SNES Emulators

Popular Emulators

Name	Description
bsnes	bsnes is an emulator that began development on 2004-10-14. The focus of the emulator is on accuracy, debugging functionality, and clean code. The emulator does not focus on things that would hinder accuracy. This includes speed and game-specific hacks for compatibility. As a result, the minimum system requirements for bsnes are very high. Emulator is available for Windows, Linux & Mac. Last update: 2008-10-27
SNES9X	Snes9x's CPU core is written in assembly, and its graphics engine and SPC700 engine are well optimized. Both versions sport very nice GUIs. Snes9x supports graphics modes 0-7, 2 joysticks, transparencies, Super FX support and has real time save/loading. This is now one of the best SNES emulators around, and it stands only second to ZSNES in terms of compatibility. Note: v1.43 does not include NetPlay support!
SNESGT	SNESGT is a fairly new emulator from GIGO and Hii (who also made G-NES and TGB Dual). It's the best emulator if you're looking for the most accurate BS Satellaview emulation (better than SNES9X even).
ZSNES	ZSNES is a highly compatible, highly configurable SNES emulator for the PC. It boasts multiple video filters, high-quality audio, and extremely accurate emulation of the SNES hardware. (This emulator, however, will not support netplay in any versions that are v1.50 and up) Overall, a highly recommended emulator.

Other Emulators

Name	Description
CHAMPI	An SNES emulator, entirely in Spanish. Its got average compatibility, FX chip support, transparency, and mosaic effects. It's outmatched by ZSNES/SNES9X but you might want it if you're fluent in the Spanish language.
ESNES	Lord ESNES and Ishmair made a great SNES emulator. It is written in assembly and has sound support, thanks to Ishmair's efforts. It was one of the best. Now, it has merged with NLKSNES to become NLKE.
Geiger’s Snes9x Debugger	Geiger (AKA Evil Peer) has compiled a new version of Snes9x which includes some rather hefty additions. Mostly geared towards romhacking/reverse-engineering of SNES games, the additions include a robust Debugger, Hex Editor, Tracer, and code "usage mapping" features. Currently the most advanced SNES debugging emulator.
GrimSNES	An ancient SNES emulator. It only displays ROM properties, and isn't worth downloading.
NLKE	ESNES and NLKSNES joined forces so the authors could work on one emulator together. NLKE was born. This emulator has all the features of ESNES along with the speed of NLKSNES. Transparencies are also available, although unoptimized rather slow. There's also a simple GUI as well. NLKE is better than many but ZSNES is faster and more compatibible.
NLKSNES	This emulator was one of the fastest SNES emulators there was, and it even featured Mode7. There's no sound support, though. It merged with ESNES to because NLKE.
Pasofami	This emulator has been around for quite some time. Little is known about it however since it is natively in Japanese. This also appears to be crippleware.
RSRSNes	An old SNES emulator, only capable of running the demo rom that comes packaged with it. Its really only here for archival purposes.
Sim-SNEX	An old SNES emulator in preliminary stages, only capable of displaying ROM properties & information. It's here for archival purposes and not worth downloading.
SNEeSe	This emulator can play many commercial games, and also has Mode7 scaling effects, along with HiROM support, decent sound, and more. It is written in a mix of C, C++ and assembly. Most emulation routines are done in assembly. It's quite slow, so brace yourself. It was discontinued by Savoury SnaX, but TRAC never stopped working on it, so private betas were still being released.
SNem	This is a newer SNES emulator and is in active progress. It is open source and runs more games now in the WIP and the graphics engine is better. One to watch for progress.The WIP version includes the source code
SNEmul	SNEmul hasn't been updated in a long time now and is assumed to be discontinued. It has sound, decent compatibility, doesn't require VESA2 and has one of the best GUIs ever. This is a good emulator but nowhere near the quality of newer emulators.
SNEqr	This emulator has been discontinued. It has some useful features, such as automatic state saving and cheat searching and a good GUI. However, it has medium compatibility and lacks sound, 16-bit color mode and other advanced features found in more popular emulators. The source code is available for anyone to look at and play around with.
SNES Professional	An archaic SNES emulator capable of running multiple demos. Its here for archival purposes only, and not worth downloading.
Snes9k	This is an unofficial work in progress of Snes9x with Kaillera netplay support.
Snes9x (Unofficial)	This is a unofficial version which is based on the sources from Snes9X 1.37c.
Snes9X Direct3D	This is a derivative of Snes9x which switches the Snes9X display code from DirectDraw to Direct3D9. The advantages are an optional bi-linear filter and no problems with Aero on Vista. One disadvantage: the menu doesn't work in fullscreen without flickering, so it's disabled for now (ESC now exits fullscreen). Last update: 2008-11-26
Snes9xGL	Kreed has made a version of Snes9X which uses OpenGL instead of Glide to do fullscreen bilinear filtering. It looks nice, but there's no GUI.
Snes9xPP SE	This is a custom version of Snes9x which adds an HQ2X filter. A processor with a speed of at least 1.5GHz is highly reccomended.
SNEShout	Based on the Snes9x (1.37) core, this emulator features a few few minor tweaks and one major improvment; SNES games can be played using the Japanese version of ViaVoice. It comes with voice mappings for Street Fighter 2 and Puyo Puyo 2 but more can always be made. This version comes with the option of making the interface in Japanese, Chinese (BIG5), or English.
SNESLite	A very old emulator released as a demo. It not worth downloading, here for archival purposes.
Super Sleuth	Super Sleuth is an emulator in the works for about six years, only publicly released recently. It features a realtime debugging system and great compatibility.
TheSE	TheSE, which stands for The SNES Emulator, is an emulator from the same team that created the now dead USNES. It hasn't been updated in a long time, the website is down and it's probably discontinued.
TrepSNES	A primitive and old emulator, only able to run a few opcodes. Its here for archival purposes, and is not worth downloading.
USNES	If there is a more useless SNES emulator than VSMC this has to be it. It only had two releases, both which were slow and buggy. The USNES team is now programming the emulator TheSE, but progress on it seems to be stalled. This one is simply here for nostalgic reasons, as it only runs a few SNES Games.
VSMC	VSMC was pretty good for its time, but many emulators cam out after it that were far better and free too. Now ZSNES and SNES 9x are in a completely different generation than this. Don't bother with it.

SNES Emulators on Other Platforms

Unix/Linux (4)
BeOS (4)
Macintosh (5)
Amiga (4)
Consoles
-- Dreamcast (4)
-- Gamecube (2)
-- Playstation 2 (1)
-- Nintendo 64 (1)
-- Game Boy / Advance (2)
-- Nintendo DS (3)
-- Game Park 32 (3)
-- Nintendo Wii (2)
Pocket PC (2)
Digital Phones (1)
Windows Mobile Smartphone (1)

Emulators For:
Windows/DOS
Unix/Linux
BeOS
Macintosh
Amiga
Consoles
Java
Palm OS
Pocket PC
Digital Cameras
Digital Phones
Calculators
QNX
Windows Mobile Smartphone

Other Releases
Extenders
Frontends
ROMs (Public Domain)
Hacks
Cheats
Movies
Savestates
Music
Technical Documents
Translations

Utilities:
General
Auditing
Cheating
Development
Game Modification
Music Playback / Manipulation
Plugins