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View Full Version : Which Arcade Emulator to chose?



c2ironfist
April 27th, 2006, 21:48
Best Arcade emulator available at the moment for CPS and Neo Geo Games



Difference Between Mame 32, Mame 32 K 64, Mame 32 K 67, Nebula, Kawaks, NeoRage
- Visuals
- Frame Rate
- Speed


Hey fellow emulation users heres the big question which arcade emulator is best out there.
I know this is stupid but I've been trying to figure out which emulator to stick with I keep jumping
back and forth between emulators due to sound quality, visual quality rom compadibility and of of course net play.

Anyways my gripe here is which is the best looking and sounding emulator available at the moment. I'm
gonna try and stick with one or two for now.


I've been using

NeoRage X
Nebula 2.25
Kawaks
Mame 32
Mame 32 FX
Mame 32 K 64
Mame 32 K 67

Breif review for each


NeoRage X:
is the first emulator I've tried for arcade games and to be honest its excellent, If this emulator could
emulate CPS games I'd stick with it entirely.

User Friendly:
Easy set up quick play smooth sailing

FPS:
NeoRage X frames per second is really good can't complain at all, feels just like the neo and I own a Neo Geo AES too

Colour:
Colours looks really good no complaints here

Speed:
Plays well even with slow PCs

Sound:
Great sound no complaints

sharp:
Can't get bettor then this



Nebula:
Second emulator I tried and I found it really good seeing how it played capcom games too

User Friendly:
Well Nebula was easy to set up as well no complaints setting controlers and stuff wasn't bad

FPS:
I tend to notice Nebula not up to par with Mame or NeoRage when it comes to fps or smoothness whatever you want to call it
but its not by much

Colour:
Colour I guess depends on the games for Neo Geo games its not as colourful as Mame or NeoRagex but with Capcom games such as
street fighter alpha 3 colour is good.

Speed:
using nebula I feel you need a strong PC to do so or a lot of ram I'm not exactly sure lol

Sound:
The best sound out of all of them this is one of the reasons why I keep going back to it.. its the battle for visuals or sound
and Nebula has great sound very loud and crisp.

Sharp:
Game looks very sharp with Capcom games a little blurred with Neo Games. Other then that its up to par with the rest



Mame 32, FX, K 64, K67

Ahh the ultimate gameing emulator and everyone knows it. But being able to emulate a ton of games affect quality? Not sure
All these different versions of MAME and they all perform differently in my opinion yes..

User friendly:
I highly doubt it for mame took me a while to learn how to set it up

FPS

32:
I dontknow if its me but Frames on MAME seem to be really good with smoothness to it compared to Nebula when playing CPS games

FX:
same as 32

K 64:
Slight slowdowns causing it to jaggy

K 67:
I can't tell now lol to many

Coulour

32:
Colour looks good not as colourful as Nebula a little lighter actualy when it comes to CPS games and NeoGeo games are brighter

FX:
Same as original 32

K 67:
Same as original 32

K 64:
Now this is odd the colour in this is a little darker and it looks good almost like Nebula. There is even an option where you can set colour bit rate

Sound
32:
Man the worste out of all the emulators

32 FX:
Fixed up sound to an acceptable quality, its really good but not as good as Nebula

K 67:
Same as orginal 32

K 64:
Same as original 32

Sharp:
32:
looks pretty good though not as good as Nebula in my opinion but then again it maybe the colour difference seeing how I think Nebula has more colour in capcom games while Mame emulates it bettor for neo games

FX:
Same as original 32

K 67:
Same as original 32

K 64:
Same as original 32

Kawaks is probably the worste one out of the rest of these emulators only thing I liked about it was netplay however it does sound bettor then mame I have to give it that


So... after saying and reviewing all of this and spending a lot of time writing this out I hope I get some responses lol seems like a waste of time but I have a lot of questions
I've been wondering about and this is a good chance to answer them and put them to rest hahaha..


So out of all the emulators what works best lets not consider netplay here just visuals audio and game performance.

So far I'm leaning towards Mame 32 FX as my primary but I hear its not gonna be updated anymore. So I'm stuck


What do you guys like and recommend I keep?

Thanks for reading

Jimmy

-=VampyR=-
April 28th, 2006, 09:20
MAME32 Plus! <--- The shiznit of Arcade fun

For Neogeo games use Kawaks (uses less memory).

hagbard
April 28th, 2006, 15:29
Kawaks doesn't emulate NeoGeo raster effects (Super Sidekicks 2-4, NT Masters, Zedblade, Galaxy Fight, etc). If your PC can run CPS-2 and NeoGeo fast enough, I think MAME32/Plus it's the best way. Otherwise, Kawaks or Nebula would be good choice, and forget NRx: It was once great, but it's old and discontinued (lastest version 6+ years old)

c2ironfist
April 28th, 2006, 17:13
lol out of all the MAme emulators; I havn't tried Mame 32 Plus yet, only whatever I listed there.

There are so many MAME versions out so its hard to try em all. And I'm extremely picky when it comes to graphics sound you name it lol.

Hows the sound quality in MAME 32 PLus compare to Nebula and MAME 32 FX?

Nebula has great sound, I think I'm stll spoiled by it lol.

-=VampyR=-
April 28th, 2006, 23:40
Nebula great sound ? Maybe it's the Low Pass Filter that you like.
You can enable that in Kawaks too or just give more bass from your sound system (woofer).

Mame32 Plus! kicks any Nebula/Kawaks ass.
The best mame build for me.

c2ironfist
April 29th, 2006, 06:57
Nebula great sound ? Maybe it's the Low Pass Filter that you like.
You can enable that in Kawaks too or just give more bass from your sound system (woofer).

Mame32 Plus! kicks any Nebula/Kawaks ass.
The best mame build for me.

I think its the pre-amplified sound setting thats in there.. so I believe :glare:

and yhaa I noticed Kawaks has good sound too..

THe thing is with my System is that I play my games on my laptop and the speakers are not all to great :thumbdown so I can really tell a difference with the sound.

hagbard
April 29th, 2006, 11:17
Just test MamePlus and post your feedback here ;)

montpics
April 29th, 2006, 14:50
You can make a review for those emulators in a new thread, in Submitted Content Forum yourself. :)

c2ironfist
April 29th, 2006, 22:49
I just downloaded Mame 32 Plus

However there are so many different versions I found on the official site

I found the latest version of Mame 32 Plus and I found one specificly for AMD processors.

I'm going to try them both and see whats different unless you guys just recommend me using the latest version of Mame 32 Plus?

But right now I'm figuring out how to clean up my roms etc.. with one of those rom programs like Mame Pro or Rom Centre.

Thanks for the advice I'll post feedback once I test things out :bleh:

-=VampyR=-
April 30th, 2006, 00:17
Use the latest version of any emulator if you can...ALWAYS.
They usually fix many bugs in the latest versions.

c2ironfist
May 1st, 2006, 01:45
Just to let you guys know

MAME 32 PLUS Is extremely good..

I wasn't expecting it to have such good video and audio settings :confused:

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll do up a review once I start testing out all the settings etc.. in it