Most accurate - might be http://micro64.de/ (at least it aims to be that, though it isn't finished). Vice is just fine though, and so is CCS64.

I am trying to stay away from CCS64 due to the fact it has not been updated in years now. I will have to try Micro64.

I too prefer VICE because it has the most options. Hoxs64 is supposed to be the most accurate, cycle-exact C64 emulator and requires more resources as a result.

Any of them do the NTSC CRT phosphor stuff? I didn't grow up on the C64 looking raw and desaturated.

Gamewizard wrote:

I am trying to stay away from CCS64 due to the fact it has not been updated in years now. I will have to try Micro64.

2012 isn't that long ago. My only real problem with CCS64 is how it treats the palette by default (that can be changed though).

leileilol wrote:

Any of them do the NTSC CRT phosphor stuff? I didn't grow up on the C64 looking raw and desaturated.

micro64 emulates PAL, but the display subsection has a huge amount of eye-candy to play with, including most of the properties of a CRT (kinda fitting for an emulator made by a demogroup).

VileRancour wrote:

leileilol wrote:

Any of them do the NTSC CRT phosphor stuff? I didn't grow up on the C64 looking raw and desaturated.

micro64 emulates PAL, but the display subsection has a huge amount of eye-candy to play with, including most of the properties of a CRT (kinda fitting for an emulator made by a demogroup).

I believe he probably didn't grow up on 50Hz either.

leileilol wrote:

Any of them do the NTSC CRT phosphor stuff? I didn't grow up on the C64 looking raw and desaturated.

Yea kind of...

CCS64 V3.1 with scanlines filter

Vice 2.4

I've tried both and I prefer VICE's CRT emulation. Seems more like an old school display and allows you to tweak the CRT emulation to your preferences.

CCS64 it's either SCANLINES, SCALE, ANTIALIAS or NONE - I didn't like any of them at any resolution.

I don't want just "scanlines". That's been a dead horse beaten in emulators since ZSNES, and is nowhere replicating the TV. I remember my C64 experience being bright, saturated, and a ton of bleed.

Well, on my captures it looks like here at 0:03 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjDReXe9T3w
It goes through a BT878 based card which converts color from PAL (in this case) to a PC screen output. It is not too much off to what you see on an actual CRT for the colors. This is why I tune Vice by hand to get at least the colors similar.

The best emulator? No emulator--just buy one and hook it up! Lots of retro fun doing it this way. 😎

Samir wrote:

The best emulator? No emulator--just buy one and hook it up! Lots of retro fun doing it this way. 😎

Some people don't have the space to do that and prices on old Commodore hardware keep going up so it can be a budget buster for some. Have you priced a Commodore 128D lately? They go for more than some Amiga models now.

sliderider wrote:

Samir wrote:

The best emulator? No emulator--just buy one and hook it up! Lots of retro fun doing it this way. 😎

Some people don't have the space to do that and prices on old Commodore hardware keep going up so it can be a budget buster for some. Have you priced a Commodore 128D lately? They go for more than some Amiga models now.

True that they definitely do take up a lot of space. I haven't checked prices lately, but I guess I should since I have a lot of Commodore gear lying around. 😎 Thank you for the heads-up!

Currently Vice is the best imo, C64SC is cycle accurate everything. Has pal emulation, scan lines and true drive emulation.

micro64 is very interesting http://www.micro64.de/ and includes phosphor and other crazy monitor emulations, however it is not complete yet. You can use it in it's current state however.

HoXS is interesting but doesn't support NTSC at all.

CCS64 is old and not very good imo.

this one is really nice, the best i have http://www.infinite-loop.at/Power64/

Is true NTSC (YIQ decoding) output really needed on a C64? I know its required for "proper" color output on Apple II emulators and CGA composite output as both exploit peculiarities (the fringing/mixing of colors) in the NTSC standard. Meanwhile, the C64 had true Y/C (S-Video) output for bleed free video output.

I went down the entire list on Zophar and tried out each emulator. I'm looking for one that has save states. hosx had some weird desaturation of color that must have to do with the way frames are displayed (maybe it's only displaying every other frame); VICE kept crashing with save states. I have Win8.1 x64 with an AMD APU. c64forever2014 might be good, but it's $15, which I'd rather not spend just to find out it has the same kind of issues and rock-paper-scissors inflexibility set with settings as some of the others.

Personally, I use the SPS modified VICE available HERE. So far, I haven't found a game that wouldn't play on it. I like it's looks, and versatility. Though I will be checking out a couple of the others mentioned here, that I have "admittedly" not heard of before 😀. The un-modified VICE doesn't support weak bits (Bruce Lee, for a game I have that wouldn't run on VICE.) This one add that in.

NJRoadfan wrote:

Is true NTSC (YIQ decoding) output really needed on a C64? I know its required for "proper" color output on Apple II emulators and CGA composite output as both exploit peculiarities (the fringing/mixing of colors) in the NTSC standard. Meanwhile, the C64 had true Y/C (S-Video) output for bleed free video output.

While it did have the rough equivalent of S-Video (called split Chroma/Luma, see here for more detail : https://www.commodoreserver.com/BlogEntryView … E4A104C65DB541E) after the earliest machines, it did was intended to connect to a Commodore monitor like the 1701. Similarly, composite video output was intended for computer monitors, which rarely were larger than 13". Unless you had one, you were probably making do with the RF modulator output connected to a TV/GAME switch on the back of your TV set. Personally, I think it is a useful feature to try and get a feel for how most people saw the display output of these machines.

a VICE libretro core would solve a lot of my C64 emulation dilemmas. now only if they had some sort of hotkey to disable keyboard frontend commands on the fly in Retroarch so computer cores are usable 😀