They might need some renaming or moving, but switching between emulators is not really a hassle as long as you’re using in-game saves.> the emulator automatically load the firmware needed, correct? Saves (not save states! SRM files.) are transferrable between SNES emulators because they’re just the raw data that the SNES game would have saved. Since snes9x is sufficient for most SNES emulation and can run splendidly on some fairly weak systems, it’s a better choice for low-power situations. But if you’re on a battery, then not only will the more accurate emulator eat through battery power quickly, possibly ending your gaming session prematurely, you may (or may not!) find it doesn’t perform very well: graphics and CPU in general are throttled on battery power, and there is pretty much nothing you can or would even want to do about that. Normally, having all the accuracy you can get is just better (except your machine will run hotter and maybe there is something to be said for not unnecessarily contributing to the environmental impact of power plants). However, more CPU power requires more electric power. It should run just fine on a 2011 computer, I’d imagine (haven’t tried it lately, myself).

It has nothing at all to do with the computer’s form factor, only the power source in use.īsnes (or higan these days, I guess) is a very accurate SNES emulator, and thus needs a lot more CPU power. To that end time to dual boot or spin up a VM, modern VM tech should breeze though it all with a tiny bit of overhead. Most hackers seem to favour something like Geiger's SNES9x mod which is windows only as far as I know Higan/bsnes had some basic debugging capabilities but they went so you might be left compiling an old version of bsnes (have a linux version ), the vanilla snes9x does also have some small capability here. ROM hacking is still mostly a windows game, however I guess you could fiddle around with a native emulator and kick the rest over to a vm/dual boot. I can not say I have tried it out lately or that I even know which is the latest build/port/fork for it. Snes9x is ported to just about everything though and that does include a version for the mac inclined. Similarly the benefits to the 'I just want to play games' crowd are not all that noticeable for a lot of people.Ģ) On windows this would be the typical snes9x vs zsnes stuff. It is quite demanding though and may lack some of the more hacky filters people have grown to like over the years. Most accurate naturally has to be Higan (was once bsnes), you can get it The 3 are not always one and the same, especially where the SNES is concerned for some hacks. I assume this is a modern Intel mac running osx rather than dual boot or something.Ģ) Someone wanting to just play games but maybe with a few filters and mods.ģ) Someone wanting the most accurate emulation possible.

Snes9x vs higan