-1 and SuperFX1/2) and special controller games (Multitap, Mouse, Scope). The accuracy is about 99.9% with those excluded, as all games dumped have now been tested with it. The sound is much better with bsnes over ZSNES/Snes9x, and bsnes has some nice custom video options as well.

However, basically due to the precision of the emulation, the emu does not implement triple buffering perfectly, so all sorts of sound problems can occur when it is enabled. The emulator also does not have some of the stuff that the others have like save states, movie dumping etc.

Games with SuperFX and SA-1 make up far more than 1/1000th of all SNES games, and in fact some very popular SNES games have these chips. Also, I can imagine every dump having been booted, but played to completion? That's several thousand man hours, I don't see how they could have pulled that off unless they had hundreds or even thousands of volunteers (if they did someone help me get that for my emulator >_>)

I haven't used bsnes, but I would assume that for most games the improved accuracy doesn't matter and I personally haven't had significant sound problems on ZSNES for the past several years, not enough to consider anything "much" better (but this might vary depending on platform, I've had serious problems with ZSNES's audio on Linux)... of course if it works it works, can't hurt to use it.

If the computer is particularly slow or you're concerned with CPU usage for whatever reason then ZSNES will almost definitely be the fastest. I expect bsnes's emphasis on accuracy to come at a sizeable performance cost.

I imagine bsnes is definitely the best choice for developing on the SNES. In fact, I'm sure that was the driving motivation to develop it in the first place. Unfortunately some purists insist that emulation quality be judged on how accurately it prevents you from doing stupid things, rather than how accurately it actually runs games. A lot of people insist that NESticle was always worthless crap because they're bitter about some of the cheating it did (which are often optimizations, and can be very beneficial!) that made it a poor choice for developing homebrew, even though it did run a decent percentage of NES games well.

[Clements]

Games with SuperFX and SA-1 make up far more than 1/1000th of all SNES games, and in fact some very popular SNES games have these chips.

What I meant was that of the games that did not require custom chips or special controllers, 99.9% work as in, have perfect sound and graphics. Of the 3000 games tested, there are currently 5 games that have obvious issues:

- Adventures of Dr. Franken, The (E) - minor line issue on title screen (needs sPPU)
- Koushien 2 (J) - sound randomly fritzes or cuts out, then game hangs
- Toy Story (E/J/U) - sound effects sometimes linger or buzz between transitions or after pausing
- Uniracers (E/U) - 2nd player sprite drawn in wrong location (needs sPPU)
- Winter Olympic Games - Lillehammer '94 (E/U) - minor line issue on stage select screen (needs sPPU)

http://board.zsnes.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4510

This list is by no means exhaustive (see next bit).


Also, I can imagine every dump having been booted, but played to completion?

I am not a tester of the emulator, but I should imagine games are played to in-game and to the first level/section at least and if not problems are found then is declared working. This was done using a systematic method going through games letter by letter (all games beginning with A done, and so on). The games that have easily noticeable problems are normally quite easily found with this method. Since bsnes is a new emulator, there are very few testers, so the workload is huge. Completing every game is not feasible, so the compatibility list may not be 100% complete.

[ScottJC]

For the most part accuracy is irrelevant, most people care about one thing only, if it runs; If it runs well enough people do not care if it is done accurately or not (N64 Emulation anyone?), The lack of features i've gotten used to, no full screen, can't run Yoshi's Island 2 yet so it's accuracy means nothing to me for most purposes (yet).

Accuracy isn't the question anyway, dunno where that came from. The question was which one is considered the best, hate to be brutal about it considering the last time I badmouthed a snes emu (lets not get into that) but BSnes certainly isn't one of the best yet. I'm sure that'll change though, Znses and Snes9x have had a LOT more time to develop than bsnes has.

[Clements]

Accuracy is the most important feature of an emulator. It is the primary goal of emulation developers. It is a reason why most of us don't use Nesticle any more, and why Glide64 is considered to be one of the best N64 plugins. Everything else is secondary, even system requirements and features. Currently only 5 non-special chip games have problems with bsnes and of those, 2 only have minor graphics bugs - which to most people is a considerable feat.

bsnes does have extensive fullscreen options - even from very early versions. It has custom resolutions, something Snes9x does not, and had it before ZSNES implemented it. It also has various graphics filters, and aspect ratio correction. It is able to recreate more correct colours than Snes9x/ZSNES with a colour curve option.

It lacks SuperFX1/2, SA-1, DSP-3 and DSP-4 of ZSNES/Snes9x. Both of the emulators that support those chips use very experimental (not bit perfect) implementations, so byuu is not adding them (yet). He is focusing on core emulation first. bsnes does however support the DSP-1, DSP-2 and SDD-1 chips. These chips have bit perfect emulation, so byuu was happy to add support for them.

Although it can't run Yoshi's Island and SMRPG, bsnes has many advantages over the others too, such as playing Chrono Trigger (and other Square games such as FFVI) with perfect graphics and sound using no custom hacks. To many users, this is a big deal. That includes the sound in the Heckran cave. ZSNES has problems there at this time.

bsnes has no game-specific hacks like Snes9x and ZSNES. It is similar to Nestopia in this respect. The accuracy of bsnes is achieved purely though accurate emulation of the system.

With almost perfect accuracy for the games it supports, and plenty of features including a working debugger, in my eyes, it is easily one of the best already.

[ScottJC]

It is the primary goal of the developers but not the primary goal of the user, the user could care less what goes on in the background, like I said, if it runs well enough, us users do not care.

[Clements]

While that may be true of a select group of users, this is not true of serious users. Users like myself, who switch emulators or plugins when a game isn't working right. I still see no reason why bsnes should not be considered to be one of the best SNES emulators.

[Iconoclast]

f3 e5
g4 Qh4#Clements wins.:D

*is done spamming*

I personally prefer ZSNES for its DOS-like GUI. I've never tried SNES9x, but I've never seen a reason to.

Maybe, someone should make a chart on the advantages, disadvantages and features of all of the SNES emulators? Sort of like that one Smiff's got on his website for N64 emulators.

[ScottJC]

Ok then lets take a real world example, Donkey Kong Country 2, On BSnes, video looks pretty perfect, but the sound is terrible, it's spikes in sounds make the game unpleasent - Now lets take ZSnes, Looks perfect and sounds Perfect, Less accurate wins.

[Clements]

Cannot reproduce - sounds perfect to me, no spikes whatsoever. Using the latest bsnes wip and a freshly compiled ZSNES r4538 (last stable revision). Try disabling triple buffering in the bsnes config settings - it is known to not work currently. Don't use ZSNES's sound core as any kind of indicator - it has already been removed and is being replaced as we speak. bsnes uses anomie's sound core which is the most accurate available along with the one in SNEeSe.

[thepenguin55]

ok, I downloaded the latest version of ZSNES, but I'm having a problem playing Super Mario Kart. Any suggestions? Also, I'm having an unrelated problem playing Super Mario Bros 3 for my GBA emulator (Visual Boy Advance). It first says GameBoy Player and then it says that my save data is corrupted and it doesn't start.

[Clements]

Can you describe the problem with Super Mario Kart and ZSNES? For me, it appears to work perfectly.

For the second issue, Super Mario Advance 4 requires the Flash 128K save type. Delete your current save (.sav file), and download the vba-over.ini file from:

http://www.gbadat.altervista.org/tools.htm

Extract this ini into VBA's main folder. It informs VBA of games that use specific save types other than the normal Flash 64K. Set your save type to Automatic + Flash 64K, and load the game. It should work.

[ScottJC]

BSnes must just be incompatible with vista, although ZSnes is 100% on it.

[Exophase]

Maybe your computer is too slow XD (kidding.. well, for the most part)

I did check out the "recommended requirements" for bsnes and of course they're very high. That's to be expected. I disagree that accuracy is ALWAYS the highest priority. With some emulators you can run almost all games to a degree that appears perfect without achieving very high accuracy (and achieving very high speed). Dynamic recompilers are never completely cycle accurate, but they usually get the job done. You've mentioned Chrono Trigger failing in ZSNES, but I've played it (years ago), and I did find it sufficiently close to the original. If there were slight defects they were so minor that they really didn't bother me, and yes, I played the game to completion on a real SNES (a few times). The user, even "serious user", is NOT going to care about special game hacks being employed if the game works. As an emu programmer I know exactly how you feel about them and I personally all but refuse to use them unless I've identified an issue that's simply unresolveable without taking too much of a performance hit (right now I think I've skirted these, fortunately). But to the user it's not noticeable, so long as the ROM is identified correctly.

I know for a fact that SNES is a very finicky system (like NES), but others, like GBA, are not. For my emulator, my first priority is performance. It's perhaps a special case because the primary target is a fixed platform. My second priority is compatability - how many games does it run sufficiently well. Although similar I consider this subtly different from accuracy, and from the end user's point of view, completely different.

Of course, I respect bsnes's goals and purposes - for one thing, it's much more useful for people developing software that they intend to run on a real SNES (also translation patches and other modifications). This way they have a much better idea of if their code performs well enough and they're less likely to get divergent behavior when they do something bad (less cases of "the emulator lets me do it"). It's also a better emulator for longterm preservation/archival purposes, which is important.

Now, the page says compatability is at 99.25%, of the 300 games tested, not 3000. And while going to the first level might seem sufficient I can tell you from experience that many games can be perfect for a long time then go awry well into them. Maybe less so for this emulator.

[ScottJC]

This isn't about my PC being slow, bsnes runs full speed, just the sound is very bad, Probably vista's fault.

[Clements]

Ya, normally any Pentium M, Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, Athlon64 or Athlon64 X2 should run bsnes fullspeed.


I disagree that accuracy is ALWAYS the highest priority.

For any developed emulator like ZSNES, accuracy becomes the #1 priority. Every game (at least the non-special chip variety) gets in-game already - its just that some have some emulation bugs. Bug fixing is literally all pagefault does at the moment.

You are right if you mean that accuracy was not the original primary objective (and compatibility was), but priorities often change as development progresses. If adequate compatibility and accuracy is achieved, then speed may become priority #1.


With some emulators you can run almost all games to a degree that appears perfect without achieving very high accuracy (and achieving very high speed). Dynamic recompilers are never completely cycle accurate, but they usually get the job done.

For SNES, ZSNES and Snes9x already took similar approaches and got pretty far with it. However about 50 or more games still have bugs. It was time for byuu to step in and tried a totally new approach (true cycle accuracy) to get all those problematic games finally working correctly. Nestopia did the same thing (focus on accuracy) and now is my primary NES emulator.


You've mentioned Chrono Trigger failing in ZSNES, but I've played it (years ago), and I did find it sufficiently close to the original. If there were slight defects they were so minor that they really didn't bother me, and yes, I played the game to completion on a real SNES (a few times).

ZSNES used hacks to get the sound right in Chrono Trigger in previous versions, which have been removed. The game has a cult fan base as you know, and constantly report bugs in this game with ZSNES.

I am also one of those users who get annoyed by tiny bugs in games I played on the real thing. I reported that an earlier version of ZSNES had half of the letter 'B' missing in 'Battle Mode' on the Title screen of Super Bomberman. Doesn't affect gameplay at all, but it is a definite bug in the emulation and it mattered to me being a fan of the game. Could have even affected other games perhaps. The bug was later fixed and the game now runs flawless. To me, that is the spirit of emulation.


The user, even "serious user", is NOT going to care about special game hacks being employed if the game works. As an emu programmer I know exactly how you feel about them and I personally all but refuse to use them unless I've identified an issue that's simply unresolveable without taking too much of a performance hit (right now I think I've skirted these, fortunately). But to the user it's not noticeable, so long as the ROM is identified correctly.

I guess I am an ultra-serious user then. :P I follow the development of all the emulators I use very closely.

Recently, Nach discovered that an emulator called uosnes had a hack file that hacked over 100 games to work. Even to the extent of replacing game code! Personally, I wouldn't use an emulator that needed to use extensive hacks to get games working when better alternatives are out there that can do without them. Who knows how well the core will hold up in other games. ZSNES also uses hacks, but they can be disabled, and are being removed as emulation accuracy increases. byuu just didn't add any to start with - if a game didn't work, it doesn't work. Adding a hack would be against the principle of his emulator.


But to the user it's not noticeable, so long as the ROM is identified correctly.

Specific Hacks are not the best way to solve emulation problems as you have said from your experience. For instance, a translation group reported that FFVI's overworld was glitched in ZSNES with their patch. That was because ZSNES used a game hack that recognised an internal name of the rom, and when the group changed the internal name, the game no longer worked properly since the hack did recognise the altered internal name. This renders the patch unplayable in ZSNES.


Of course, I respect bsnes's goals and purposes - for one thing, it's much more useful for people developing software that they intend to run on a real SNES (also translation patches and other modifications). This way they have a much better idea of if their code performs well enough and they're less likely to get divergent behavior when they do something bad (less cases of "the emulator lets me do it"). It's also a better emulator for longterm preservation/archival purposes, which is important.

I totally agree. The goal of bsnes is very much like MAME/MESS. Imagine how useful a perfect emulator would be to a rom translation/hack making group. Many people still have SNES copiers which they run these translations on the real thing. Many instances of patches working on ZSNES but not on copiers. If bsnes could be made accurate enough, it would make an excellent testing platform. It's ultimately good for normal users too.


And while going to the first level might seem sufficient I can tell you from experience that many games can be perfect for a long time then go awry well into them. Maybe less so for this emulator.

True, but there is plenty of time for bug hunting later. byuu has emulated much of the system perfect enough, but several games have bugs due to an identical problem. Not always easy to find these.

[Miretank]

Hah, didn't know that snes9c version for windows. Thanks Agozer. :)


I guess I am an ultra-serious user then. :P
You're always serious. It's the third time I've ever seen a smiley in a post of yours. :P

[ScottJC]

Mind you, now that I think about it, Clements has a point about accuaracy.

I was using Gens for years when Kega Fusion series of emus came out, I've never looked back, If Accurate is done well enough people will care then I guess. But I think Gens may still be on top, dunno but that don't matter.

Wish I could get rid of bsnes's static, read on Zsnes forum others were gettin it. Some of the developers words are a bit disillusioning, especially the ones of yesterday, seems to me he is losing interest in the whole thing... I think for such a newcomer in snes emu terms it is new, 2004-now. He's done a great job.