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NES Emulators
Best Emulators
| Name |
Links |
Last Updated |
OS |
Description |
| FCE Ultra |
v0.94
v0.81
Source v0.94r3 |
03/29/03
12/26/02
05/15/03 |
Windows
DOS |
FCE Ultra is an open-source, portable NES/Famicom emulator based on Bero's FCE source code. It has excellent sound emulation and support for a wide variety of in-cart expansion hardware("mappers"). PPU/CPU timing is good(in comparison to *most* other NES emulators, which are rated poor in this area). Several VS Unisystem games are supported well. Interesting features include emulation of the Zapper and VS Unisystem light gun via the mouse, and "authentic" Game Genie emulation. The Famicom Disk System is also emulated. An NSF player is built in. Currently supported file formats include: iNES NES/Famicom ROM images, fwNES and headerless FDS disk images, and NSF files. Extra features include save states and screenshot saving. TCP/IP network play is supported, with a few caveats. FCE Ultra is not the fastest NES emulator available, but it is reasonably fast and it should be fast enough for most people. A CPU equal to or faster than the speed of a Pentium 200 Mhz CPU is sufficient. Oh, and it can handle Castlevania III perfectly. |
| NESten |
v0.61 Beta 1
v0.61 Beta 2 Pre-Release
Mappers v1.3
Source for v1.3 Mappers |
02/10/01
04/08/03
04/08/03
04/08/03 |
Windows |
TNSe has released his masterpiece NES emulator for Windows9x. NESten was coded in Delphi for WIN32. Among some of the features it supports are: 1 player, save states, SRAM support, Movie states, many mappers and 5 sound channels (and VRC6). The default speed controls are set a little too slow. This is one of the rare NES Emulators that can handle Castlevania III perfectly.
This set of mappers will probably be the last, as the author has decided to put all his energies into the Nintendulator. |
| Nestopia |
v1.0
Source
| 06/11/03
06/11/03 |
Windows |
This incredible NES emulator lived up to its name upon its very first release. It was written in C++ and, though not quite as fast as others (a Pentium 4 is recommended), it is perfect for games requiring precise timing (like Marble Madness). With support for 132 mappers, it outdoes some of the best NES emulators around. It also supports NSFs, the famicom disk system, save states, IPS patching, battery-saved ram, NES movie files, and many VS-Unisystem games. Finally, it emulates four non-standard controllers (including the Power Pad). |
| NNNesterJ |
v0.23
v0.23 (Japanese)
v0.23 Kaillera
Source v0.23 |
12/21/02 |
Windows |
NNNesterJ is a modified version of nesterj. The program adds some interesting features to the user interface (little icons and a better design for assigning buttons to a controller), includes support for zipped files, autofire, and an abundance of other miscellaneous things (.avi recording :D ). There are very few issues left in the emulation, so this is NES emulator of choice. |
| RockNES
RockNES X
RockNES FR |
v2.61
v2.0 Final
v1.41 (French) |
07/14/02
02/18/03
10/18/00 |
DOS
Windows
Windows |
RockNES features a very good GUI in both the DOS and Windows versions. RockNES supports 85 mappers although it does have some slight sound problems with some games. The emulator has support for Gamepads in both versions (easier to change in the Windows version), and has proper speed controls. |
Good Emulators
| Name |
Links |
Last Updated |
OS |
Description |
| BasicNES |
v03.06.02 v1.4 [debug level 0] |
06/03/02 |
Windows |
Don Jarret is the author of this NES emulator written in Visual Basic. They said it couldn't be done but here it is. Alot of features, including, save state, full speed, zoom, speedup, and speeddown. This emulator works best on a Pentium 2 350Mhz or higher. |
| BioNES |
v0.2 |
08/05/98
Discontinued |
Win9x |
This emulator was coded by Shu Kondo with the author of fwNES, Fan Wen Yang, as an assistant. It features full sound, correct sprite priorities (for people with MMX only), and all of the mappers fwNES supports. The only drawback is that this emulator is very slow for people without MMX technology. |
| DarcNes |
v.dn9b0313 |
03/21/01 |
Win9x |
This is a Windows port of the Linux emulator with the same name. There is a constant horrible noise that is generated by the emulator the entire time that it runs. Also, there is no Joystick Support, the Emulator cannot run Full-Screen, and it is slow. |
| DreamNES |
v2.000 Beta 1
Update v2.000 Beta 3 |
04/21/00
06/11/00 |
Windows |
DreamNES is a NES emulator that seems quite nice. It supports a good amount of mappers, has sound support, and includes a "ROM Encyclopedia" that contains info about many ROMs. |
| Famtasia |
v6 Beta |
12/30/00 |
Windows |
Famtasia, previously called Famicom, is written by taka2 and nori. It supports the *.FAM and *.FDS ROM formats as well as the *.NES format. It has decent sound and lightgun support. Download it if you want to play *.FAM files. |
| fwNES |
v0.302 |
11/16/98
Discontinued |
DOS |
fwNES, written by Fan Wen Yang, supports a good number of mappers and has a very interesting user interface. It also emulates the Japanese Famicom Disk System addon (which requires the FDS bios ROM). It's sound support is very good. It supports all 5 channels and the extra FDS sound channels for Adlib, SB, and other soundcards. Pentium class CPUs should be able to acheive full speed. |
| G-NES |
v0.54b
v0.614 (Japanese) |
11/04/01
05/18/03 |
Windows |
This is an NES emulator for Windows that supports a good number of mappers, 8/16/24/32 bit windows color depth, all 5 sound channels, VRC6 and VRC7 custom sound channels, Joysticks/Joypads and also supports the mapper plugins that TNES uses. |
| HyNES |
v0.9 |
10/30/00 |
Win9x/00 |
This is an NES emulator for Win9x/00. It was coded using Microsoft Visual Basic which means you'll require the runtime file of Msvbvm60.dll. Its got a Zelda-like GUI, and is very impressive. It has a palette editor support, savestate support, .WAV output support, screenshot support, and it supports 5 screen resolutions. Its worth a look at, if only for the crispy GUI. It now supports mapper 0 games with limited sound. |
| Jnes |
v0.50 |
01/17/03 |
Windows |
This NES emulator is coded by the Jabo. It's one of the better NES emulators for Windows and has support for an average number of mappers. It's worth a try. |
| Liss NES |
v1.08 |
09/09/02 |
Windows |
This emulator was programmed in VB and requires DirectX to run. So far it supports 4 sound channels and has some video features such as scrolling. Hopefully it will be developed further, and more mappers will be added. |
| loopynes |
v0.51
10/18/99 Beta
Debugger |
08/24/98
Discontinued
10/18/99
Discontinued |
DOS |
loopynes supports an good number of mappers, some VS games like Mario, Castlevania and Ice Climber, and FDS games. It also has sound support, and it's quite fast. It has joystick, zapper, and GameGenie support and a GUI too. It's one of the most accurate emulators out there, and has great compatability and great speed. Definitely worth a try.
This beta has the debugger enabled. |
| MarioNES |
v1.4 |
05/07/02 |
Windows |
This brand new NES emulator was programmed in VB. It is progressing well. |
| NE |
v1.04 |
02/04/00
Discontinued |
DOS |
This NES emulator is written in C++ and ASM. It has a nice GUI as well. |
| nester |
v2001.01.27
Source v2001.01.27
Unofficial Release v2001.07.05 |
01/28/01
01/28/01
07/05/01 |
Windows |
nester is a great NES emulator written by Darren Ranalli (aka "bald"). It supports DirectInput, excellent sound, and many other features. nester is compatible with many mappers and is highly configurable.
Unofficial Release adds a large number of additional features (including various input devices and support for playing NSFs), yet it has compatibility issues and, with certain games, speed problems. This could be because the unofficial release is built off the public beta 3 of nester as opposed to the current version. |
| nesterJ |
v0.51a
Source v0.51a |
07/10/02 |
Windows |
Another unofficial version of nester which adds a wide variety of extra features. However, many of the changes that were made to the original program have resulted in incompatibilities with games that are supported by nester. |
| Nintendulator |
v0.900
Source v0.900 |
06/20/02 |
Windows |
Nintendulator is a NES emulator with great potential. This open source Win32 NES emulator is written in C and currently surpasses nearly all other emulators in emulation accuracy of the Ninetendo Entertainment System. This emu uses external plugins for emulation of cartridge specific hardware and the includes the extra sound channels. Currently supports the following: fwNES FDS disk images, iNES, NSF, UNIF ,up to 10 savestates per game, SRAM support, True Game Genie support(limited to 3 codes), 4 player input - both NES and famicom methods supported , and a very accurate debugger. A 600mhz CPU is recomended to run this emulator. |
| NESticle
NESticle (French) |
vx.xx
v0.43
6502 Core Source v0.42
Patch 1
v0.42(French) |
01/02/98
Discontinued
08/19/98
Discontinued
12/26/99
Discontinued |
DOS
DOS/Win9x |
This is not the ultimate NES emulator anymore. It features support for all sound channels, joysticks, GameGenie, on-the-fly saving, NES movie recording, and all kinds of other great options. It runs at full speed on most 486DX computers. NESticle has pretty good compatibility, but NESticle should only be used if you have a really slow computer, as its badly outdated and outmatched by newer emulators.
The Nesticle Patch #1 allow Nesticle to play Solar Jetman.
This is a French translation of NESticle |
| Nofrendo |
v0.58 |
03/12/98
Discontinued |
DOS |
Nofrendo is a good NES emulator that can run at full speed on a slow Pentium system. It has decent sound support, and good compatibility. It can also load NESticle save state files, and it comes with 2 selectable palettes. This emulator is worth a try. |
| SMYNES |
v1.20 (English Demo)
v1.20 (Chinese Demo)
v1.20 (Japanese Demo)
Mapper 86 Sound File
|
03/30/01 |
Windows |
This shareware NES emulator for Windows is coded in 100% ASM and supports 86 mappers, has 4 player joystick support, and sound support. It costs $10 US to register. |
| Squeem |
v0.08
v0.60 beta 2 |
05/10/00
???
|
DOS
Windows |
While in very early stages (it runs SMB, but with graphical garbage), this emulator (which currently supports mappers 0, 1, 2, 3, 7, 11, 32, 34, 71, and 78) holds a lot of potential, due to its reintroduction of a concept not seen since the days of PSEmu Pro: plug-ins. You can pick up the plug-ins for the emulator (which are needed) at the emulator's download page. |
| SwNES |
v0.73
DLL files (required) |
01/19/03 |
Windows |
SwNES is now based on VirtuaNES v0.66 and as such very feature-rich and compatible. You'll need a seperate set of DLLs to make it work (also up for download) and a language plug-in (the English or Japanese plug-ins are included with VirtuaNES, the rest can be found at the VirtuaNES homepage. |
| VirtuaNES |
v0.79
v0.79 (Japanese)
Source v0.79 |
06/01/03 |
Windows |
This NES/Famicom emulator supports 137 mappers, has excellent sound, a superb TV mode and many other features. Certainly one of the better NES emulators and updated frequently. |
Promising Works In Progress
| Name |
Links |
Last Updated |
OS |
Description |
| FakeNES
FakeNES WIP |
v0.2.0 Final
v0.2.0 Final
Source v0.2.0 Final
WIP 03/28/03
WIP 03/28/03
WIP Source 03/28/03 |
07/28/02
07/28/02
07/28/02
03/28/03
03/28/03
03/28/03 |
Windows
DOS
Windows
DOS |
FakeNES is an Open Source NES emulator written by stainless with the maintainer of SNEeSe. Supports Zapper, sound, and many mappers.
These are WIP builds that have signifcant improvements over v0.2.0. These aren't official versions, but is updated often. |
| FE |
v0.13a |
01/28/01
|
DOS |
FE is short for Family Emulator. The author calls this a "60 pin 8 bit NTSC console emulator for DOS"...in other words, it's an NES emulator. It supports NES (iNES), FDS (fwNES), FAM (Famicom) and PRM (Pasofami split) file formats and has a slew of mappers. |
| InfoNES |
Download 0.90J
Source 0.90J
English 0.80
English 0.79 |
06/05/03
06/05/03
05/07/03
05/07/03 |
Windows
Platform-neutral
Windows
Windows |
This is a Japanese NES emulator that is written in Visual C++. It has sound, and supports a fair amount of mappers. The English translation of 0.80 is an unofficial translation by Soulfang. The translation of 0.79 is an unofficial translation created by emu_kidid. |
| NEStron |
v0.6.5b |
11/30/02 |
Windows |
NEStron has now been completely recoded and his making its way to one of the better NES emulators emulators. Give it a try! |
| NinthStar NES |
Alpha |
01/18/01 |
Windows |
A new NES emulator for Win9x/WinNT/Win2k that supports as many mappers as NESten. It has very limited and poor quality sound emulation. It has a great debugger, and its emulation accuracy is unsurpassed. The main drawback is its speed. You'll need a 700mhz or higher processor to play games on it with full speed. It has some neat features like 3d hardware filtering and a great controller interface. Full source code is available for MSVC. |
| Shatbox |
Win32 v0.1.2
DOS v0.1.2
Source v0.1.2 |
06/30/02 |
Windows
DOS |
This emulator focuses on efficiency. While it runs cleanly, it supports few mappers. It is very developer friendly however with its source code, so check it out. |
Novelty Emulators
| Name |
Version |
Last Updated |
OS |
Description |
| TextNES |
v0.1.0 |
04/06/01 |
DOS |
This is a fun little emulator. Get this: It displays the NES's graphics as ASCII text! It's a novelty, but a neat one. Sound is emulated, but is not yet outputted. |
| mIRCNES |
Initial Release |
12/28/00 |
DOS |
A rather unique NES emulator that outputs to a mIRC window. :) |
Not Worth a Download
| Name |
Links |
Last Updated |
OS |
Description |
| Aphrodite |
v0.1 |
12/19/99
Discontinued |
DOS |
This is a NES emulator written by BudFrEaK. It runs a few ROMs and has sound. |
| DRR-NES |
v0.30
Source |
02/27/99
Discontinued |
DOS |
DRR-NES is a NES emulator made in QBasic. It has a good debugger and seems to have slightly better support for different features than other emulators written in Basic, but it's still slow and not really worth the download. |
| DragoNes |
v0.20 |
09/14/97
Discontinued |
DOS |
DragoNes was originally started to emulate all of Dragon Quest games, but many other emulators have done that now. It has no sound, has average speed, and can run few games. It's not really worth the download. |
| FCE |
v0.01
Source v0.01 |
04/10/98 |
DOS |
FCE (Family Computer Emulator) is a primitive NES emulator written by Bero that runs on PCs as well as PC98 (a Japanese computer). Currently, it only runs few games and has Adlib sound. It is rather buggy, and it's not really worth a download. |
| FCFAN Plus |
v1.07 |
04/15/99
Discontinued |
Windows |
This emulator is part of a series of japanese *FAN Plus emulators. It's for Windows, and it is pretty fast (it should be able to acheive full speed on a P133). It has sound support, and it supports an average number of mappers. However, it's shareware, so the directional controls are disabled. It costs 2000 yen to register. |
| LazyNES |
Release 9
Release 9 (LAN Client) |
04/23/01 |
Windows |
A new NES emulator with scanline based rendering, uses DirectX for graphics, supports mappers 0, 2, and 3, and partially supports mapper 1, Sprite rendering, Vertical, Horizontal, and Four Screen Mirroring. It also Supports NetPlay. |
| Little John New Generation |
v0.1.1 |
06/03/00 |
Windows |
Little John is an NES emulator for Windows. It supports a few mappers, 2 sound channels and has basic controls. It now also supports SNES emulation, through the use of the SNES9x core. It ran really good on this Amd K6/2 333, but I haven't tested it on any lower end machines yet. |
| madNES |
v0.95 Beta 5 |
10/06/98 |
DOS |
madNES supports a decent number of mappers, but has primitive sound support. It also has preliminary lightgun support and joystick support. It's about average. |
| marijuanes |
v0.04 (Win32 1.04) |
??? |
Windows |
marijuanes appears to be a fairly new emulator from the author of Squeem with minimal mapper support and partially working sound. It may get better. |
| Naughty |
v0.0
Source v0.0 |
12/27/99
Discontinued
12/26/00
Discontinued |
DOS |
Well, this NES emulator is not really worth trying out right now. It only has support for mappers 0 and 2, and it's pretty slow. But who knows, maybe it'll get better in time.
This file is the source for the tile-based engine rendering engine for this emulator. |
| NES496 |
v0.13 |
10/18/99
Discontinued |
Windows |
This NES emulator was coded as a result of a college assignment in CSE496, hence, the name NES496. It uses DirectX for drawing the graphics. It has partial sound, is rather slow, and only supports a few mappers. It does, however, have a cool graphical debugger. It's not really worth the download right now unless you want to play with the debugger. |
| NES4PC |
v0.30
v0.35 Alpha 2 |
01/01/99
Discontinued
02/13/99
Discontinued |
Windows |
NES4PC features a really nice Windows GUI, a debugger, and other stuff. It supports a decent amount of mappers, so it has fair compatibility. Only 2 sound channels are emulated. NES4PC is an emulator that's worth keeping an eye on. |
| NES9x |
v1.0
Source v1.0 |
02/20/00
Discontinued
03/17/00
Discontined |
DOS |
NES9x is another upstart NES emulator. Currently, it has the Main 6502 CPU, The NES Sound System, PPU, Memory, Almost all Video Modes, and Controler 1 are emulated. It supports mappers #0, #1, #2, #3, #7. The program is also open source, and the source can be freely distributed and changed by other users. |
| NESEM |
v0.10
Source v0.10 |
01/30/99
Discontinued |
DOS |
NESEM is a NES emulator that written in QuickBasic 7.1 with a touch of ASM (for the keyboard routines). It's done by the same author as NES4PC. It's pretty fast for being written in basic, but it has bad compatibility. It's not really worth a download. |
| NESemu |
v0.40a |
09/13/98
Discontinued |
DOS |
This NES emulator, although rather primitive, is very small and quite fast. It emulates the 6502 cpu, video, and the usual mappers. It uses a 256X240 scanline video mode, and runs full speed on a Pentium 75. It runs too fast on P166's because there is no speed throttling yet. It's also very small in size. It even includes a built in tile editor and a hex editor. |
| NESemu8 |
v0.01b |
06/13/99
Discontinued |
Win95 |
NESemu8 runs a few games and has sound support, although it's primitive. |
| Nes-Lord |
v0.55 |
05/15/97
Discontinued |
DOS |
An emulator based on NESA, this emulator, written by CHECK, has not been updated in a long time. There's no sound, and it supports only a few mappers. Don't waste your time with this one. |
| NExS |
Beta 2 |
02/08/02 |
Windows 9X |
A newly developed emulator, has rather minimal support for mappers and no sound so far. It could become promising eventually though. |
| NextFCE |
v0.10 Beta 1 |
03/29/99 |
DOS |
NextFCE is an emulator based on bero's FCE v0.01. It emulates the CPU core, PPU and sound, as well as HyperShot (miscellaneous devices). |
| NEZulator |
v0.0040
Source v0.0040 |
03/19/03 |
DOS |
The NEZulator is currently programmed in mostly pascal and very little assembly. It is moderately speeded running at around 1 Mhz on my P100. But, NEZulator has MANY bugs still in it and a lot of features yet to be implemented. |
| Pasofami |
v1.3g |
08/18/02 |
Windows |
Not too much is known about Pasofami, because the page is in Japanese. It doesn't use the standard *.NES files, but instead it runs files in a split format. It uses midi to produce sound, but it can be difficult to configure because certain parts are sti ll in Japanese. Download this emulator if you want to play ROMs in the split format. |
| PCNES |
v0.12b |
12/07/97
Discontinued |
DOS |
This emulator is written in assembly. It has slightly below average compatibility and no sound support. This emulator is very old and not really worth the download. |
| PlasticNES |
v0.2 |
02/26/00
Discontinued |
DOS |
This emulator is NextFCE with some of the bugs worked out. Other than that, nothing much else is known, since it is a port off of a japanese emulator. |
| Pretendo |
v0.20 |
06/12/00 |
Windows |
Pretendo is a NES emulator that uses DirectX. It supports full screen (320x240) and windowed display modes. It has average compatibility, but there is no sound or joystick support yet. It's not worth a download right now, but keep an eye on it.
This is the Work In Progress beta. It has a lot of work done over version 0.04, but it's work in progress, so it has a lot of new bugs and stuff. |
| Project 51 |
Beta 4 |
11/30/00 |
DOS |
Another NES emulator that has most of the sound emulated, and mappers 0, 1 (partially), 2, 3, 7, 8, and 11. |
| RADARnes |
v0.3 |
08/26/00 |
DOS |
This emulator, the first fruit from the RADARemu team, features a GUI, somewhat limited mapper support (0, 1, 2, 3, 4 (partial), 7), full CPU emulation, and nearly complete PPU emulation. There's also sound and joystick support. |
| SadNES |
v0.17 'Moon Revenge' |
12/14/00 |
Windows |
Although this NES emulator doesn't have a high compatibility rate and lacks sound, it is extremely fast (should run well on a P120). For those with low-end systems, you might want to give this a go. |
| SleepNES |
v0.01 |
10/19/99 |
DOS |
This NES emulator is written by SkulleateR. So far it only a few mappers, and it doesn't have sound. It's not really worth a download right now, but it may get better in the future. |
| TNES |
v2.047 |
01/01/98
Discontinued |
DOS |
This emulator is by Paul Robson of GB97, NESA and A26 fame. It has much better mapper support than NESA did. It also has Game Genie support, joystick support and on-the-fly saving. The sound is emulated through Adlib. It hasn't been updated since its first release, so the future looks grim for TNES. |
| Ultee |
v0.1.3
Source v0.1.3 |
07/06/99
Discontinued |
Windows |
This NES emulator is coded in Delphi. It supports most of the average mappers. It also uses DirectX for rendering. It might be worth a try. |
| Ultimate NES |
v0.11 |
10/19/97
Discontinued |
DOS |
UNES runs a few NES games. It has not been updated for a long time, and it has probably been discontinued. This isn't worth a download. (Guess it can't be all that "ultimate" unfortunately.) |
| uNESsential |
v0.20
Source v0.20 |
01/30/99 |
DOS |
uNESsential is the first NES emulator to be written in Quick Basic. The current release is fast, if you consider the fact that it's written in QB only, with no ASM used. It can also run a lot of commercial mapper 0 ROMs, such as Ice Cl imber and even Super Mario Bros, with scrolling! |
| Vortendo |
v1.0.8 "Blue Eyes" |
12/15/01 |
Windows |
This is an NES emulator written in VB 6.0. Even though it's written in VB, it's quite fast, and can achieve full speed on a P100 with a frameskip of three. However, it's still new, and could not play most roms.
Additionally, Vortendo is not freeware. To become a "registered user", you must send the author an actual NES cart...in return, you'll get beta versions and the full source code. |
| WiNES |
v0.101 |
04/18/99
Discontinued |
Windows |
WiNES has low compatibility and no sound support. It does, however, have one interesting feature; it uses plugins for the mapper support. Unless it's recontinued, it's not worth a download unless you want to check out the plugin system. |
| WinNES |
v0.0.6 Beta
Source v0.0.3 Beta |
02/22/99 |
Windows |
This NES emulator is coded in Delphi. Right now, it only has support for sound effects (no music) through midi. It also has below average mapper support. It's not worth downloading at the present time. |
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