Windows 7 or XP Emulation?

Smack2k

New member
Brand new to the forum and have a question for everyone:

I am currently using an XP machine to emulate most consoles I want...except my Saturn

Doing some reading I found a good emulator to use, but only with a much faster PC.

I have the much faster PC and am going to set it up and move everything over (games and emulators) to it to play what I have now as well as the Saturn games as good as I can..

My question is, what OS do you recommend or does it matter?

I am using Windows XP SP3, but can also use Win 7 (32-Bit) or Win 7 (64-Bit) but want my emulators and games to run as smooth as they do now....wasnt sure if emulators were still made well for the newer OS's or if I was missing something..

Thanks!
 

ulaoulao

Controller Man
Staff member
Yes is matters and its like everything else. In a time win7 was a no go for emulation and now its the preferred. XP is also great but consider....

1) XP 64 bit is junk. Never was any good. So any emulator like dolphin that uses 64 bit architecture is going to suffer in XP.
2) TB limits... I dont know the exact number but a 3 tb will not work on xp without some messing around.
3) drivers. XP is legacy now, drivers will soon be gone for it.

I here OK things about win 8 with emulation but you would not catch me using it. I also feel win 8 is still an experiment and will be a dude. Either way it needs time yet to prove its self. So my vote is win 7.
 
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Smack2k

New member
Thanks for that so far...

I have had no issues with the following so far in emulation in XP...would WIn 7 64 still be better?

NES
SNES
Sega Master
Sega Genesis
Sega CD
Turbo Grafx 16
Sega 32X
Nintendo 64
Atari 2600 / 5200 / 7800
Colecovision
INtellivision
Playstation 1
Gameboy
GBA
Gamegear


Amiga
Apple II / IIgs
ZX Spectrum
Amistrad

A few small others as well..

Finally, you mentioned drivers, what new drivers would I need for those systems if using already working emulators?

Will most likely go the Win 7 64-Bit route, but want to verify all teh systems I listed above will work great..

Then I will add teh Sega Saturn (SFF), the whole reason for the machine upgrade...
 
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Hectic

New member
You won't go wrong with W7 x64. Where emulators offer a 64bit version it will always be faster; and of course it will run 32bit apps just fine.

In all honesty, unless you're running higan as your principle SNES emulator, you likely will not notice much difference on the systems listed. However, driver support on W7 is a non-issue and it just feels like a solid OS (a bit like XP and unlike Vista and W8 which I cannot get on with).
 

Smack2k

New member
You won't go wrong with W7 x64. Where emulators offer a 64bit version it will always be faster; and of course it will run 32bit apps just fine.

In all honesty, unless you're running higan as your principle SNES emulator, you likely will not notice much difference on the systems listed. However, driver support on W7 is a non-issue and it just feels like a solid OS (a bit like XP and unlike Vista and W8 which I cannot get on with).

Thanks a bunch...I will go that route and see how things go...

Appreciate it!
 

Smack2k

New member
What would you all consider the best emulator's to run on Win 7 64-Bit for:

NES
SNES
Nintendo 64
Sega Master System
Sega Genesis
Sega CD
Sega 32X
Turbo Grafx 16 / CD
Atari 2600 / 5200 / 7800
Colecovision
INtellivision
Playstation 1
Gameboy
GBA
Gamegear
DS

Amiga
Apple II / IIgs
ZX Spectrum
Amistrad


Thanks again!!
 

s4real

New member
Im running emulation on windows 8.1 with out any problems.

I do find with windows 7 64bit and windows 6.1 64bit you do need to run some emu's as full admin rights.

Apart from that most fine and a lot have been updated for windows 7 and 8

cheers s4real
 

Knight5599

New member
You should always run it at the latest version possible to get the best results, in this case go with 7. If you have to do stuff that might be a pain to do (like run under compatibility mode) then run under win xp.
 

ulaoulao

Controller Man
Staff member
Na, there is more to it then that. Things like drivers and SDK's(dx) you need to have the latest of. Emulators dont really take advantage of OS features. There really only are two things to ever be concerned of. One, CPU and Two, video. Most all emulators depend on the core CPU speed. It's best to get the fastest chip you can and most are written to take advantage of Intel chips. Video is not really important you just dont want to bottleneck the emulation is all.

As some point when the OS reached its limits like DX version or HD size there becomes a need to upgrade.

XP: will not see 3TB. I think there are fixes and work-arounds but yeah...
Never really had a good 64 bit OS.
No longer supported by latest hardware
DX 10 and plus does not take a real advantage of the system.

7: fixes all the above, so in that case its a perfect choice.

8: its 7, just a really bad version of 7, with a horrible interface. 8 has been rewritten twice now and more people still hack it to get the 7 interface back. 8 will die, and I hope soon. The main goal of 8 was to merge the mobile and desktop world. Mobile devices are not desktop devices, this idea was "stupid" for the lack of a better word. They know it, the users said it, and many of us warred them. M$ just likes to try stuff, so in that I give them merit but not everything you put together turns out like a REESE'S peanut butter cup. Vista was an experiment also, and it was crap, the CEO admitted it. (Sorry for the rant.)
 

jeruka9-san

Rookie Developer >_> <_<
xp of course on windows7 i have often error with ati drivers on xp works fine 7 is good for new emulators and games but older emulators and games should go on win xp
there no such thing like best emulator emulator which you use is only your opinion
 
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