SNES9x

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

ZSNES pissed me off to no end because it couldn't emulate the transparency layers for Final Fantasy V properly.

You sure? Keep in mind if you run it at 256 colors yeah transparency is fucked. But if you run it 16/32bit colors, transparency works fine (or did when i tried it, using Brainlord, those clouds leaving the town being the easiest test)

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

You sure? Keep in mind if you run it at 256 colors yeah transparency is fucked. But if you run it 16/32bit colors, transparency works fine (or did when i tried it, using Brainlord, those clouds leaving the town being the easiest test)

This was back in 97. I think I tried messing with the color settings, can't remember specifics. It could've been a graphics driver issue or hardware incompatibility. Or a specific issue with this rom. In any case, I'm pretty sure they fixed it down the line. In the meanwhile, I had to disable layers to play the game.

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

This was back in 97. I think I tried messing with the color settings, can't remember specifics. It could've been a graphics driver issue or hardware incompatibility. Or a specific issue with this rom. In any case, I'm pretty sure they fixed it down the line. In the meanwhile, I had to disable layers to play the game.

Mhmm. I think the fastest system i had at that time was a 233Mhz or a 333Mhz system. Running with more than 256 colors was too slow, so i'd do similarly and disable layers as needed and reset after for specific areas.

Emulation (through interpretation) tends to take 200x or more processing power than the original hardware. Course JIT and recompiling it's a lot closer to 4x instead, or even 1:1 in some cases.

Regardless... Whatever works. ZSnes isn't very portable due to being written in assembly to get all the extra speed, but with chips today you don't really need it anymore. Though the playback files were interesting to watch. Get a 300k file for the full play-through of Super Mario World 100% was very fascinating to watch.

 

[Sumea]

Mhmm. I think the fastest system i had at that time was a 233Mhz or a 333Mhz system. Running with more than 256 colors was too slow, so i'd do similarly and disable layers as needed and reset after for specific areas.

I think generally, a lot of things were workaround hacked transparencies being one in the old emulators, both zsnes and snes9x. They were definitely full of inadequacies and game specific hacks dictated by popularity which is why 200X Byuu makes his SNES emulator that requires cutting edge processors for the time to run well but also right. If you say any popular SNES emulator prior to like 2004-2010 was full of holes and hacked workarounds for them you would be only 100% likely right. Workable, playable at least for the most popular titles for sure.
Heck, this hackiness and especially popularity of Zsnes causes some romhacks from a specific period of times, when they were made and tested against Zsnes causes these romhacks to crash on real hardware or accurate emulators that will not playback MP3's from a SNES ROM or other stuff like that.

 

[DanCalibur]

It is quite offtopic but that is a cool, windows based thing for self made arcade cabinets, which I find cool. I think windows base instead of basic linux lakka/bacotera/etc. Makes it so you can put more modern fighting games to the list more easily, if that even is a possibilit

I use Retrobat with joyxoff to control everything (including windows) from the couch for a more console like experience. I still keep batocera around for my old core2quad with on-board DirectX 10 graphics, the driver support there is amazing

 

[Sumea]

I use Retrobat with joyxoff to control everything (including windows) from the couch for a more console like experience. I still keep batocera around for my old core2quad with on-board DirectX 10 graphics, the driver support there is amazing

I myself use steam big picture mode and retroarch's own UI, in XMB mode. Still, whatever you do the way you like it rocks. Or if you just want the menu they offer. I also have for my "Windows from couch problem" a wireless microsoft keyboard with integrated touchpad. There is lot of solutions for this nicely enough these days, 199X-200X gal or boi would been amazed how semi-consolized and TV friendly a PC can be in future.

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

They were definitely full of inadequacies and game specific hacks dictated by popularity which is why 200X Byuu makes his SNES emulator that requires cutting edge processors for the time to run well but also right. If you say any popular SNES emulator prior to like 2004-2010 was full of holes and hacked workarounds for them you would be only 100% likely right. Workable, playable at least for the most popular titles for sure.

Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

On a 400Mhz machine i actually was able to play N64 games full speed at high resolution. This was purely due to the N64 emulator liking one specific video card, and it was listed. And go figure, i actually had that specific video card. And for the first time i could actually experience something i couldn't otherwise afford. So maybe for a lot of people who are unhappy that a lot of games or hacks won't work, there's a lot of people it made people happy.

They say limitations is the mother of invention. Working around limitations to get something decent, certainly pushes a lot of things forward.

Shadows aren't supported so you prebake the textures to include shadows/color blends. Most games everything is set at full brightness and you subtract for shadows rather than ray-tracing everything to determine where the lighting is. Quadrants have fixed lighting levels as determined by the editor. For DOOM to work, every quadrant calculated what actually could be seen and only those objects were considered during rendering. For 3D many games precalculate expensive Trigonometry and use 16bit calculations and then every so often recalculate at a higher one for accuracy (Elite, the game that shouldn't have been, fascinating documentary of fitting so much and making it work in 22k).

Yeah today we can likely push accuracy now that most CPU chips are 800Mhz-2Ghz and 8/16bit games are in the lower tier to worry about.

 

[DanCalibur]

I myself use steam big picture mode and retroarch's own UI, in XMB mode. Still, whatever you do the way you like it rocks. Or if you just want the menu they offer. I also have for my "Windows from couch problem" a wireless microsoft keyboard with integrated touchpad. There is lot of solutions for this nicely enough these days, 199X-200X gal or boi would been amazed how semi-consolized and TV friendly a PC can be in future.

Yeah, what a time to be alive

 

[Sumea]

They say limitations is the mother of invention. Working around limitations to get something decent, certainly pushes a lot of things forward.

Yeah. But for emulation limitations are limitations. Emulation has a hard metric of accuracy(of multiple elements)+speed for quality. Older emulators but it all to speed since indeed, they had to do what they had to. It is what it is, not entirely bad but like I said, if you'd make the claim older emulators were inaccurate, would have high fail rate with titles outside the zeitgeist since there would not be game specific hacks, it would be true.
Same goes for N64. Accurate emulation still is a struggle even if 90's produced a playable emulator, if you ignore it failing to play many games or rendering many effects/graphics correctly. Comparing hacky workarounds emulators had to do to natively running video games working around their hardware limitations is apples to cigarettes comparison.
You can play Elite for NES today and find enjoyment in it since there likely is not a game that replaces it at least it's novelty, and so do a lot of retro games that is why we are enthusiastic about retro games.
But would you run Project 64 0.8 or ZSNES from 2003 today? Gaming population largely for correct reasons do not do retro emulators.

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

But would you run Project 64 0.8 or ZSNES from 2003 today? Gaming population largely for correct reasons do not do retro emulators.

If the game(s) i wanted to play work and that's the version i had downloaded?

Yes. Yes i would.

Mind you i mostly played Chrono Trigger and Megaman X. And i don't recall problems with them.

 

[Sumea]

Mind you i mostly played Chrono Trigger and Megaman X. And i don't recall problems with them.

Could you even have identified a problem with them, had you played those games religiously enough on original hardware? Most European people experienced Chrono Trigger on ZSNES because that game released here first time in 2009 on DS. Even if there was inaccuracy to sound, graphics or such no one of my friends could tell the difference because there was nothing to compare it to. Even I have to just trust them emulator devs today bro that their stuff is shiny accurate. There is literally zero reasons to run older emulators that do everything worse today, especially when SNES9x trucks along with the balance of low hardware requirements and high accuracy it boasts these days. Even if you want an emulator that runs on a retro machine, there still might be more modern made more accurate and better emulator made in more recent years. Much like there is fan made fixes and updates done to Daikatana for example that you can still run on period accurate hardware and windows 98 operating system, even if it also makes the game much more compliant with modern windows and linux systems as well. Emulation unlike a video game is science not art and we aren't flat earthers or young worlders hopefully when it comes to trusting science here.

 

[Graw]

I honestly can't even remember the last time I used the standalone snes9x. I don't even usually use the core. I usually use bsnes or mesen.

ZSNES pissed me off to no end because it couldn't emulate the transparency layers for Final Fantasy V properly.

Same here. VESA driver support took a while to land properly on ZSNES. I had to get used to toggling layers

Man does that ever bring me back. I totally forgot about having to do that. I remember the forest in particular was pretty bad.

 

[Nidstang]

Make the switch to bsnes

 

[thecrow2313]

View attachment 33809Fighting the urge to suggest Retrobat?

The struggle is real

Post automatically merged: Feb 28, 2025

Make the switch to bsnes

I would suggest bsnes-mt @ https://github.com/Marat-Tanalin/bsnes-mt/releases

 

[Soulless Emperor]

You know what would be great for stand alone SNES9X emulator? Having the ability to have widescreen and stretch to fit the entire screen. That would've been much better for a stand alone emulator like snes9x.

 

[DietPepsi]

You know what would be great for stand alone SNES9X emulator? Having the ability to have widescreen and stretch to fit the entire screen. That would've been much better for a stand alone emulator like snes9x.

Agreed

 

[Nidstang]

The struggle is real

Post automatically merged: Feb 28, 2025

I would suggest bsnes-mt @ https://github.com/Marat-Tanalin/bsnes-mt/releases

What's different about bsnes-mt vs just bsnes?

 

[thecrow2313]

What's different about bsnes-mt vs just bsnes?

Bsnes - Emulation General Wiki

emulation.gametechwiki.com

I'm using bsnes-mt with NTSC (RGB) filter & Quilez shader

GitHub - Marat-Tanalin/bsnes-mt: bsnes-based SNES emulator featuring integer (pixel-perfect) scaling, PNG screenshots, multilanguage user interface, built-in hotkeys, bug fixes, etc.

bsnes-based SNES emulator featuring integer (pixel-perfect) scaling, PNG screenshots, multilanguage user interface, built-in hotkeys, bug fixes, etc. - Marat-Tanalin/bsnes-mt

github.com

Fiche de Near Shaders Pack (16/02/2025)

Tout simplement le site francophone reference en matiere d emulation depuis plus de 20 ans. Actualite 24H/24, Exclus, Tutoriels, Tests, Hebergement et plus de 2000 emulateurs a telecharger...

www.emu-france.com

Quark-shaders-master folder