Other Emulators

[Slippyblade]

Taking a break from cabs for a bit and working some consoles now so I can play at my desk.

I really like the ease of MALA so am going to use that.  I plan on the usual suspects, Nintendo boxes, Sega, Atari, etc.  Those of you that have done this, I got a couple questions for ya.  Did you go with individual emulators for each console?  I *just* recently figured out what the heck MESS was and am thinking of just using that for most of the emulation.

My big issue with individual emulators is that they all seem to have a GUI.  This makes them a little wonky when it comes to tying everything together with a front end.  I literally could not find an NES emulator that didn't have screen menus and such, making them difficult to integrate.

Any words of wisdom or advice?

[Slippyblade]

Ok then, sense my original post didn't generate any replies, please allow me to rebuild the query. 

I want to emulate the following

NES
SNES
N-64
Gamecube
Sega Master System
Sega Genesis
Saturn
Dreamcast
Gameboy/Color/Advanced

I want to set them up to work through a front end.  End goal is a living room box to hook up to the TV so the family can retro out occasionally.  What emulators has the BYOAC hive mind had good luck with?  I seem to be running into issues with emulators that have GUI's, menu bars, non-standard exit methods, etc...

[Haze]

Ok then, sense my original post didn't generate any replies, please allow me to rebuild the query. 

I want to emulate the following

NES
SNES
N-64
Gamecube
Sega Master System
Sega Genesis
Saturn
Dreamcast
Gameboy/Color/Advanced

I want to set them up to work through a front end.  End goal is a living room box to hook up to the TV so the family can retro out occasionally.  What emulators has the BYOAC hive mind had good luck with?  I seem to be running into issues with emulators that have GUI's, menu bars, non-standard exit methods, etc...

MESS should be ok for NES, some SNES, Master System, Genesis, some Saturn, Gameboy/Colour.  It might not be quite on-par with some of the standalones, but does a commendable job if frontend/cab-friendly is your goal and you like how MAME works.  If it runs the games you want in those cases you may as well use it, or UME (which is the MAME compile containing both MAME and MESS drivers)

It definitely won't be OK for N-64, Gamecube, Dreamcast, SNES games using SuperFX, Genesis addons like the 32x, it's just MAME afterall, and you know how MAME struggles for performance on 3D systems (and ones with high frequency support dsps)

GBA might work for some games, but fail on others, it's not very mature.

Saturn your options are limited, like I said MESS is fine for some games (quite a few puzzle games that would work well in a cab run just fine) but lacking in performance in others..  Other Saturn emulators probably aren't going to be amazingly cab/frontend friendly and are a pain to configure (because it's such a complex system)

You didn't mention Playstation, but MESS is actually capable of running a good number of Playstation games well, again including many cab friendly puzzle games and such where you don't really need all the fancy shoulder buttons, analog sticks etc.  (There were massive improvements in the emulation around the start-middle of this year)

[Slippyblade]

Thanks for the feedback Haze.  Cab friendly isn't an issue.  This box is gonna get hooked up to the living room TV and I'm using original controllers through various USB adapters and hacks.  PS1 was a purely accidental omission as there a ton of games I love on that system.  King's Field is way up on my list of must-haves!

[dcninja]

get an ouya. i run everything on it sideloaded. all the console systems work perfect. i use my dreamcast hooked up via vga cable for my dc gaming tho, everything else psone and back runs fine on ouya, 99 bucks and wireless controllers. can't do it cheaper myself. I went that route because you don't want console games mucking up a simple arcade setup. The easier and simpler your arcade is, the better it will be received by others who come over to hang out.

[Fursphere]

Ok then, sense my original post didn't generate any replies, please allow me to rebuild the query. 

I want to emulate the following

NES - Nestopia
SNES - ZSNES
N-64 - Project64
Gamecube - Dolphin
Sega Master System - Kega Fusion
Sega Genesis - Kega Fusion
Saturn - SSF or Yabause
Dreamcast - DEMul (some like NullDC better)
Gameboy/Color/Advanced - VirtualBoyAdvanced-M  (get the M version)