Consoles that for whatever reason are best emulated?

I'm on the Real Hardware kick. I enjoy the Super Famicom more with the real deal than with any emulators. When I was trying to emulate on the Pi I had to have like 4 emulators just to get everything I had to run.

But before my N64 crisis (now resolved) I was wondering what's best or better emulated. I'm still flip flopping on a Megasis. I could get one system, mod the shit out of it or just pop some roms on my Pi and get good sound, picture and region free everything. I miss out on collecting for it but I'll get a good experience. Then there's the PC Engine you need to mod it to get the best picture out of it and it's expensive to collect for. On the flip side Pi emulators need Bin/Cue and there aren't many PCECD isos in Bin/Cue including some of my favorites like Kaze Kiri.

So those are my two, MAYBE Neo Geo? Handhelds?

 

Basically anything that’s outrageously expensive or hard to find stuff for. Pc Engine isn’t as pricey as Neo Geo but you can’t quite go and buy a bunch a games at once without breaking the bank.

64dd would be one considering the cost and hassle of trying to get all 7 titles for it. Another one best emulated is famicom disk system as disks can easily have issues and the drive itself on them tend to have broken belts which are a huge nightmare to fix. Sega Cd could be one but to be honest f you get a model 2 most of the time you only have to replace a fuse or the laser at worst.

 

The Ever drive does support Famicom Disc images, so it's still possible to play them on intended hardware.
It is pretty easy to get Sega/Mega CD isos. but I had a very hard time getting a Japanese Sonic CD Iso and when I did I never backed it up either.

I still dream of owning a legit Neo Geo, There is a flash Cart for it now but we're looking at what almost $1000 for system/Flash Cart?

It's my understanding the Dreamcast makes for a pretty good Neo Geo CD.

 

Know of any consoles not released in your region? Possibly only in ones with different TV and voltage standards than yours? Maybe a Zeebo from Brazil (some weird "PAL-M" I believe?), or if you're europeen, a Nuon player (we got a few, but none with controller ports, kinda defeating the whole purpose). There you go, some prime candidates.
Also, systems with very few games. Both the ones above, plus the R-Zone, Game.com, Gizmondo (no working emu for this though), A'Can, ... Acquiring these only makes sense if you're more into collecting than playing them.
Older mobile platforms (J2ME) might also qualify, what with games being distributed in versions targeted towards specific devices, trying to mix-and-match might get annoying fast.

Unrelated to HW-vs-emulation, but your bin/cue argument doesn't hold any water whatsoever. It's just software/data, if you have an image you simply convert it to whatever format is needed. The proper tools exist. Would you argue that MAME sucks, only because you need to convert things to CHD?

 

I use everdrives myself but sound for disk system still slightly off on everdrive n8(use to own a disk system). Neo Geo cd runs good on dc but does output video in a washed out way. Yeah Neo Geo plus flash cart is pretty pricey but still way cheaper then owning actual carts.

 

> sound for disk system still slightly off
Is that game sound, or the sounds of the disk drive working? Because that is something I've been missing for a long time. Some emulators (e.g. WinUAE & Steem) have it these days, but they're still in the minority. Major nostalgia fail. No HDD noise either, but I bet someone'll get around to that eventually. And maybe at some point we'll get the ker-chunk of a CRT (turning on or switching resolutions) back?

 

Well it does when I'm primarily emulating these systems on a Raspberry pi. Retropie doesn't support ISO images just Bin/Cue. I don't know if Lakka does/Doesn't. Lakka is what I'm going to start using.

I'll be getting an N8 soon my self. I've been tempted to buy multicarts but why bother when I would essentially have my own with every every game I couldn't possibly afford?

What is off about the sound?

I never noticed them looking washed out when I dabbled on my Dreamcast but I didn't spend a ton of times with those games. Neo CD is something I'd like to collect but I don't want the real system. So something like either the SeeDi or Dreamcast is ideal.

We had to get flash carts for the Neo Geo before we got a proper file type for Neo Geo games. I hope emulators in the future use them.

 

The EverDrive N8 Disk System sound is just not accurate to the original. The best option is to use one of the Disk Drive emulators with an original RAM Adapter. I have the FDSStick I think it's called. Works excellent.

Do not buy the NES Multicarts. They often use hacked ROMs that have issues. Either they are mapper hacked or have cheats applied, sometimes they are PAL ROMs mixed in with NTSC ROMs. Get a real flash cart instead. They cost more but are worth it.

Proper file type from Neo Geo games? What are you talking about? MAME has had "proper" NeoGeo ROM files for years.

Emulation has many potential benefits over the original hardware. Using N64 as an example, if you wanted to play Goldeneye 007, you can achieve a much smoother framerate in emulation than the real system. This basic idea applies to other situations too where emulation can (by being inaccurate) run games smoother than they did originally. For example with NES you can easily with an emulator eliminate slowdowns.

In general, many things are best emulated just due to being very expensive or hard to get.

 

Neo Geo roms are always in zip form. But there is a .Geo format for the flash cart.

 

That’s cause emus would read it in its proper arcade layout of chips. No flash cart supports zip files as far as I’m aware. Guessing it has to do whith hardware not being able to decompress a zip file and dump into flash memory. Other problem with Neo Geo cd not all titles available and later game on it has cut frames to fit into its ram. I’ve thought of getting a disk system again and getting a fds stick. It’s funny but games like metroid actually have better framerate on fds version. Heard it was so to how Nintendo converted titles to cart.

 

MAME will never use such a format. That format is only used on that flash cart for ease of use. MAME doesn't prioritize such things over preservation. Nor should they.

sayin999, some disk system games might use the IRQ of the FDS hardware for screen splits which in NES conversions might use sprite hit zero loops instead. This would result in losing CPU time to compute the frame and could make the NES version more likely to slow down. If you looked at specific games it wouldn't be hard to figure out if the FDS version used the IRQ feature and the NES version uses sprite hit instead.

On the NeoGeo CD, it's too bad it couldn't have had more memory or an expansion. But it just wasn't practical at that time.

 

It’s sad that the Neo Geo Cd didn’t really live up to its potential. But the timing of release was really bad with Saturn and Playstation around the corner. Even though the cost of games was more on average with console games at a $400 price point with tech that was already 4 years old so it was still a hard sell. Also the extremely slow CD drive didn’t help things at all. Seem to appeal mostly to the arcade crowd in Japan based on its initial sell out over there.

IRQ feature often mentioned when discussing fds. Despite the ad-on’s flaws it defiantly had some interesting features crammed into the ram cart.

 

GBA hands down. The screen, while ok at the time, has aged poorly compared to modern expectations.

Also, some games are so slow that x2, or even x4, is a must (*winks* at Golden Sun).

The Cherry on top of that a lot of its games graphical styles benefit from 2xSAI and friends.

 

Nothing wrong with the GBA screen, you just have to get the right one - an AGB-101, GB Micro or maybe even a GB player if you want to go big.
And if shitty screens count as a reason, the original Game Boy's "pea soup" display is way above the Advance on the list of systems to emulate.

 

Yeah, the AGS-101 has a really amazing screen for the time it released. Very bright, very punchy colors, no ghosting. If it weren't for the more awkward shape of the SP it would be perfect (although many have moved the screen to the regular GBA shell). I can also see the speed boost helping that specific game.. I am pretty sure Golden Sun and it's sequel were like the slowest moving games ever. So..much...dialogue..

As for the topic at hand, the only time I really preferred an emulated version is with N64. Being polygon based, the resolution increases that emulation can bring are nice. Still, I'm a whore for original hardware, so I still prefer to just use my real console on the CRT.
Oh, and save states. Those can be handy with really difficult games.

 

See point #2 then.

The best GBA would be the original case with so screen and x2 and x4 toggles!

 

Actually, the AGS-101 does have some ghosting, but not too bad. I agree that the screen is amazing for a GBA.

I have no problem with the SP's form factor. I always thought it was pretty cool.

 

PSP is the best GBA

 

You're right, I don't know why I said that, that's basically impossible for an LCD. The amount it has though is very small and barely noticeable.

Don't get me wrong, I love the portable design. Also the screen usually stays minty on them because of the clamshell. It's just kind of cramped for long playing sessions for games that heavily rely on the shoulder buttons. It's fine for games that don't.

 

I've done some testing before, and it seems the original GBA and also the original SP have less ghosting than the AGS-101. Still, it seems worth it for the increased brightness and overall improvement of picture quality.

Back to the OP, I prefer to play almost everything on original hardware. The only systems I emulate much are the Sega Model 2 and Model 3, and I own a Model 3. I own all of the well known systems and have a lot of games, so there's little reason for me to use emulators.

About N64 emulators: I used to play N64 games in emulators, and I've also played N64 games on the Wii Virtual Console. The problem with N64 emulators is that they're never totally accurate, and often have glitches. Even Nintendo's own official emulator has inaccuracies, I think. To me, there always seems to be something a bit off in these emulators. Playing on a real N64 has no inaccuracies, and games play the way they're meant to play. I've recently bought N64 games that I'd previously only played in emulators, and the overall experience is a lot better on a real N64, I think. Also, my N64 is RGB modded.

There are inaccuracies in any emulator, but it seems particularly noticeable in N64 emulators.