RetroArch for most stuff. The main devs aren’t good people but the tech of it is good, and most of the cores are by other people than the main devs. Dolphin standalone for GC and Wii. PPSSPP standalone for PSP. Both of those don’t run well through retroarch
Anything I’m not already familiar with in terms of what retroarch core to use, I’ll check https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Main_Page
That’s the wiki for 4chans ongoing emulation threads.
What makes the devs of RetroArch bad people?
If I recall correctly they had involvement with the harassment the drove byuu (another emulator dev) to suicide. There was also some supposed harassment of the Duckstation dev, and potentially some license violation when they forked Duckstation to make the “Swanstation” core. Ah, found the weird obsessed wordpress site, and it looks like most of the shit was around a decade ago, so I guess it’s not really even worth mentioning anymore.
I intentionally try to stay away from emulator dev drama. It takes a certain type of person to develop these things and they pretty frequently aren’t in a good headspace and aren’t particularly good at interacting with other people.
The android app of retroarch is buggy and very un-user-friendly
Same. I dislike the frontend but its very feature rich and I suppose I don’t hate it enough to change. This covers me for almost every system.
On android, I use either:
- FEX
Basically Proton, but for Android
- JoiPlay
For RPGMaker and Ren’py games
- PPSSPP
For PSP games
On Windows, I used to run
CEMUYuzu, but it’s been shut down by Nintendo.When did cemu get shut down? Looking at their GitHub there was a commit 5 hours ago. Still looks pretty active?
You’re right, sry. It’s Yuzu, not Cemu
This is a meta package, rather than directly an emulator, but retrodeck (Linux, steamdeck) is such an excellent experience I have to give it a shoutout
using PortingKit, I’ve had good luck running windows games on my M4 Pro MBP. when that doesn’t work, I try CrossOver.
If we’re talking console emulators, pcsx2 for PS2, Duckstarion for PS1, mGBA for GBA, Dolphin for gamecube, Kega Fusion for all things Sega before Dreamcast, the standard stuff. All on computer and not my phone.
If we’re talking some sort of other emulators, then IDK what to answer with besides the usual things people might say like the WINE or Proton compatibility layers.
Steam + Proton, for the most part. Lutris for Kitten Space Agency.
- PlayStation / PC Engine - Mednafen
- NES - Mesen
- SNES - Higan / bsnes / Ares (whatever it’s called)
- GB(C|A)? - mGBA
- Mega Drive - BizHawk
- GameCube / Wii - Dolphin
- Amiga - FS-UAE
- DOS - DOSBOX Staging
Those are the main ones, but by and large I either use original hardware or the MiSTer.
I use PCSX2 for PS2, Nestopia for NES, Ares for SNES, Dolphin for GameCube, Sameboy for DMG and GBC, and likely will use Mednaffe (Mednafen frontend) for Saturn (I still have a Saturn hack of Asuka 120% I rarely play).
I use Lemuroid on Android. Works well. On F-Droid. Nothing about it has prompted me to search for alternatives, so no idea how it stacks up against other options.
Also, EasyRPG Player on Android for RPG Maker games. (I played the original Yume Nikki not terribly long ago via EasyRPG Player.) Also on F-Droid. Also worked great.
The ones I return to regularly:
Dolphin - for GC and Wii. Most titles using Wii remotes require the sensor bar thingy and mine recently stopped working. I haven’t bothered buying a new one yet so it’s GC games only for now.
Nestopia UE - for NES on Windows. These days I mostly use my Switch for (S)NES titles anyway but like once a year I get the craving to return to some classic SMB 1 or 3 rom hack.
FightCade for netplay on all the platforms it supports. Standalone Dolphin for Gamecube/Wii. Sometimes Nintendo Switch Online for games officially available there. For everything else, Retroarch.
