Which SNES emulator(s) are still supported, and which are the best to use? I have been using SNES9X 1.51 since it was released, but sadly, I think nobody has updated it in ages!

Your other option is BSNES, which has cycle-exact hardware emulation and doesn't use hacks like SNES9x. Performance wise, there isn't much difference between the two (for most games, anyway). But BSNES is more true to the original experience.

There's not a lot of improvement left in the world of SNES emulation. I'd say give BSNES a try, then make up your own mind whether to switch to using it.

Flattered as I am to have someone say BSNES and Snes9x are on par with performance, I think you're away with the fairies on that one...

As far as I'm concerned BSNES is considerably slower than Snes9x -- though the performance core which debuted in 0.68 (not listed on MacScene yet... you're slipping folks!) closes the gap somewhat.

Any official Intel Mac should manage full speed with that one.

MacScene still lists emulators somewhere? I think I'm blind, I can't find anything like that

bsnes' performance core mode is 1.92x slower than Snes9X v1.52. 92% is a lot, but you get way more than a 92% accuracy increase in turn for that. Considering that the slowest official Intel Mac is more than fast enough, speed really isn't an issue anymore.

When you disable the S-PPU video renderer, the bsnes performance core matches Snes9X's performance. But of course, it's impossible to eliminate all overhead from the most intense chip in the whole system.

My goal is to write a new, faster PPU. But I don't know how I can get the old code any faster, it was already very well optimized. In the absolute best case, if I can get it 50% faster, that will drop the difference between bsnes and Snes9X to ~40%.

I'll backtrack a little and say that I get full speed on most SNES games in the current BSNES, which to most people would mean that the performance is comparable. Of course, in raw terms the performance gap is still big, but to the average user on a recent Intel Mac it would barely be noticeable except on the more demanding games.

And no, MacScene does not list emulators at the moment. The closest we get is linking to them in forum posts and the monthly news round-ups (of which the next one will be posted in a few days).

Yeah...I've been wondering why the old emulators listing section from the now defunct site we used to have isn't back up and running. It was a HUGE timesaver and fairly informative at that.

It's the one thing I've truly missed about macscene ever since the old site went kaput.

I was referring to the news page.

Is there any way to share SRAMs with other emulators? BSNES doesn't let you set custom paths, so I tried making an alias of the Snes9x SRAMs folder and renaming it to "Battery RAM" hoping that BSNES would recognize them, but it didn't. Copying the SRAMs into the regular Battery RAM folder works, but it's quite a pain to do that every time I want to keep a separate emulator up to speed with my saves.

The Windows version seems to have more options. Will there be any effort to add them in the OS X port eventually?

Have you tried symlinks?

Yes, and the result was that BSNES was able to read the saves fine, but then my saves didn't appear in Snes9x (as if they'd been erased). I tried getting rid of the link to see if that would fix it, but it didn't. I made another link and then the saves didn't appear in BSNES either, so yeah it seems like they got thrashed from this.

Edit: The saves of the two games I tried anyway, Kirby Super Star and Secret of Mana. The other game saves didn't erase. Good thing I always use freezes as precautionary backups in the event something like this happens.

And here I thought I was the only one that did this...

I did a little more testing just to confirm exactly what happens, and this is what I experienced:

-Snes9x SRAMs can be loaded in BSNES with no issues. -Once BSNES gets its hands on one, it will no longer be compatible with Snes9x. -Freezes for the two are incompatible even if you rename them (this one makes sense). -bsnes (the one compiled from source with the Qt GUI) cannot use either of the two SRAM types, which means it's not even compatible with "itself." Doing this also erases the SRAM in the same manner that BSNES does to Snes9x. -This sucks.

bsnes/Qt uses standard, uncompressed save RAM files that are 100% compatible with Snes9X. I am absolutely certain of this. Most likely they aren't looking in the same paths or something.

My mistake, I suppose I used a save that had gotten wiped, and then tested with bsnes before using a freeze to restore its data. It's Richard Bannister's port that doesn't maintain compatibility, which sucks because it's fantastic otherwise.

By the way, since you passed by, were you aware that bsnes/Qt does not recognize USB controllers? I was wondering if that was a limitation of Qt, or maybe perhaps you haven't implemented it for the OS X port yet.

I'm also curious about the separate cores. Choosing accuracy core doesn't actually slow down speed much at all. In fact, I maintain a steady 60 fps most of the time. Is the OS X port locked into compatibility or performance no matter what you choose in the preferences? When I use Bannister's port, choosing accuracy gives me about 3-5 fps.

In any case, excellent work.

My Mac port compresses all files it writes with gzip. If you decompress them first Snes9x should open them again.

Hi people

I'm a new Mac user, but I am an old bsnes lover, that i used so much under windows.

The latest version for windows is 0.8.0; is the 0.6.8 version listed here the latest available for mac?

Will be a new version of this great emulator?

Thanx in advance

Richard Bannister is maintaining the Mac version, and does most of his work expressly for archival/hardware-compatibility quality. I haven't had my ear to the ground on development, but the most recent build is going to be at www.bannister.org and that's pretty darn compatible these days. If the Windows version difference added anything under the hood, it might be worth pinging Byuu or Richard to see what's up, but if it's just conveniences and interface, odds are porting new versions is lower on Richard's priority list.

OpenEmu is a Mac-native multi-emulator interface that has a bsnes 0.057.1 plugin. That's a far cry from 0.08, but bsnes has been excellent for a long time, so this is another route you can go. The latest Mac version of Snes9x is only a few months old, if I remember correctly.

be nice if there was a way to get save states working cross plateform in snes9x tho. have yet to get it to work.