NES in 2012

[Saucerful]

I've used several NES emulators over the years. My most recent go-to NES emulator used to be Nestopia. Until now, I haven't played since I upgraded my rig in 2009 (Windows 7 x64; Asus P5Q Pro; Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550; 8GB RAM; nVidia GTX 260 896MB; Asus Xonar Essence STX). The problem is my NES experience on this new machine is underwhelming compared to what I remember from years past.

What I have found is that Nestopia's sound is glitchy/choppy, yet DPC Latency Checker shows no spikes. I have heard this is a known problem with Nestopia in Windows 7 with certain hardware. I tried Nintendulator because it sounds promising but the UI is basically non-existent. I can't tweak the video or audio settings at all. If Nintendulator's UI gets an update, this might be an emulator that I'll keep an eye on in the future. So, moving on, FCEUX seemed like the next best thing (FCEU was my go-to emulator before Nestopia) but the audio emulation isn't as good as Nestopia (when it works) and there's little things here and there that are missing from the UI that I would have liked, like the "TV Aspect" feature in Nestopia. The only thing I like better about FCEU/X is its palette, but I can easily borrow that and plug it into Nestopia.

I've tried the unofficial 1.41 and 1.42 builds of Nestopia in attempt to fix my audio troubles, to no avail. Short of setting up an old box with Windows XP on it, does anyone have any suggestions as to getting some decent NES emulation in 2012? Is there another unofficial Nestopia build in the works?

[Xorbeus]

try bsnes. emulator that strives for perfect accuracy. plays all NES, SNES, GBA, GBC and original GB games. u can find it on the snes section of the main site

1 more thing its if the 64 bit version runs slow on your pc try the 32 bit version it will be faster

[Saucerful]

I thought that the author said that he has neither the time nor desire to make the NES emulation in bsnes as accurate as his SNES. Maybe I'm wrong...

[Xorbeus]

its possible.

maybe you can try Jnes. its another good nes emulator. besides those 3 (nestopia, bsnes, jnes) the rest are pretty much outdated

[Ilovethegamecube]

I use one that is called rocknesx I think, and it works perfect on xp and vista

[Mupen64 Man]

I thought that the author said that he has neither the time nor desire to make the NES emulation in bsnes as accurate as his SNES. Maybe I'm wrong...

Regardless, the emulation isn't all that bad.

[Xorbeus]

tbh I tried playing the original gauntlet using BSNES the other day and the graphics were all jumbled. dunno about other games as I play SNES waaaay more than NES

so basically you have Nestopia, Nintendulator, Jnes, Rocknes, BSNES. Ive tried them all at one time or another and they generally work fine. if youre having glitches with one, try another until you find one you like

[Saucerful]

tbh I tried playing the original gauntlet using BSNES the other day and the graphics were all jumbled. dunno about other games as I play SNES waaaay more than NES

so basically you have Nestopia, Nintendulator, Jnes, Rocknes, BSNES. Ive tried them all at one time or another and they generally work fine. if youre having glitches with one, try another until you find one you like

I appreciate your suggestions but I've tried every one of those already. Here are my findings in point form. Your findings may be different. I'm just putting all these out here so maybe we can discuss the pros/cons of various NES emulators in 2012. Furthermore, maybe we discuss settings that elude me for tweaking these various emulators.

Jnes: Has very low CPU utilization. Mediocre sound emulation. Not much in the way of video tweaking settings either. Decent, but not great. I've played through a couple games with this emulator in the past.
Nintendulator: Emulation seems quite accurate, sound is great. Unfortunately, the UI is so sparse as to make it almost unusable... pity that an emulator that strives to be this accurate doesn't include features that almost every other emulator manages to include.
Rocknes: Clunky UI. Also, resolution stays the same no matter what settings I choose. Perhaps an incompatibility with Windows 7 x64 and/or my hardware?
Nestopia: Tons of features, accurate emulation. Almost perfect. Only problem is the sound glitch with my newest hardware. This glitch is not present on all hardware (including one of my other PCs).
FCEU/X: My go-to emulator before Nestopia. May be destined to be my go-to emulator again. Accuracy is not quite up to Nestopia/Nintendulator standards, but decent. Otherwise, it has all the bells and whistles I expect. Played many games with this emulator.
bsnes: Very high CPU utilization. No custom palette selection.

Some of these emulators would be great if it weren't for just one or two things. FCEUX and Nestopia are way ahead of the others are far as UI and tweaking goes. I wish the others would start including some of these features.

[Saucerful]

One feature I did not mention was shaders. For SNES, there is Snes9x and bsnes, and bsnes again for NES. Are there any other NES emulators that support shaders?

[Mupen64 Man]

thats a good list of emulators and their pros/cons, maybe you should try to make a thread showing whats good about each emulator.