Best NES emulator?

[16 bit warrior]

What is the best NES emulator?

[Agozer]

There is no such thing as the best, but Nestopia, RockNES and FCEUltra are generally considered to be very good.

[Clements]

VirtuaNES is another really good NES emulator. Kinda spoiled for choice really.

[franpa]

And FakeNES was decent last I tried it (which was before they started the rewrite).

[mudlord]

QuickNES.

Made by blargg, Windows port by kode54.

[Gil_Hamilton]

NEsticle. Ten thousand websites can't be wrong.

[kode54]

I was going to post about QuickNES, but it does have its limitations. For instance, the library itself only supports a few mappers out of the box, and my port only adds a couple more. Oh, and while the PPU itself is cycle accurate, the renderer produces whole scanlines, so anything that does mid-scanline effects won't look right. Ah, and there's the little matter of it only supporting NTSC, but not PAL.

Other than that, though, it's excellent. And I'm willing to bet it could kick Nesticle's ass, considering it's so fast, while remaining accurate. I'm just too lazy to produce a DOS port for anyone to compare on some 486 machine. It shouldn't be hard to get a benchmark utility compiled with DJGPP, though.

[AamirM]

A benchmark that takes speed AND compatibility into account would be totally cool. I have no idea how that can be made and automated though.

Also, I'd vote in for Nintendulator and MuNES to keep the OP confused and make decision making even harder.

[adventure_of_link]

Might as well contribute farther to the confusion and suggest Jnes

Seriously, why does no one ever mention it?

[mudlord]

A benchmark that takes speed AND compatibility into account would be totally cool. I have no idea how that can be made and automated though.

1) Get timing/CPU/PPU test roms
2) Run said tests and note times it takes to complete and pass said tests
3) Rinse and repeat.

Found for GB/GBC:
* Gambatte passes all blargg's tests
* VBA-M almost passes all tests, minus the memory modification timing tests
* Vanilla VBA fails some instruction tests
* BGB fails some instruction tests

[Xenogears]

iNES

Free for Linux and a very tiny fee for Win32. It is the only NES emulator I have used and will remain that way so long as its developed.

[odditude]

iNES

that's still being developed? haven't had any reason to touch that since fwnes->biones and then virtualnes.

[lordmissus]

lol

[Gil_Hamilton]

iNES

that's still being developed? haven't had any reason to touch that since fwnes->biones and then virtualnes.

Amazingly, yes.

[kode54]

iNES

that's still being developed? haven't had any reason to touch that since fwnes->biones and then virtualnes.

Amazingly, yes.

And amazingly, the author still fails for charging for his software, but only for commercial operating systems. Author should get a job and pay for his development out of his own pocket. I hear the latest Visual Studio is really cheap at TPB store. Or if you have a programming job, you can weasel a copy off the company's MSDN subscription. Or weasel your own MSDN subscription out of your employer.

I almost got a job with a company that even asked me how much money I wanted and what software they should buy for me. I chickened out in the end, though, which is probably better anyway.

[byuu]

iNES

Free for Linux and a very tiny fee for Win32. It is the only NES emulator I have used and will remain that way so long as its developed.

Hey Marat, didn't you you came around these parts. How's it been going?

[AamirM]

I hear the latest Visual Studio is really cheap at TPB store. Or if you have a programming job, you can weasel a copy off the company's MSDN subscription. Or weasel your own MSDN subscription out of your employer.

Yep. I did that. I got licensed Windows XP, Windows 7 Ultimate and Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. And if everything goes well, I may even get a MSDN subscription.

Btw, Visual Studio is free at MS store. Just ask for the express copy at the counter.

[odditude]

Btw, Visual Studio is free at MS store. Just ask for the express copy at the counter.

Visual Studio Express has been free for at least the last two versions. Google away!

[kode54]

Visual Studio Express is still incapable of editing resource scripts, although if you don't need to edit them, you can get the Resource Compiler from the Platform SDK and still build them.

[AamirM]

Or you could use windres from mingw instead of downloading that huge ass SDK just for that. Also, there is a free resource editor too .

[kode54]

I've never tried that editor, but I have had windres fail to compile some resource scripts, which I ultimately had to compile to a .res file with rc.exe.

[mudlord]

Well you should try it then. Its quite adequate.

[AamirM]

I've never tried that editor, but I have had windres fail to compile some resource scripts, which I ultimately had to compile to a .res file with rc.exe.

Are you using the one with the release mingw? That one is very old. I had windres failing for me once when VS had used some DLGINIT macro to initialize some items in a dialog listbox (which was redundant anyway since I was filling them at load). Updating to a newer/latest (one from TDMgccwhatever) windres fixed this for me.

[mudlord]

iNES

Free for Linux and a very tiny fee for Win32. It is the only NES emulator I have used and will remain that way so long as its developed.

Hey Marat, didn't you you came around these parts. How's it been going?

And you had to come and troll because its not up to your standards about CA?
Well, kindly mind your own fucking business and stick with the things you're good at. (if any).

[byuu]

Oh hey; thanks again for your shader code, it works really well.