Alistair Posted June 20, 2018 Share Posted June 20, 2018 Yeah, what's the best SNES emulator for laptops? I figured this would be the best place to ask but I understand if it needs to get moved? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewTypeEldie Posted June 20, 2018 Share Posted June 20, 2018 I prefer Snes9x but honestly you shouldn't have any trouble with stuff like ZSNES or RetroArch. If you think about patching games you should check to see if the patch works with the emulator you're using. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gjuptonv Posted June 20, 2018 Share Posted June 20, 2018 (edited) The best emulator partially depends on your needs. There are a few games that will not play on ZSNES as well as Snes9x, often not playing well on one and fine on the other. Based on my experiences I would suggest you use Snes9x, here is a breakdown of the various iterations of it: - Snes 9x 2002; highest compatibility, least accurate (poor audio) - Snes 9x 2005; high compatibility, accurate (average audio) - Snes 9x 2005+; compatible, high accuracy (good audio) - Snes 9x 2010; least compatibility, highest accuracy Edited June 20, 2018 by gjuptonv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sirmola Posted June 20, 2018 Share Posted June 20, 2018 (edited) zsnes is ancient, and is no longer updated. It is not at all accurate. That being said, some patches and romhacks were coded using zsnes or some other emulator, and only work on that emulator because they require an emulation inaccuracy to run. one notable issue with zsnes it the fact that it does not handle large ROM sizes. This includes the new fe4 translation patch, which simply will not run on zsnes, or any other emulator missing this feature. Given that this is an FE forum, and the new translation is the only one where the ending is translated, that is kind of important. Good alternatives i have personally used are SNES9x (which I use due to the wide variety of features, and which ran on a five year old laptop with no issues) and HIGAN (which is also a good choice, and actualy includes three exicutables, which each have ). Retroarch allows you to emulate different systems from the same program (by being a wrapper for versions of most other emulaters), but i heard it requires more set up (i have not used the pc version, but i was unable to set up the android version). I had no issues setting up snes9s, HIGAN, or zsnes. Other emulaters exist, like bizhawk (which is perfered for tool asisted speedruns), but they tend to be more niche in application, or not support features like large ROM sizes. I also don't know which version of snes9x added large ROM size support. I would say try the latest version of each emulater. If it runs slowly, there are usualy settings that you can change that help it run on slower computers at the expense of accuracy. Edited June 20, 2018 by sirmola Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ivysalt Posted June 24, 2018 Share Posted June 24, 2018 (edited) Whenever I see ZSNES seriously mentioned as a good emulator, I have to pop in and say heck no. ZSNES is wildly inaccurate at the moment, its interface is dated (which might be appealing but definitely turns me off) and its future is very unsure. ZSNES is coded in x86 assembly, which made it insanely fast when it came out over 10 years ago, but it also makes it hard to maintain and stuck to x86 platform. Snes9x is my recommendation for regular players, being the best balance of optimisation and accuracy for laptops. If you want to develop for SNES or play a niche title then using an accurate emulator such as higan is the best choice. Edited June 24, 2018 by dpc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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