What's your favorite arcade Emulator?

[cosmic_lord]

What's your favorite multi-arcade emu? Please give a detailed description as to why. One of these days I'll figure out what the hell people see attractive in MAME. MAME note: for this poll, disregard the fact that MAME plays any other systems other than CPS-1, CPS-2, and Neo-Geo... because this is to compare the new game experience in different emulators... I don't care that MAME emulates pong because that's irrelevant.

 

Anyway, as for me, I like Nebula because it has the best graphics out of all three emulators. It has more features, like video plug-ins and a better macro system (even if you don't use the macro system it's still there so that makes Nebula better) and unlike Kawaks, you don't have to 'Pause Emulation' every flocking time you exit the emu... that annoys the hell out of me. Also, before I load up a game in Kawaks, the image seems to be a blurred and messed up picture of the last thing i watched in Windows Media Player weird.

[Gryph]

I like Nebula all the same reasons as you do. I don't hate or even dislike the others. I just have a stronger preference for Nebula.

[cosmic_lord]

I like Nebula all the same reasons as you do. I don't hate or even dislike the others. I just have a stronger preference for Nebula.

Yea, but to you and the rest of ppl who see this, do you get that thing with kawaks where when you oepn it up, instead of a black screen, it's kind of like a messed up view of what you last watched in media player? Maybe it's just me.

[Gryph]

Yeah, that's just you.

[cosmic_lord]

Stupid thing. I think my computer is flocked up... if I have Media player open with a video running and I open up microsoft word or anything, the white part (tan for me with my desktop theme, it's easier on the eyes) is gone and I can see straight through to my video. it's annoying.

[random guy]

You should have specified - ie instead of arcade had "cps/2/Neo Geo" emulator, or had alot more choices.

 

My favourite arcade emulator is probably Zinc (Sony ZN-1/System 12 games), because it is fast and runs some cool games (like Rival Schools! ...Strider 2...Battle Arena Toshinden 2...)....theres even a chance it will emulate Tekken Tag Tournament on its final release.

 

Also, when I emulate cps/etc... games, I usually use "NeoRageX", but thats only because I've grown used to the startup screen and it looks funky. But I have grown to using Kawaks more, because I can use 2*sai filtering on it on my very average PC without much slowdown, but for Nebula I cant use any filtering at all without it slowing down rediculously. MAME is just too much of a beast for my pc to handle as well.

 

Also, anyone with a decent PC should check out "Nebula Model 2" - it has support for various Sega Model2b games such as Sonic The Hedgehog Championship and The Last Bronx.

[Weirdy]

my fav. arcade emu is MAME..but for netplay, my fav. emu is Final Burn Alpha

[Xeon]

What's your favorite multi-arcade emu?  Please give a detailed description as to why.  One of these days I'll figure out what the hell people see attractive in MAME.  MAME note: for this poll, disregard the fact that MAME plays any other systems other than CPS-1, CPS-2, and Neo-Geo... because this is to compare the new game experience in different emulators... I don't care that MAME emulates pong because that's irrelevant.

the fact is, MAME is a priceless framework (being open-sourced, portable to developers and accurate emulation). without it, i doubt Nebula, Kawaks, FBA or even NeorageX would exist until today. with its striving accuracy it is also best suited for a blazing fast (preferably current) PC user that wants an all-in-one wonder emu.

 

FBA is a close derivative since it is not restricted to CPS/Neogeo hardware and being open-sourced, and having the near (if not the same) accuracy level as MAME while still being fast. it also emulates Cave/Toaplan hardware and other oldies like Superman, Prehistoric Isle (1), etc. next version is announced to have support for Psikyo hardware based games (Gunbird, Tengai, etc)

 

if i have a better PC i would try Nebula as well as i want to see PGM emulation as well (though i think most of those games graphically stink).

 

theyre mostly 2D arcade emus. i have no say on 3D since my PC isnt capable of playing them.

[Weirdy]

good point, w/out MAME there really wouldn't be a kawaks or nebula or nrx. Its stupid though that kawaks and nebula aren't open source

[Agozer]

They're not on the list but I'd say Raine, ZiNc or FBA.

[solidius23]

i will go with MAME i just love it

[cosmic_lord]

Again, nobody is giving much of a reason for liking MAME... so I'm just sticking with my assumption that most people used it first and stuck with it... later becoming stubborn to the prospect of switching.

 

It's really not right to say that Nebula and Kawaks wouldn't have existed without MAME. For one most obvious reason, Nebula and Kawaks were both done in Visual C++ instead of mingw. That means the only thing they would have taken from MAME would have been the drivers, and as much as you want to disagree, they would have figured out the drivers in time just like the MAME guy did. Hell, even if no emulator had been invented up to this point, someone would make one in the future. There will always be somebody to figure something out if no one else does... so you can't assume things like that. Although I think it would be safe to assume there'd be no Nebula or Kawaks if people weren't able to dump arcade boards .

[kaioshade]

Here is the reason i like mame.

 

Note that although this is mame32, i do not use the gui version of mame.

 

One of the things i like about mame is that it supports different configurations for each game. I just make a nice batch file for each game i use and double click that and launch the game with minimal fuss.

 

mame kof2003 -joystick -resolution1024x768x32 -effect scan50

 

now say i play another game. instead of launching the emu, and going into settings and selecting different settings, i have another batch file

 

mame ddonpach -joystick -resolution 800x600x32 -effect scan 25

 

I like that about mame.

 

Mame, being opened source, i can add as much or as little as i want to the emu. I dont play midway games, so i delete the diver for them, and compile my own build. Mame is about what you want on it. As many games, or as little games as you want. Gui or command line.

 

I like all emulators, but i do also like mame as an "all-in-one" solution, i dont like having much clutter on my pc, so one emu that does everything without having to switch emus is a nice bonus for me.

 

If all i played was neo geo, then i would use one of the other emus, as mame would have no point.

 

And mame still is the most accurate emulator available.

[cosmic_lord]

Kawaks doesn't support different control configs for each game, (as far as I know, I really haven't used it except the 1.48 dev to play kof2k3) but Nebula does quite nicely. You make one file for a specific config. My nickname is Fuzzy... so I make one called Fuzzy's King of Fighters (1) and another one called Fuzzy's King of Fighters (2)... and at the control config screen I can select what config I want (for any game, I could load my KOF controls up for street fighter games if I wanted to, but that would suck.) and then just hit load. I really only use this when I get a new game, because I set up a set of controls and stick with them.

 

As far as different video configs go, you can't beat Nebula. Nebula supports a lot more video features, I mean I have it set to use my video card, but sometimes I use the HQ2x plugin or one of the others. I really have no use for the Direct 3D one because my video card looks better anyway.

 

I keep all my Emulators in one folder on my desktop called "Emulators", and on my desktop I have shortcuts to most of the Emulators I use. It doesn't get at all cluttered... as you can see...

 

http://angelfire.com/extreme3/uda/shot.jpg

 

http://angelfire.com/extreme3/uda/shot2.jpg

 

I've used Nebula, Kawaks, NeoRageX and MAME. I don't like Kawaks much, the graphics aren't nearly as good as Nebula, it has much less video plugins and such. The sound gets fuzzy a lot (as well as the graphics) and you hav eto pause the emulation every time you exit it, which gets really annoying. As far as MAME goes, I'd keep it around if I ever played pong and crap like that... but I don't, so I don't need it.

 

 

 

EDIT Next time resize your pics so they are smaller in file and frame size.

James

Edited February 16, 2004 by james

[Weirdy]

ey f*cker!!! don't post those images on the board, they're too big, just link us...cause thats a lot of space.