Best emulator for original Legend of Zelda? (NES)

[BadMouth]

My 8yo nephew was into some new Zelda game and now wants to play the original Legend of Zelda for NES.
For Christmas I bought him a couple USB NES style controllers and will throw together a front end theme.

It's been a long time since I messed with NES emulators.
Which one would be best for playing all the way through a game like this, saving progress and such?
(I don't even remember how progress is saved in the original game)

[harveybirdman]

I think I use virtuaNES because it played nice with Mala... but I've used plenty that were acceptable.

You can use save states with emulators, but as I recall most are pretty good at saving via the rom as well.

[vwalbridge]

You are probably going to get a thousand opinions on this but IMO I'd use Jnes for it's no-frills simplicity.

EDIT:

Depending on what I'm trying to accomplish I bounce between FCEUX, Jnes, and NEStopia.

[JDFan]

I've been using VirtuaNes ver 0.97 (Not sure how old it is or if there are any newer versions as it's what was in the download package I downloaded) and it works pretty well. Found my old Nintendo Advantage joystick awhile back and bought a USB adapter for it to use on the PC - so of course had to do a play through of Zelda once it was working 

[vwalbridge]

I've been using VirtuaNes ver 0.97 (Not sure how old it is or if there are any newer versions as it's what was in the download package I downloaded) and it works pretty well. Found my old Nintendo Advantage joystick awhile back and bought a USB adapter for it to use on the PC - so of course had to do a play through of Zelda once it was working 

You finished the first Zelda on a NES Advantage? Bravo Sir. 

[harveybirdman]

You are probably going to get a thousand opinions on this but IMO I'd use Jnes for it's no-frills simplicity.

EDIT:

Depending on what I'm trying to accomplish I bounce between FECUX, Jnes, and NEStopia.

I've used everyone of these and the only one that I had any issues with was FECUX and that was only because it got squirrely with Mala as I recall.

[BadMouth]

I will give those a look.  My old Mala setup used fceux and I still have that backed up, but I only ever played the games long enough to feel a few minutes of nostalgia.
Ideally I want the game to save however it originally did, or create a save state by hitting a key on the keyboard.
It will be running on his laptop, so he'll have a full keyboard.
I don't want him to have to click through tabs on a menu bar or navigate to files in windows though.
 

[vwalbridge]

You are probably going to get a thousand opinions on this but IMO I'd use Jnes for it's no-frills simplicity.

EDIT:

Depending on what I'm trying to accomplish I bounce between FECUX, Jnes, and NEStopia.

I've used everyone of these and the only one that I had any issues with was FECUX and that was only because it got squirrely with Mala as I recall.

That doesn't surprise me. FCEUX is probably the squirly-est of the 3. And maybe it's just me but the sound in FCEUX just isn't as good. But man, the sound in Jnes is like butter.

[vwalbridge]

Ideally I want the game to save however it originally did, or create a save state by hitting a key on the keyboard.

With Jnes, saving a state is as easy as pressing F5.

...and restoring a state is F7.


(Don't mix those up)

[Howard_Casto]

My 8yo nephew was into some new Zelda game and now wants to play the original Legend of Zelda for NES.
For Christmas I bought him a couple USB NES style controllers and will throw together a front end theme.

It's been a long time since I messed with NES emulators.
Which one would be best for playing all the way through a game like this, saving progress and such?
(I don't even remember how progress is saved in the original game)

Check out the UCDP on my site..... fceux works pretty good and with my scripts you can control everything through the gamepad. 

[B2K24]

MAME with the nes software list.

[joeH]

I've been partial to Nestopia undead for the past year or so.

http://0ldsk00l.ca/nestopia/

[oldschoolplaya]

Here's a brilliant idea,

Go find a used NES and Zelda off ebay for a few bucks and let your nephew play the game like it was originally intended.

[Osirus23]

Apparently higan (formerly bsnes) emulates NES now. I don't know how accurate the NES emulation is, but their SNES emulation was damn good.

If not that I'd go with FCEUX.

[Slippyblade]

Here's a brilliant idea,

Go find a used NES and Zelda off ebay for a few bucks and let your nephew play the game like it was originally intended.

Here's a more brilliant idea.  Not bagging on a guy for posting about emulating something on a site that tends to focus on emulation.

[adder]

Here's a brilliant idea,Go find a used NES and Zelda off ebay for a few bucks and let your nephew play the game like it was originally intended.

hmm, the original nes zelda cartridges use a battery for game save/backup
those original batteries are not far from 30 years old now.. so may be best to be able to know how to change the battery if using the original cartridge (tutorials on changing the battery are out there on the net...)

[BadMouth]

Here's a brilliant idea,

Go find a used NES and Zelda off ebay for a few bucks and let your nephew play the game like it was originally intended.

I looked at them, but wasn't sure if it would be reliable or if the cartridge used a battery.
He actually asked for an original NES with the stupid friggin' robot.  (Both it and the zapper wouldn't work without a CRT TV anyway). 
Based on prior gifts he couldn't live without though, there's a 80% chance he'd play it for a week, decide the graphics suck and the games are too hard, then never turn it on again.  USB gamepads and an evening spent configuring are all I'm willing to invest at this point.

I browsed the emulators mentioned, but the only ones I ended up play testing were fceux and virtuanes.  Both have their quirks.  Howard's add on interface for fceux is nice to have, but the sound quality sucks compared to virtuanes.  fceux also has some flickering that isn't present on virtuanes.  VirtuaNES just looks and sounds better.  Only issue I had with it was that it nagged me about the headers on my roms being incorrect.  Tried a different set and have only been nagged once now.

Pretty much done now.  I made a separate gamelist of 34 favorites so he doesn't get discouraged by launching too many crappy ones.
Might add some instructions to the lower left.

[Slippyblade]

Wow.  If easily frustrated keep him AWAY from Battletoads!

[Howard_Casto]

Wow.  If easily frustrated keep him AWAY from Battletoads!

All kids should be required to play Battletoads at least once.  Then you explain to them that this was what we considered a fun game and watch their babified hand-holding little minds explode.

I suck at the turbo tunnel and I can only make it through on a good day when the stars are aligned just right.  Even then it's those later boogie board levels that wear me out. 

[vwalbridge]

Ahhh Battletoads. One of those rare games where it's actually harder to play 2-player.

[TreX]

You mean impossible to go past this lvl where the controls for the 2nd player are disabled? xD.

Yeah but i would make the same sugestion as oldschoolplaya. The best would be to find an old nes and bring it back to life. Mine is stil waiting to be reborn,also my Zelda cartridge needs the battery exchange. But i will do it once my GF gets pregnant^^, because my kid will have to complete Mario Bros. befor he can have smartphones PCs etc.
I like emulation, but nothing is better then the original... also i donated my CRT for our convention gamesroom, what was i thinking back then?

[Fursphere]

Here's a brilliant idea,

Go find a used NES and Zelda off ebay for a few bucks and let your nephew play the game like it was originally intended.

Will an original NES even work on a newer LCD television?  Maybe with the RCA outputs?   

I keep wondering about this - and thinking the refresh rates or something would be all screwed up.

[Slippyblade]

Will an original NES even work on a newer LCD television?  Maybe with the RCA outputs?   

Yeah, they work just fine.  Some of the peripherals won't work, the Zapper especially, since they expect a scan line which an LCD doesn't have.  Depending on the TV you use you might need an adapter, but the RCA out works just fine as long as the TV has a composite in.

[Howard_Casto]

It does and it doesn't.  The nes and snes run at 240p.  Modern displays don't know wtf to do with 240p so they often display it as 480i.  It's still perfectly playable, but sfx that depended upon two frames rapidly blinking back and forth (like shadows) and the like might not get rendered correctly.  Also depending upon the display you might feel some slight lag and the picture might be off-centered.  A simple inexpensive up-scaler running at 480p will often fix a lot of this. 

Again though, still perfectly playable.  I just wanted to point out for the record that the newer tvs do NOT handle them properly though. 

Also, again, just for the record, the nes zapper doesn't work via scanlines so that isn't the issue.  The sensor can't pick up light correctly on a lcd and due to the above mentioned 240p issues, the timing is off as well.  It is theoretically possible to make a nes zapper that would work on a  lcd.  I'm certainly not the man for the job though. 

[Sky25es]

Only one name: Punes.
It's the most accurate Nes emulator. Just try it.