Could somebody explains why ZSNES had struggles running games such as Kirby's Dream Land 3?

[Ikagura]

It had layering issues (like trees not properly displayed as semi transparent) as well as physical issues (like Kirby having issues falling down a soft platform so he suddenly teleports up) and freezing in the Pop Star world map.

I understand that late SNES games required more power from emulation as they used specific chips (like the Super FX for Star Fox) as well as other enhancements yet I feel like those glitches were beyond just graphics because that would've only made the game having slowdowns.


In a similar manner why sometimes Kirby in Super Stars teleported in the Marx boss fight out of nowhere?

 

[Rocket2049]

zsnes was a terrible emulator, focused on speed first, and proper working game 2nd
i had many issues, from FF5 i can't see my character "underwater" (i couldn't get past ship graveyard early on without cheats to walk through walls) mario rpg bad input lag, and "3d" games like mario kart, f-zero, anything "mode7" was horrible quality (worse than real SNES)

for kirby superstar, i've never had that glitch (and i've played it way too many times, real hardware, various emulators, Virtual console and etc, one of my favorite games ever)
BUT it is a known glitch having to do with hammer or parasol abilities on both P1 and P2 (helper),
saw some posts saying it happens when you fast forward too much (again never happened to me and i played superstar on ZSNES)
also looks like it never happens on a real SNES, far as i can see all footage of it happens in emulation
look at 4:57 in the following video

here's another of the same thing happening

and 10:07 on this video

 

[-------]

This emulator is still under development but I also have to say I don't think he's really that good.

 

[Rocket2049]

short version ZSNES is not 100% accurate to SNES and this is why weird things happen ONLY on that one, it's prob to "save processing" and such
the only SNES emu you should use Is BSNES, the most accurate SNES emulator out there.

 

[Sorion]

are we talking about the OG ZSNES or Super ZSNES? if it's the former, that's normal, the emulator had issues when it comes to transparencies, and it's pretty inaccurate in the name of high performance, if you want good accuracy you're better off using Snes9x or Bsnes, I think Super ZSNES should be more accurate as well, I heard they've solved many of the old ZSNES quirks

 

[Ikagura]

I forgot to add but Kirby also has that water splash effect when he jumps.

Is there a technical explanation about it or it's mostly about CPU clock speed?

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

Which ZSNES, though? The classic DOS one was good, but limited. The new one is still under development and it has no business utilizing as many resources as it does.

 

[Ikagura]

Which ZSNES, though? The classic DOS one was good, but limited. The new one is still under development and it has no business utilizing as many resources as it does.

I forgot it started on DOS but I was talking about the Windows version.

 

[Princess Viola]

If you're talking about the OG ZSNES (that was last updated in 2007) and not the still in-development Super ZSNES - it's because ZSNES was fundamentally a bad emulator that was highly inaccurate to a real Super Nintendo. Yes, I do understand that it could run on anything and was fast for the time (I mean I used ZSNES for a reason back in the day) and that was a big reason why it was such an iconic emulator but the fact remains: it wasn't emulating the SNES and its games accurately.

 

[Leon]

short version ZSNES is not 100% accurate to SNES and this is why weird things happen ONLY on that one, it's prob to "save processing" and such
the only SNES emu you should use Is BSNES, the most accurate SNES emulator out there.

Mesen is also good, if your on ancient hardware where you'd need speed hacks snes9x is alright but generally you should aim for one of the newer ones.

As others have said, zsnes was made with speed in mind at the cost of accuracy, because of that it's effectively useless in the modern day since more accurate emulators can run on modern and even older systems and unlike the genesis's kega fusion, which while there are better emulators than it, it mostly lacks the problems you see with zsnes making it still used by some for either nostalgic purposes, or ease of use.

Super zsnes is a entirely different beast and is in development, so it's not really ready to be used by most people yet.