It's quite simple, really. This site endeavors to capture the best emulator for any given system including MESS itself. Lots of research with developers, discussions with the user community, and countless hours of testing have gone into making this site what it is, so you don't have to. Another nice benefit to this site is to aid MESS developers in understanding what resources currently exist, that they may be tapped for assistance.

My evaulation criteria for the best emulator is as follows (in order of importance):

1. Accuracy
2. Open-source status
3. Speed
4. Features (joystick, network play, etc.)
5. Usability
6. Future release potential

Additionally, "MESS driver status" has been provided for each system, which matches actual MESS nomenclature and driver status. Categorization is as follows:

1. Non-existent: There is no driver for this system.
2. Preliminary: An early driver exists. This often represents skeleton drivers under which most software will not run, though some systems may actually launch and load software on a limited basis.
3. Imperfect: Progress has been made, but the driver is far from complete. Software may run under the driver, though some titles may run slowly or with problems.
4. Good: The driver is likely approaching parity with its standalone competitors. Most software should run with little or no problems.
5. Best: Systems in this category are placed in the "MESSy Systems" section (see more below). The optimal situation, of course, is for no systems to exist in the main section of NonMESS - meaning that MESS supports all computer, console and handheld systems as good or better than all other emulators - but don't hold your breath!

I've always believed that the best information comes from you folks out there. So if you have any comments, by all means I want to hear them! I can be reached via email here.

Keep in mind that I'm only providing information on *one* emulator per system. If you'd like to suggest a better emulator, by all means do so - just provide me with a link to the emulator, and a reason why you think yours is better, and I'll consider it.

One more thing, I've decided to do this partly due to the success and popularity of NonMAME, so this is my thanks to everyone out there for the years of support you've given me! ;-)

Enjoy!
Shoegazer

Baseline reference system specs:

• Dell XPS 15z
• Intel i7 2620M 2.7ghz (2 CPUs)
• 8gb RAM
• NVIDIA GT 525M
• Windows 7 x64 SP1

• 06/15/13: Addressing the .149 release changes. Moved Apple II (Non-IIGS), Cybiko (Handheld) and Videopac+ G7400 (Console) sections to MESSy list among other minor modifications.
• 05/19/13: Updated Atari ST section to recommend Hatari over Steem Engine (thanks for the tip, Mathieu!).
• 02/04/13: Replaced NeoPop with Mednafen as recommended Neo Geo Pocket emulator - it's based off of the same source but with some minor improvements, and hey - it's Mednafen!
• 02/03/13: One more update from Shideravan: Re-added Neo Geo Pocket / Neo Geo Pocket Color section and removed system from MESSy list..
• 01/30/13: Added Videopac G7400+ section and updated NES section - again, thanks to feedback from Shideravan.
• 01/28/13: It appears I jumped the gun moving Cybiko to the MESSy list - re-added to main site. Thanks to Shideravan for the heads-up.
• 01/20/13: Minor update to Nintendo Entertainment System section based on helpful feedback from Shideravan/MESSdev and cross-referencing other sources. Also updated Xbox and VC 4000 sections based on feedback from Stiletto.
• 01/16/13: Moved Dreamcast Visual Memory System and Arcadia 2001 to MESSy list based on feedback from Shideravan. Also, clarified issues with the MESS driver in the Central Data 2650, TV Games Computer and VC 4000 sections; and moved Macintosh (Non-PowerPC) to the MESSy list.
• 01/13/13: Moved Instructor 50, Neo Geo CD and ZX Spectrum to MESSy list.
• 01/12/13: Modified Super Nintendo section to rename bsnes as "higan", its new name.

The following are systems which MESS emulates as good as, if not better than, any other emulator. This only includes systems that have known "competition" to MESS - there are hundreds of systems in MESS, with potentially hundreds of thousands to come, and I'm simply not going to include all of them here. This is an experimental section and may be removed if people misunderstand its intent. Please note this does not mean any of these systems are "perfectly emulated" either - remember, emulation is never truly perfect!

Please join me in extending thanks to the MESS team for their hard work and dedication to this effort, without which such accurate emulation would not be possible.

• Alice32 (Computer)
• Amstrad CPC (Computer)
• Apple II (Non-IIGS) (Computer)
• Apple IIGS (Computer)
• Aquarius (Computer)
• Arcadia 2001 (Console)
• Atari 400/800 Series (Computer)
• Atari 2600 (Console)
• Atari 5200 (Console)
• Atari 7800 (Console)
• ColecoVision (Console)
• CPS Changer (Console)
• CreatiVision (Computer)
• Cybiko (Handheld)
• Dreamcast Visual Memory System (Handheld)
• Game Boy (Handheld)
• Game Gear (Handheld)
• Genesis (Console)
• Instructor 50 (Computer)
• Intellivision (Console)
• Lynx (Handheld)
• Macintosh (Non-PowerPC)
• Master System (Console)
• MC-10 (Computer)
• MO Series (Computer)
• MSX Series (Computer)
• Neo Geo AES (Console)
• Neo Geo CD (Console)
• Odyssey2 (Console)
• Othello Multivision
• Pico (Handheld)
• PIPBUG-based Systems (Computer)
• PocketStation (Handheld)
• RX-78 (Computer)
• Sega Computer 3000 (SC-3000) (Computer)
• Sega Game 1000 (SG-1000) (Console)
• Sega Super Control Station (SF-7000) (Computer)
  
• Studio II (Console)
• SuperGrafx (Console)
• SuperVision (Handheld)
• TO Series (Computer)
• TurboGrafx 16 (Console)
• TurboGrafx CD (Console)
• Vectrex (Handheld)
• Videopac+ G7400 (Console)
• WonderSwan (Handheld)
• X1 (Computer)
• X68000 (Computer)
• ZX Spectrum (Computer)

With the release of this emulator, it can now be said that Steve Snake, the sole Kega Fusion author, has finally made Sega his bitch. Kega Fusion not only emulates the 32X more accurately than any other emulator, but also supports the Game Gear, Genesis, Master System and Sega CD.

Regarding the MESS driver, Kale has this to say from his blog dated 12/23/2012:Again, timings are annoyingly strict on this one too, and there might be SH-2 core bugs in a bunch of spots (Sangokushi or Virtua Racing Deluxe, for example). Games on this system are mostly written in pure ASM code, unlike most of the other SH-2 based systems, so there's an higher change of core bugs happening. It's otherwise usable, although it needs a very high end CPU if you want to play anything. A bunch of games (like WWF Raw) does illogical stuff like writing to the ROM region on the copyright screen. Enabling the ROM to be writeable makes the background logo to appear (and I think it should), if it's a joke it's a very good one...

This emulator builds upon the elder FreeDO's codebase, though with many new features, improved accuracy, etc. Many 3DO games apparently run just fine under 4DO - check here. This should give the 3DO emulation scene some much-needed competition until the MESS driver is improved.

Virtual ADAM is a bitter pill to swallow since ADAMEm, which provides its core, was last updated over 10 years ago and is MS-DOS only. That said, it's still your only bet to emulate this curiosity from Coleco with any reasonable level of accuracy. With that said, apparently ColEm will support the ADAM soon too - though hopefully MESS will beat that one to it (the only thing stopping MESS at this point is support for loading ADAM floppies).

The Altair 8800 was the first "home computer" introduced in January of 1975. Altair32 simulates this historically significant system fairly accurately, and includes the source code for future improvements by outside contributers. Curiously, Altair32 is actually an improvement of Altair 8800b Simulator, the latter having been written by Microsoft employee Claus Giloi and abandoned some time in the late 90s.

There's really no need for anyone to consider any other Amiga emulator - this one rocks. It's been in development for many years and has a huge user/fan base worldwide, due in part to the fact that the Amiga computer itself was quite an incredible system.

Red Squirrel is the best Acorn Archimedes emulator to date.

Regarding the MESS driver, Kale has this to say from his blog dated 12/23/2012: Archimedes boots up to the RISC OS available RAM text. It doesn't go further than that (doesn't recognize the file system?). RISC PC is just a laconic black screen (might rewrite it from scratch at some point).

There are many mature Atari ST emulators in existence, including it's nearest "competitor" "Steem Engine", but this one is more accurate; supports other systems in the series such as the STE, TT and Falcon; and just feels less "hacky".

The MESS driver is far from mature so it will be a while before it comes up to speed. From Kale's blog dated 12/23/2012: Nothing boots at all (apparently disk format used isn't yet supported) and no input seems to work on OS screen. (screenshot main BIOS screen). EDIT: according to Mike Abson of MESS forum, .ipf format is actually supported and a bunch of games loads fine, still with no inputs however.

Due to licensing issues, MESS does not yet support CD-i games with MPEG-compressed video, and is not quite as accurate as CD-i Emulator, so CD-i Emulator remains on NonMESS. With that said, this is the best known standalone CD-i emulator, and a fairly mature one at that (although it is not freeware). There are very few other emulators known for the CD-i, and small wonder: the system was terrible as a gaming platform.

This system uses the Signetics 2650 CPU. While the MESS driver is supposedly good, it currently lacks floppy support for its pgm-format computer disks.

The open-source VersatIle Commodor Emulator (VICE) is the best Commodore 64 emulator to date. While "CCS64" is equally accurate, it isn't free, and it doesn't emulate the PET, VIC 20 or 128 as VICE does.

Despite the "good" status of the MESS drivers, they are far from mature so it will be a while before they come up to speed. From Kale's blog dated 12/23/2012:

Vic-20/Vic-1001: Very slow driver, and inputs are pretty unresponsive most of the time (and no joystick support, so you can't possibly start some games). Some games (like A.E.) also sports offsetted gfxs. Nowhere near as usable, no... EDIT: for the joystick support, it was because you needed to actually type -joy1 joy in the command line. I've changed that to be default behaviour.

To quote the late Doug Henning, "Anything's possible in the world of magic!". Well folks, if you believe in magic, believe this: nullDC is one heck of a Dreamcast emulator, and has been from its first release.

As an update to this original entry made several years ago, nullDC has gone open-source; great news for the long-term potential of the project and Dreamcast preservation in general. It's a timely maneuver too, because its successors are slowly filling the gaps of it's glaring limitations. Here's hoping this will bring new features, such as proper CHD, WinCE and DSP support.

Regarding the MESS driver, Kale has this to say from his blog dated 12/23/2012:Emulation is decent for booting some Naomi games, it isn't at all for the console. It boots up to the swirl logo and the adjust clock screen. No much work has been done for the ATAPI CD-ROM controller, so nothing boots. It's also VERY slow performance wise, as you can expect...

There are so many Game Boy emulators out there to choose from, yet this the most accurate (with runner-up KiGB a close second). Interestingly, Mednafen has also become a nice alternative to Gambatte, though falls short on rare edge cases such as Shantae. Indeed, Gambatte is definitely in the same league as other emulators with a focus on clock-cycle accuracy such as bsnes. Additionally, this is an open-source project, and there appears to be some collaboration between the MESS development team and Gambatte's author.

At this point, MESS matches Gambatte's accuracy as far as I can tell, barring some very limited, small-scale issues. MESS has problems with Rayman in particular - note the graphical effects during the intro, the music in the game, and the garbage at the bottom of the screen during gameplay - none of which are problems for Gambatte. From Kale's blog dated 12/23/2012: Not tried too much, but there are a fair deal of gfx/timing bugs on this one (example: Montezuma's Return on THQ logo). It seems otherwise more or less in a working state, just not extensively tested.

Some of you may be surprised to see the Game Boy Advance (GBA) section re-surface after recent MESS driver improvements. It appears I had made a mistake: I've discovered the MESS driver has difficulties with certain edge cases, such as Drill Dozer, Racing Gears Advance and Iridion II (all great games, by the way). Kale reflects a similar experience in his blog dated 12/23/2012:Compatibility is a lot better, compared to when I've reg tested the driver a bunch of years ago. There are still some video timing issues and fails on some edge cases (like the protection used in Famicom Mini games), but that's it.

Mednafen runs the above games just fine, and since I cannot find any games that MESS runs better than Mednafen, I've declared Mednafen the better of the two. With that said, be forewarned: Mednafen is famously difficult to use. For one, there is no GUI, and the few third-party GUIs that exist are generally terrible - at least on the Windows front. I'm aware of only one, Mednafen GUI, that even works correctly (MedGUI used to, but recent Mednafen updates have rendered it inoperable). That said, Mednafen GUI is closed-source and apparently moribund, having been abandoned by its author. Regardless, for any heavy lifting you'll need to edit the Mednafen config file and use the command-line.

Dolphin is the best choice for GameCube emulation, with scant few alternatives. Get the full skinny on Dolphin in the Wii section below.

The GamePark 32 is a Korean handheld gaming system, and is several times more powerful than the Game Boy Advance. GeePee32 does a great job emulating the system - check it out!

Hercules emulates several IBM Mainframes; namely, System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture systems. Hercules has a huge (3000+) user community, as these systems were quite special to many people. Note: A GUI is available for Windows users.

This system is a clone of the Altair 8800 computer, the latter being the first "home computer" introduced in January of 1975. See the Altair 8800 section for further information.

Project Tempest currently has many accuracy and compatibility issues, and hasn't seen a release in many years, but it's the best available. Curiously, Virtual Jaguar has seen recent development activity, and is fully open-source; however, some games such as Alien Vs. Predator and Tempest 2000 run at less than full speed; and it doesn't run the id games (Doom and Wolfenstein 3D).

The MESS driver is far from mature so it will be a while before it comes up to speed. From Kale's blog dated 12/23/2012: Only a 40-50% of the games boots on this if they doesn't trip weird bugs (like the one in Tempest 2k, where it overwrites the cart ROM region for whatever reason), and even if they does, there are many issues with the annoying video device/blitter. Jag CD isn't emulated at all, but without a solid base behind that isn't even to be taken into consideration.

This is the only known emulator outside of MESS for the JR-200U.

PearPC is the first Macintosh PowerPC emulator available for Wintel machines. The emulator is in very early stages and is relatively difficult to install and use; however, it is worth the undertaking if you happen to be a PowerPC enthusiast.

Michael Franzen's MZxEmu is the only emulator you need for Sharp MZ systems below the 2000 model. Curiously, there is no "readme" file, though the emulator is very straightforward and well-written. Interestingly enough, MZxEmu also emulates Z80-based arcade games such as Phoenix and Carnival! As a side note, the link provided here is not specific to this emulator; rather, it is an excellent resource for information on the Sharp MZ-based systems, in addition to providing a de facto home for MZxEmu. Check it out!

MESS has recently added support for these models; however the "MZ-80B" and "MZ-1500" which MZxEmu emulates well, are not currently working.

This Sharp multi-MZ emulator is the only one of its kind. Surprisingly enough, this emulator features an English GUI.

This Sharp MZ-2500 emulator is the only one of its kind. Surprisingly enough, this emulator features an English GUI.

Kale has this to say about the MESS driver, from his blog dated 12/23/2012:The SuperMZ is currently a step below perhaps even two or three compared to Takeda's emu. Some SWs doesn't like our FDC (garbage in Murder Club), others have weird bugs (Instant Game Over in Orrbit 3) plus the system doesn't support neither SASI nor the network device (Moon Child relies on it). There are also some gfx bugs with some of the Dust Box programs (they are annoying to test as well). Might add support for save states and clean-up the whole thing at some point...

Sadly, this system was removed from the MESSy list recently since it was discovered that the MESS driver doesn't support saving to battery-backed RAM as Mednafen does. This can be seen in games like Metal Slug - 2nd Mission (upon completing any level). Mednafen's Neo Geo Pocket driver is based on the long-defunct NeoPop emulator, but with some minor refinements to the source, and hey - it's Mednafen!

DeSmuME is back! This is clearly the best DS emulator out there, now beating out its closest competitor, No$GBA, by a sound margin. With tons of great features, excellent compatibility and speed, and an open-source platform, what more could you want?

Surprised? Man, is competition fierce in the Nintendo department. With so many great emulators to choose from (Mednafen, FCE Ultra, Nestopia, VirtuaNES, RockNES X and NNNesterJ to name a few) it can make your head spin. What's worse - the NES supports over 100 "mappers" within their cartridges and none of these programs emulate them all. What's a mapper? Chris Covell's NES Tech FAQ describes it well:

Incidentally, the MESS driver is coming very close to Nestopia in terms of accuracy and compatibility (now even running one of my favorite NES games, "CastleVania III"). Still, it is in need of a PPU rewrite to fix certain graphical glitches present in some games - for example "Skull & Crossbones" has major video problems, and "Battletoads" (third level) shows no video at all. Kale has this to say about the MESS driver, from his blog dated 12/23/2012:...PPU mid-frame changes doesn't work too well (off by a bunch of scanlines, generally), and sometimes you get garbled gfxs. It can load Famicom disk images too. Needs some serious reg-testing and somebody that is willing to rewrite the whole video system from scratch (according to Etabeta).

It's been a long and winding road towards perfect Nintendo 64 emulation. No emulator outside of the MESS driver is terribly accurate, though a few can at least run a wide variety of N64 titles (ignoring for a moment that they use High Level Emulation as smoke and mirrors to do so). The best of these are Project64 and Mupen64Plus. While the former is the more compatible of the two, running a wider variety of games, Mupen64Plus is rapidly closing the gap. Also, the latter's open-source and cross-platform status (it runs on Linux, MacOS etc.) means it has far greater future potential than Project64. Finally, both Project64 and Mupen64Plus take advantage of a very effective plug-in system that allows independent developers to write their own interchangeable video, audio, controller, and Reality Signal Processor (RSP) modules, separate from the emulators' cores.

Another thing, check out the work Smiff has done with the replacement RDB file, here. The RDB file is essentially a database of settings for individual games that further tweak the emulator and maximize performance. Simply replace the stock RDB file with this one for even better performance.

One important note about the MESS driver - it's had some major improvements recently thanks to MooglyGuy and Ville Linde. In fact, the MESS driver is probably several orders of magnitude more accurate than Project64; however given this fact it is unplayably slow. Given time the MESS driver will, of course, be a far better alternative. From Kale's blog dated 12/23/2012: Performance varies greatly on this one according to what happens on screen (it ranges between 20% to 100% and above). Compatibility isn't great, most games either crashes or throws black screens. Former might be due of some silly floating point assert within the gfx system, it's certainly something that's shared (examples: Bangai-O, Fushigi no Dungeon 2, Sin & Punishment, all with the same assert type). Only the BIOS is supported in 64DD, no work has been done for the disk drive emulation.

Nuance is the only known emulator for this system. Sadly, its original author passed away in 2007.

ODYEMU is the only known emulator for this, the very first console game system ever made.

If you want to play your old PC games, this is your best bet. The MESS driver has made rapid progress lately, especially with respect to 80486-based systems.

From Kale's blog dated 12/23/2012:Right now the x86 CPU is very solid, so the PC/AT can run and install every available Windows up to ME with a i486 and several *nix distros. As for the video/sound, some ISA cards are emulated, but there are still a fair share of bugs with them (most known one is the horizontal pel shift bug in VGA that happens in Alien Breed and Sensible World of Soccer. It's basically used for horizontal scrolling, but values doesn't make much sense as per now). Some SWs also behaves weird (for example: Heroes of Might & Magic hangs once that you go in end turn phase). Will see to iron out these issues in the next months...

The NEC PC98XX series of computers was introduced at a time when the IBM PC was first taking off, and it was marketed in a similar fashion for the same purposes, yet it had its own architecture. Neko Project II fmgen emulates this system very well, and unlike so many other PC98 emulators, it sports an English GUI that won't drive you non Japanese-speaking folk bananas using it. Note that this emulator is an anonymous programmer's fork of the original Neko Project II effort that is now defunct.

While this emulator has no official website, there are some interesting discussions with links posted on this forum thread.

The MESS PC driver is coming along quite nicely despite its preliminary status. From Kale's blog dated 12/23/2012: Under WIP by me as per now, it's coming along pretty nicely as well. Only floppy games works as per now with an hit and miss compatibility (formats supported: .fdi and .d88), and keyboard is sometimes fussy (needs proper UART hooked up), but anything that boots does it without too much to write home about. PC-9821 support is very preliminary, and it somehow works for everything that is exclusively on floppy and doesn't use the EGC, although very performance hitter. Anything compiled with BASIC most of the time fails badly (Xevious, Adventureland), presumably there are issues with uPD7220 opcodes. Sound boards PC9801-26 and PC9801-86 are more or less supported, no MIDI for now.

Mednafen supports this system well, and considering the emulator also supports other NonMESS systems, I wouldn't even consider any alterative at this point.

JOYCE is the only Amstrad PCW emulator available outside of MESS (which currently doesn't work very well).

PlayStation emulation has been fraught with controversy, from the commercial fiasco/disaster "Bleem" to the unapproved hack/project "PSXeven". Others such as ePSXe and pSX have taken turns holding the best-choice mantle for many years; however they are both closed-source, limiting their long-term potential as the world moves increasingly away from Windows-only platforms.

It's worth noting that Mednafen still exhibits a few rare issues with some games (for example, "Toshinden" and "Zero Divide" run too fast; and "Tiny Toon Adventures" crashes at certain points). However, the emulator is open-source, supports features such as in-game "cd changing" unlike most other alternatives, doesn't use plug-ins (thankfully!), and is far more compatible and accurate than nearly all others out there.

The MESS driver has shown significant progress lately, though more work remains to be done - and lacking dual-shock support as a major limitation of MESS (and MAME, incidentally), it should be a long time before the PlayStation will ever be on the MESSy list.

There's really no other viable option for this platform. While it's fully open-source with Windows and Linux versions, unfortunately there isn't a 64-bit version; this limits future compatibility and creates problems for Linux users since they will need to create a chroot environment to get it to work (see here for further details).

For assistance getting PCSX2 to work in general, see bostman's PCSX2 Configuration Page.

What's this? A PSP emulator in Java? Great to see the language get a real workout with this, the best PSP emulator currently available.

WinArcadia simulates (i.e. doesn't emulate) the old AY-3-8500 based "Ball & Paddle" integrated circuit from General Instrument that was used in several home Pong systems. WinArcadia author James Jacobs has this to say about supporting these systems:

While Pong may not exactly spell excitement these days, it makes for a great nostalgia trip for those of you who are old enough to remember.

While development of this emulator has been notably slow over the many years that it's been around, nothing has been able to top it - including the controversial GiriGiri/Cassini. SSF isn't the fastest Saturn emulator out there, but it runs at a playable speed on my reference system and it's the most compatible there is. Keep in mind that while the emulator's website may be in Japanese, the software itself, including the GUI, is in English.

The MESS Saturn driver has come along quite nicely recently, and apparently some games are now fully playable. However, the CD block is still missing so a majority of games will not be playable until then. Kale has this to say from his blog dated 12/23/2012:Current SW compatibility is more or less at the level of the Yabause emulator. The major problem with this system is not that it's too hard to emulate, but rather, the lack of vital information available. For example: there's no info regarding VDP1 opcode timings, that definitely makes a difference on several test cases like Night Striker or Grandia. We also don't emulate the SCU DSP at CPU level, and a bunch of games definitely relies on that by keeping it enabled (so it hangs with the current hook-up, example Magical Hoppers). Some later Sega games like Daytona USA CE or Virtual On also uses some exploit in the system to draw their 3d list, no hell of an idea about this one. Last one that I do recall as a nasty test case at the moment is the Game Basic software: it tries to do an illegal DMA (from BIOS ROM to VDP1), so the (visually appealing) demos won't display any gfx.

Steve Snake strikes again! This is the best Sega CD emulator out there.

The MESS driver has been making progress but is far from mature. As Kale observes in his blog dated 12/23/2012:Stock Mega CD (the Japanese one) doesn't load anything for now (it was working before), you need to use megacd2j if you want to play a JP game. Compatibility ratio is otherwise hit or miss, due of the timings that have a huger impact on this than regular MD.

I really need to be careful with hyperbole when I'm writing about brilliant emulators - there's so much good stuff out there I imagine it would be easy for you, my readers, to feel jaded by review after glowing review. Having said that, it's impossible for me NOT to rave about higan (the new name for "bsnes"). Please indulge me.

With so many decent SNES emulators that have been developed over the years there's a lot of competition for sure, yet higan beats them all. Rising like a phoenix from the ashes of inaccurate, buggy and hack-plagued emulators that will go unnamed, this tiny and efficient piece of software demonstrates that system emulation can improve dramatically, even after the target system has received years of attention and scrutiny. higan accuracy is VERY close to 100%, with a 65816 CPU core that is - are you sitting down? - accurate to the clock cycle. I'm not kidding. This emulator basically IS a SNES in software. Show me any other SNES emulator - heck, show me any other emulator period, that can lay that sort of claim (of course there is a speed cost, but it's really not that noticeable if you are running higan on anything made within the last several years). As if that weren't enough, higan features an uncommonly simple and clean interface as well as BS Satellaview and SuperFX support, and is actively updated unlike some of its competition. About the only thing missing from higan that others have is netplay.

The only true runner-up to higan is SNESGT. While not quite as accurate, this emulator is also highly compatible, and according to the higan author byuu himself, SNESGT actually supports some BS Satellaview games that higan doesn't. byuu writes, "[SNESGT] uses various game-specific workarounds that [higan] cannot to achieve even greater BS-X compatibility [than higan]."

Unfortunately for MESS user community, higan does not support the SNES' "native" split-ROM format that MESS widely supports. This is unfortunate as it hinders interoperability for those who use both emulators; though it doesn't necessarily make higan less attractive on its own. There's hope byuu will change his mind about this someday, but nobody's holding their breath.

On a side note, MESS development has been progressing rapidly as well these days, though without support for features such as BS Satellaview and decent SuperFX support. Further, don't hold your breath waiting for cycle-accuracy - it may come in time, but not on the immediate horizon for sure. There will need to be major changes to the MESS (and actually, MAME) core before such a thing is even possible. Kale has this to say about the MESS driver, from his blog dated 12/23/2012:Compatibility ratio is decent as per now, it's not yet at [higan] level and some extra chips aren't yet supported (example: SA-1). The major problem with this is still the main<->sound timings, we're still cycle stealing too much or too little, depending on the situation. It needs a major rewrite of the CPU emulation (that should also take open bus into account). Also, video emulation isn't too good either, but the whole thing is currently annoying enough to debug, last time I've fixed a very simple bug (Robocop 3 missing sprites, caused by incorrect VRAM wrap-around) it took me about 3/4 hours. Too much.

This is the only working NEC Trek emulator available, outside of the MESS driver. Speaking of which, Kale has this to say from his blog dated 12/23/2012: System is marked GNW [Game Not Working] just because it handles cassette tapes via an hack (use -cart2 option to load anything, then follow whatever instruction needed by the SW). The rest it behaves fairly well, including up to MK-2 support. You can't save, and some edge cases doesn't work at all (i.e. one version of Xevious). Video needs a MC6847 merge with the one used by CoCo (only regular PC-6001 tho, Mk-2 uses a special version of the chip), and there's still a i8255 hack that needs to be ironed out.

WinArcadia supports this computer by Elektor, which is not too surprising considering it uses the Signetics 2650A CPU as does the VC 4000 and others listed on NonMESS. See VC 4000 section for further details regarding specific MESS driver issues.

Interton's ancient game console, utilizing the Signetics 2650 CPU.

WinArcadia author James Jacobs pointed out several deficiencies in the current MESS driver that are not present in his emulator. While MESS plays some games better (Air Sea Battle features hit detection which WinArcadia lacks), there are still some video issues (such as Bowling's epileptic fits). James indicated he may help the MESS team with their driver, though given he had tendered the offer several years ago, I doubt that will happen at this point. Either way, the MESS driver for VC 4000 (and other related systems) is nearing completion with many games already emulated well, so look forward to that soon!

Mednafen supports this system well, and considering the emulator also supports other NonMESS systems, I wouldn't even consider any alterative at this point (though Reality Boy is a decent standalone VB emulator).

With that said, be forewarned: Mednafen is famously difficult to use. For one, there is no GUI, and the few third-party GUIs that exist are generally terrible - at least on the Windows front. I'm aware of only one, Mednafen GUI, that even works correctly (MedGUI used to, but recent Mednafen updates have rendered it inoperable). That said, Mednafen GUI is closed-source and apparently moribund, having been abandoned by its author. Regardless, for any heavy lifting you'll need to edit the Mednafen config file and use the command-line.

Despite these issues, Mednafen is a solid emulator and worth checking out - at least until the MESS driver is cleaned up.

Note: Mednafen supports multiple Virtual Boy color modes through the use of the "-vb.3dmode" option, which is set through the config file. See the Mednafen documentation for further details.

Regarding the MESS driver, Kale has this to say from his blog dated 12/23/2012: Fairly decent, for something that has very obtuse documentation available. Framebuffer isn't yet emulated properly (don't know how/where to clear them) so a bunch of games doesn't work (the ones you don't want to play anyway, like WaterWorld), and the V810 core has various bugs (so sometimes crashes or sports weird bugs, like a lack of collision for some spots in Galactic Pinball), but I think it's fairly usable otherwise. A good trick is to enter into Video Options and use either one of the two screens, the system can be pretty intensive and doing it gives a performance boost.

While not exactly coming out of the blue, Dolphin's advanced support for the Wii took everyone by surprise. It'll require a little work to dump the BIOS from your Wii for accurate audio support, and your computer will need bluetooth capability to support the Wiimote, but Dolphin makes it possible to play your Wii games at full speed on modern computers (well, some of the anyway, though that's changing). Perhaps the most exciting thing about Dolphin is the constant improvements that you can compile and see for yourself on a daily basis.

I attribute this rapacious progress to it's vast open-source development community, comprised of many talented programmers and reverse engineers, as well as the accessibility of the code and the loose yet coordinated development model that seems more prevalent than that of any other emulation project I know, with the exception of MAME and MESS. This is the way emulation projects should be run, especially those involving such modern systems as the GameCube and Wii. As time passes, projects established with the lofty goal of emulating a complex next-generation system will need to employ Dolphin's successful and proven model if any success is to be made.

Xbox emulation is a sad state of affairs indeed, thanks in large part to a lack of documentation. But you ask, shouldn't there be an abundance of documentation for the PC platform, on which the Xbox is based? Well, sort of. To begin with, the Xbox uses custom Nvidia graphics hardware - and Nvidia is known to be very "cloak-and-dagger" about their hardware.

Until recently I had reported that Dxbx was the best Xbox emulator available. However, a few things made me change that: first, being a Delphi port of Cxbx, Dxbx will always be one step behind; and second, even though Cxbx hasn't seen a public release in many years, Dxbx hasn't even had a commit to the source tree since 2010.

Keep in mind: very few games actually run on this emulator, and the future doesn't look promising unless/until more documentation avails itself to the developers. Also, neither of the above emulators support x64-based operating systems yet. Let's hope they do at some point soon.