It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Community
General discussionBlastEm - The fast and accurate Genesis emulator(29 posts)(29 posts)
(29 posts)
Pages:
1
2
This is my favourite topic
Posted March 19, 2022
avatar
ReynardFox: Higan is best for SNES, that's undisputed, but even then, BSNES (which was the original emulator, before Byuu started developing other cores and turned it into Higan) continued development as a standalone BSNES after work stopped on Higan, so I would recommend the newer versions of BSNES over Higan there too.
Strictly, Higan/BSNES are really only the best SNES emulators if accuracy is your primary focus. If performance is more important to you (for example, if you're playing on a Raspberry Pi or lower-end phone, or if you want to conserve power (especially for battery powered devices like laptops), you might want an emulator that's more focused on performance.
Posted March 19, 2022
avatar
dtgreene: Strictly, Higan/BSNES are really only the best SNES emulators if accuracy is your primary focus. If performance is more important to you (for example, if you're playing on a Raspberry Pi or lower-end phone, or if you want to conserve power (especially for battery powered devices like laptops), you might want an emulator that's more focused on performance.
I'm aware, but that wasn't being asked. We were discussing what is the best/most accurate emulator, and BSNES is objectively, indisputably the best, the only reason not to use it is if your hardware doesn't have the CPU grunt necessary to handle it, where yes, the likes of SNES9X are perfectly valid end user substitutes.

Just for the love of GOG, nobody use ZSNES anymore, please...
Posted March 19, 2022
avatar
SilentMRG: Hello people!!! =)

This emulator is fantastic!!! \o/

I want to recommend it to everyone who appreciates emulation, as well as our beloved Genesis/Mega Drive games.

Overview:

BlastEm is an open source, higly accurate emulator for the Genesis/Megadrive that runs on modest hardware. It is the first emulator to properly run Titan's impressive Overdrive 2 demo and it is the only other emulator besides Genesis Plus GX that can properly run the original Overdrive. It is the only emulator other than Exodus that passes Nemesis' VDP FIFO Testing ROM, can display "Direct Color DMA" demos and emulates CRAM contention (aka CRAM dots).

Despite this high accuracy, even the most demanding software runs at full speed on modest hardware like a 1.6GHz AMD E-350 laptop. In the future, I would like to port it to the ARM architecture and optimize it further to run on systems as modest as the original Raspberry Pi.

Requirements:

BlastEm requires a computer with a 32 or 64-bit x86 processor running Linux, OSX or Windows. There is experimental support for x86 Android devices like the Nexus Player, but due to the rough state of that port I am not providing pre-built binaries at this time. BlastEm depends on SDL2, GLEW and OpenGL. Binary builds bundle all dependencies that can't reasonably be expected to exist on the host. If built from source, BlastEm should also run on most Unix-like systems that SDL2 supports.

Features:

- Save states;
- Integrated debugger;
- GDB remote debugging;
- Joystick/gamepad support;
- Mega/Sega Mouse emulation;
- XBAND and Saturn keyboard emulation;
- Support for homebrew using the SSF2 mapper with Mega Everdrive compatible heuristics;
- Save RAM and EEPROM support;
- Cartridge lock-on for both Sonic & Knuckles and XBAND;
- Turbo and slow modes;
- Configurable low pass filter;
- Single pass GLSL shaders;
- Sega Master System emulation.

For more information and download, see: https : //www.retrodev.com/blastem/

Enjoy!!! ;)
OMG! Ive been looking for something like this for so long! That is awesome. Thanks man!
Posted March 19, 2022
avatar
dtgreene: Strictly, Higan/BSNES are really only the best SNES emulators if accuracy is your primary focus. If performance is more important to you (for example, if you're playing on a Raspberry Pi or lower-end phone, or if you want to conserve power (especially for battery powered devices like laptops), you might want an emulator that's more focused on performance.
avatar
ReynardFox: I'm aware, but that wasn't being asked. We were discussing what is the best/most accurate emulator, and BSNES is objectively, indisputably the best, the only reason not to use it is if your hardware doesn't have the CPU grunt necessary to handle it, where yes, the likes of SNES9X are perfectly valid end user substitutes.

Just for the love of GOG, nobody use ZSNES anymore, please...
Thing is, "most accurate" doesn't necessarily mean "best". Sometimes, the best emulator for a task isn't the most accurate.

For example, some older Super Mario World romhacks were only tested on less accurate emulators such as ZSNES, and as a result do things that happen not to work on real hardware, and hence will fail on more accurate emulators. In this case, you might need to actually use ZSNES, or another emulator that emulates ZSNES's quirks, rather than one that actually emulates a Super NES.

I also note that the Lennus 2 translation patch, on first release, would also fail on real hardware. I believe it's since been fixed, but before that fix, if you wanted to use that patch, you had to use an inaccurate emulator.

Another topic, of course, is about systems with floppy drives. An accurate emulator will emulate the floppy drive, and the speed at which the disk is accessed. (I've even encountered an emulator that plays an audio file of the floppy disk's sound.) The problem, here, is that those who just want to play games would prefer not to wait for the slow floppy load times and would prefer it if the emulator could just skip them. Hence, in this case there's a trade-off between accuracy and end user experience. (On a Commodore 64 emulator, Centauri Alliance loads much faster if you turn off true drive emulation; Bard's Tale 3, on the other hand, fails to run at all if you do this.)

Edit: One more thing: If you're going to *test* a piece of software that you're developing (like a romhack, or a game like Tanglewood or Nox Archaist that targets retro hardware), then you really do need to test on accurate emulators if at all possible.
Post edited March 19, 2022 by dtgreene
Posted March 19, 2022
avatar
Crosmando: I didn't even know this. I know Higan is considered the most accurate NES/SNES emulator so I guess I just figured it was also the best for the other consoles it emulates. Thanks for the tip.
avatar
ReynardFox: Higan isn't even the best NES emulator, that was always a work in progress too, there are many better alternatives to it, I recommend Mesen or Nintendulator over Higan.

Higan is best for SNES, that's undisputed, but even then, BSNES (which was the original emulator, before Byuu started developing other cores and turned it into Higan) continued development as a standalone BSNES after work stopped on Higan, so I would recommend the newer versions of BSNES over Higan there too.
Is the final 1.15 version of BSNES the one I want?
Posted March 19, 2022
avatar
Crosmando: Is the final 1.15 version of BSNES the one I want?
Yep, that's the last official version before the author's untimely death.
Posted March 19, 2022
avatar
SilentMRG: BlastEm requires a computer with a 32 or 64-bit x86 processor running Linux, OSX or Windows. There is experimental support for x86 Android devices like the Nexus Player, but due to the rough state of that port I am not providing pre-built binaries at this time. BlastEm depends on SDL2, GLEW and OpenGL. Binary builds bundle all dependencies that can't reasonably be expected to exist on the host. If built from source, BlastEm should also run on most Unix-like systems that SDL2 supports.
avatar
dtgreene: What's the technical reason it requires an x86 processor at the moment (and won't, say, work on a Raspberry Pi at this time)? What happens if you attempt to compile and run the emulator on an ARM Linux system at the moment?
avatar
SilentMRG: - Cartridge lock-on for both Sonic & Knuckles and XBAND;
avatar
dtgreene: What about Game Genie?

(I'm talking about emulating the actual Game Genie cartridge with a game attached, not just the capability to use Game Genie codes with the emulator.)
avatar
SilentMRG: - Mega/Sega Mouse emulation;
avatar
dtgreene: Wait, there's a mouse for the Sega Genesis? I remember one for the SNES (and actually had one, along with a copy of Mario Paint), but this is the first time I heard about a Sega one.
I don't understand the technical part. You can contact the developer to clarify these and other questions: pavone@retrodev.com

About the mouse on the Genesis, I didn't even know about the existence of one, hehe. XD
avatar
SilentMRG: I honestly don't know. I don't use Retroarch. But you can contact the developer and ask, or you can consult the emulator documentation.

For me, BlastEm is by far the best Genesis/Mega Drive emulator! Very accurate on all fronts. I suggest you try it. ^^

De nada cara! =D

It was last updated in 2019. =/ I hope the developer hasn't been disheartened and more updates will come. =D
avatar
JoaoPauloZA: I'm really grateful for the information about Blast 'em, cara! I just read all the documentation, and luckily Blast 'em does indeed have Libretro support (a RetroArch core). I'm about ready to install it and see how wonderful it is. I would use it as a standalone program, but RetroArch is a little more convenient for me, as I emulate everything from Atari all the way to PS1 through the Arch. RetroArch is basically just a frontend GUI. Eu sou muito grato! Obrigado novamente!
Glad you liked it my friend! And glad it worked. Have fun... And you're welcome! =D
Post edited March 19, 2022 by SilentMRG
Posted March 19, 2022
I see mentioned SNES emulators, well, here's the indication of one (not as accurate as the mentioned emulators, but functional, fulfilling what it promises): https://github.com/snes9xgit/snes9x

And for anyone who wants a good GBA emulator: https://github.com/visualboyadvance-m/visualboyadvance-m

Note that the GBA emulator is the continuation of the Visual Boy Advance that was discontinued in 2004 (if I'm not mistaken) that's why this "new" project has an "-m" at the end of the name.

Good fun for everyone!!!
avatar
nightcraw1er.488: Oh, is it not separate then? That’s a pity, I too cannot stand the retro arch ui and prefer stand alone programs.
avatar
RoboPond: It is separate. It doesn't use RetroArch.

Edit:

Here is the link to download it from (same as link as op posted just a clickable link.) https://www.retrodev.com/blastem/
Thank you! For some reason GOG wouldn't let me post a clickable link. =/
Post edited March 19, 2022 by SilentMRG
Posted March 19, 2022
avatar
SilentMRG: And for anyone who wants a good GBA emulator: https://github.com/visualboyadvance-m/visualboyadvance-m

Note that the GBA emulator is the continuation of the Visual Boy Advance that was discontinued in 2004 (if I'm not mistaken) that's why this "new" project has an "-m" at the end of the name.
VBA-M is a solid emulator but it's stuck in a rut because the codebase is made of spaghetti, I've since moved over to mGBA, it's got more features, greater accuracy and still runs great on modest hardware. Definitely recommend giving it a go.
Posted March 19, 2022
Speaking of emulators, what would the most accurate PC emulator be?

Ideally, I'd like the emulator to be able to emulate the quirks of older x86 CPUs. (Is there an emulator that emulates the Pentium FDIV bug?)

(The more common PC emulators, like DOSBOX or QEMU, tend not to be accuracy focused. DOSBOX focuses on compatibility with DOS games, and QEMU focuses on non-graphics performance.)
Posted March 20, 2022
avatar
ReynardFox: I really wish there was an updated, standalone version of Blast 'Em, It's one of the only reasons I keep RetroArch installed, I truly despise the UI on it and always prefer using standalone software whenever possible.
avatar
M3troid: Nope.
avatar
ReynardFox: Wut? I'm looking at the Blast Em core in RA right now.
My mistake.
Posted March 20, 2022
avatar
dtgreene: Speaking of emulators, what would the most accurate PC emulator be?

Ideally, I'd like the emulator to be able to emulate the quirks of older x86 CPUs. (Is there an emulator that emulates the Pentium FDIV bug?)

(The more common PC emulators, like DOSBOX or QEMU, tend not to be accuracy focused. DOSBOX focuses on compatibility with DOS games, and QEMU focuses on non-graphics performance.)
FDIV bug, now there was something interesting. I remember reading about it, and them at intel going to a guy's house finding the bug in multiple processors to look at his source code to fix the instruction.

Regardless depends on what 'accuracy' is. Speed tends to be the pushed mark since you shouldn't care how many cycles each instruction takes to be 100% perfect emulation. One paper says you'd need like a 3Ghz to perfectly emulate the SNES (25Mhz)

Instead you tend to be getting the instructions to do their job and get IO to work correctly. The biggest part for IO is when the pauses are correct, and for PC you have a internal timer that pings regularly using a timer (16bit for MS-DOS) which automatically triggers an interrupt. Putting the timer to trigger say 60hz then you can jump to refreshing the video output and then return to the main code. Doing it at say 120 times a second you could alternate between video and audio output and get input at those times.

As for emulators, Qemu probably, but Bochs is suppose to be a good accurate emulator. Though i have to admit i haven't tried it...

More realtime emulators like VirtualBox Qemu and others actually have a pass-through where it runs instructions in real time at full speed, and then when it tries to do privileged instructions or IO it switches modes and forwards said calls to the OS or handles said instructions to work only within the VM.
Post edited March 20, 2022 by rtcvb32
Posted March 30, 2022
avatar
SilentMRG: And for anyone who wants a good GBA emulator: https://github.com/visualboyadvance-m/visualboyadvance-m

Note that the GBA emulator is the continuation of the Visual Boy Advance that was discontinued in 2004 (if I'm not mistaken) that's why this "new" project has an "-m" at the end of the name.
avatar
ReynardFox: VBA-M is a solid emulator but it's stuck in a rut because the codebase is made of spaghetti, I've since moved over to mGBA, it's got more features, greater accuracy and still runs great on modest hardware. Definitely recommend giving it a go.
Thanks for the suggestion! =)
I didn't know about this emulator. I will take a look yes. ^^
Posted March 30, 2022
avatar
M3troid: Nope.
And for those wondering, there probably won't be a core for Libretro, due to the past actions of the Retroarch development team. (I've explained in past threads; the TL;DR being that their lead developer, TwinAphex is a <i>proven</i> shitheel.)
Pages:
1
2
This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionBlastEm - The fast and accurate Genesis emulator(29 posts)(29 posts)
(29 posts)