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Fastest emulators period

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First post, by leileilol

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What are the bleedingest edge of the fastest emulators that exist for various systems?

This is all I know of off the top of my head, for DOS

Gameboy: NO$GB (req 386DX33)
Megadrive: KGEN98 (req 486DX4100)
NES: LoopyNES (req 486DX266) / NESticle (req 486SX40)
SNES: ZSNES (req 486DX4100 for some games, PentiumMMX 150 for most)

Windows:

N64: Corn

NOTE:
If you got here through a random Google and you want a performing emulator for your relatively modern operating system, disregard this thread as it may not be for you. This is not a "BEST EMULATORS" thread.
This is an emulators thread for PCs that may be older than you

Last edited by leileilol on 2015-07-20, 20:47. Edited 5 times in total.

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Reply 1 of 87, by Zup

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Keep in mind that "fastest" doesn't mean "most compatible". Fastest emulators often lacks some characteristics of hardware (i.e.: older Speccy emulators don't fully emulate ULA behaviour, some SNES emulators don't emulate special chips).

I don't see the point in using the fastest emulators if your computer allows you to play the most compatible ones. When I had a Pentium II, I used UltraHLE because if ran the games at a "playable" framerate, but now that I had AMD64 computers, I don't mind using Project64 (much more slower) because my computer can run the two emulators at full framerate.

And... why running LoopyNES in a 486 / early Pentium? I bet you have a modern computer, so you could run RockNES... and to feel nostalgy getting the real thing is even better (except in my case, I'm trying to get working a NES since some months, and I don't know why it's still failing).

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Reply 2 of 87, by leileilol

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but x86 asm is so beautiful

I already know the answers for the most compatible emulators (BSNES, Nestopia, KEGA Fusion, etc) it's just the fasty fast ones are few and far between

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Reply 3 of 87, by keropi

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I enjoy NesticleXX on my p200mmx dos-only machine 😁

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Reply 4 of 87, by MaxWar

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keropi wrote:

I enjoy NesticleXX on my p200mmx dos-only machine 😁

I was just about to mention nesticle. I used to play contra with it on my dos 486dx33 in the nineties. played pretty much full speed if i remember.

For emulating old consoles my favourite platform is by far the moded original xbox. Plays everything up to n64 and some ps1. Sitting in your couch with the big tv is a big plus.
On the xbox, Finalburn legend is very fast and accurate for Neogeo, cps1,2 and the like. I did not compare with pc equivalent but it plays full speed and beyond on the venerable green box.

Reply 5 of 87, by Cyberdyne

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Yes NESTICLE works even with my 486DX2-66 perfectly, i can play Contra and Duck Tales 😉

NO$GB can work even with a 386 😀

But what is the best DOS ATARI 2600 emulator?

Reply 6 of 87, by leileilol

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yeah nocash's emulators are very VERY asm heavy, and I appreciate his selfish gloating about the small exe sizes even.

I also feel bad for him in the Pokemon era because of all the idiots emailing him, his email page is hilarious. It reminds me of the period where abandonware kiddies clog up their broken games in the dosbox forum here

also yeah Bloodlust emulators are very asm too, obviously tons of bitshifting magicery. But I didn't pick Nesticle on the list I had because it doesn't run as much as LoopyNES although it is a classic and extremely influential emulator. I know how fast it was - I also used to play it on my 486 with FPS going into the HUNDREDS back in '97.

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Reply 7 of 87, by Barry_Purplelips

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I recall someone saying Callus (Capcom Arcade) was ridiculously fast on ancient machines, but I can't confirm as I don't own any of the compatible games.

Connectix VGS (Playstation) ran Thrill Kill quite smoothly on my high-end PII. As I never owned the real console or any other game, it's hard to put my finger on it, but google suggest it might have been pretty fast indeed.

DosUAE (Amiga) this is the fastest Amiga emulator currently in existence. It's also a complete piece of garbage, but the starter of this thread does not care, or does he? 😁

Reply 10 of 87, by Cyberdyne

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Ok, my intrest is not the fastest, but the best emulators, but for DOS. I can make a P3 800MHz or Celeron 1GHz retro rig. But need a good collection of DOS console and home computer emulators. And is there a DOS Commodore SID music player available?

I am aroused about any X86 motherboard that has full functional ISA slot. I think i have problem. Not really into that original (Turbo) XT,286,386 and CGA/EGA stuff. So just a DOS nut.

Reply 11 of 87, by Sune Salminen

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Warajevo ZX Spectrum emulator:
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/warajevo/index.html
Minimum CPU to run at full speed is a '386 @ 33MHz.

The emulator was developed during the war in Bosnia in the early 90's under appaling conditions, including one of the devs having to dodge sniper fire while crossing a river bed to get to the last Spectrum software pirate in Sarajevo:
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/warajevo/Story.html

Reply 12 of 87, by Pippy P. Poopypants

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VGB-Win (Gameboy/Color, Windows) was pretty fast on my Pentium 75 laptop - I think it might be the fastest GBC emulator for Windows. Not free though, I think (though I haven't checked up on it for almost 10 years now because I've been using VBA since then). UltraHLE (N64) was pretty damn fast, but overall compatibility sucks.

Fastest N64 "emulator?" An SGI Indy workstation with the N64 development board. OK, not really quite emulation if the hardware is provided.

Also 3DO Blaster (though I don't really consider that emulation). 😜

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Reply 13 of 87, by theelf

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Hey, someone with a 386DX 40?

NO$GMB works near perfect, some slowdowns, but nesticle, i remember playing in my 386 very good in past, but now, is just too slow

Someone can test this? is my new 386 having something bad?

Or maybe 15 years ago, i just play mario with a frameskip of 10 and was normal for me.... ?¿ 🤣

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Reply 14 of 87, by MrKsoft

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There was this old Sega Master System / Game Gear emulator called Massage that I remember worked really well on a 486DX2-66. It's certainly faster than Meka anyway (which frameskips on a P133)

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Reply 15 of 87, by gerwin

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I wanted to play Advance Wars from the GBA on my eee PC with Atom N280. VisualBoyAdvance-M proved quite taxing on the hardware. Using some very specific settings it could run the game fluently at 3x size. I was not willing to use "frame skipping". The VisualBoyAdvance-M documentation says it requires a 700MHz processor for basic emulation.

Yesterday I tried NO$GBA: it can run Advance Wars nicely with less processor usage.

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Reply 16 of 87, by Cyberdyne

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Come on guys somebody recommend a good DOS Atari 2600 emulator 😜

I am aroused about any X86 motherboard that has full functional ISA slot. I think i have problem. Not really into that original (Turbo) XT,286,386 and CGA/EGA stuff. So just a DOS nut.

Reply 17 of 87, by keropi

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@gerwin:
as a rule, divide the atom's mhz in half and you get the performance in celeron mhz... a 1.66ghz atom behaves almost like a 800mhz celeron... I am using VBA on my atom330+ION and it runs fullspeed at 1080p . will give a shot to no$gba though since I hear good things about it all over the place 😀

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Reply 18 of 87, by theelf

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IN my 386, no$2k6 http://nocash.emubase.de/2k6.htm works very fast

I don´t like the 2600, then i don´t test too much games

as a rule, divide the atom's mhz in half and you get the performance in celeron mhz... a 1.66ghz atom behaves almost like a 800mhz celeron... I am using VBA on my atom330+ION and it runs fullspeed at 1080p . will give a shot to no$gba though since I hear good things about it all over the place Happy

I don´t know about this... in my netbook atom n270 1.6ghz, i can play Dreamcast games very well (CV, CVS2,etc). In another laptop Celeron 1.2ghz, is near impossible. Same graphics card, same SO, same emulator

Reply 19 of 87, by keropi

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^ well... maybe it depends on the emulator because on my N330/ION atom machine I have worst results in PSX emulation when compared to my old 1.2ghz celeron/sis-vga/chipset mITX machine...

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