Do These Snes Games Work At All?

[mrdark]

Hello, I tried posting this but I believe it got clipped in the process, so if this comes up twice I SINCERELY apologize. I didn't see my other attempt, so here goes.

Basically, I just have a list of Snes games I was really hoping to be able to play on the gp32, and I've seen some compatibility lists but I'm not sure if they're up to date and more importantly, they stress the games that are know to work with no problems.

But I want to play these games enough that a problem here or there doesn't matter, so I was wondering if anyone with firsthand experience can tell me how well they work, if at all. Here's the list:

Final Fantasy II (or IV, english)
Final Fantasy III (or VI, english)
Secret of Mana
Chrono Trigger
Shadowrun
Earthbound
Nba Jam
Super Castlevania IV
Ultima 6 - The False Prophet
Cannon Fodder
Mortal Kombat II
Super Metroid
Sim City
Zelda- Link to the Past
Super Mario RPG

I'm sure there will be more here and there but this is the main list that I'm concerned about. Basically, if anyone has played any of these (or tried to) on your gp32, can you please let me know if they work at all, and what, if any, problems it has? Thanks a lot for any information you can give.

 

[Hanz™]

Suggestion: Just get the GP2x when it comes out.

 

[mrdark]

I already committed to the gp32, so I'm kind of stuck. I guess this was because I know nothing about the newer system but I've heard rave reviews about the original system. I could only plop down my cash on one right now, so I figured it would be wisest to get the one that already has an installed base and so much support. Sound advice, though.

Is the 2x supposed to be able to run everything without any trouble? It may sound ignorant but I only have just begun learning about the original system and know nothing about the supposed improvements on the new system.

Meantime, since I am stuck (word used loosely) with the standard gp32, can anyone give me information on the performance of these Snes games?

 

[yaustar]

I *think* there was some problems with Mario RPG (there was a thread about that somewhere), Shadowrun shouldn't be too much of a problem, although you may have to overclock a bit (144 should be ok) or turn the frameskip down. You may have control issues with Metroid (6 -> 4 buttons although you can switch between two settings whilst playing).

http://www.berzerk.co.uk/gp32/GameList.php?EmuNo=5 may help as well.. but seriously, if you havent brought a GP32 yet, wait till the GP2X comes out, when a snes emu comes out for it, it *should* run better then the one on GP32.

 

[triksR4rabits]

I can help with a few of these

Secret of Mana - I believe this exceded the rom limit, no
Chrono Trigger- will work but you will run into transparency problems later on in the game (you can switch transparencies, but it will be a bitch. I think this happens in the domes or somthing like that)
Shadowrun- i *think* this works...
Earthbound- works well, playable with sound at 166 at a high fs
Nba Jam- play the genesis version
Super Metroid- not playable; too slow
Zelda- Link to the Past- playable but slow (EDIT: apparently not as playable as I origionally thought)
Super Mario RPG- unplayable

edit: do NOT buy a gp32 for snes. It's very slow and many games are unplayable at high clock speeds with sound. Without sound, many games run well, but do NOT get a gp32 for snes emulation (repeated for your sake)

If snes is what your after, wait for gp2x; supposed to be roughly 200 usd too. If your content with nes, genesis (very nice on the gp32_console thanks to Reesy), gb/gbc, and a few other older systems (not to mention some great homebrew), then go for it. Otherwise wait it out

 

[mrdark]

Okay guys, thanks very much for the help, these are the kind of specifics I was looking for. Glad to hear Earthbound works well, that's one of my favorites. Shadowrun too. I guess now the biggies I'm waiting to know about are the Final fantasies and Ultima 6.

Thanks again, I feel better knowing that stuff like Chrono trigger and Mario RPG can work but need some tweaking. This information really helps!

I guess part of me does wish I pre-ordered the newer system. Truth is, I only JUST heard about the basic gp32 this week, and had a huge amount of trouble even tracking one down. I really wanted it because EVERYONE said it was great and it seemed to suit my gaming purposes. I apparently could've bought the newer system for roughly the same price, which was very tempting. But I guess I can always get that one later if I really want to, I just wanted to make sure that with my initial investment, I was getting a system that everybody already knew about. After all, that's why I'm on these boards!

So yeah, thanks for the advice. I'm sure that 2x will kick ass, but i wanted to start with the basics so I could get help if I needed. And this kind of information is really helping me out. Again, does anyone have any news on Final Fantasy or Ultima 6?

 

[DaveC]

Okay guys, thanks very much for the help, these are the kind of specifics I was looking for. Glad to hear Earthbound works well, that's one of my favorites. Shadowrun too. I guess now the biggies I'm waiting to know about are the Final fantasies and Ultima 6.

Thanks again, I feel better knowing that stuff like Chrono trigger and Mario RPG can work but need some tweaking. This information really helps!

I guess part of me does wish I pre-ordered the newer system. Truth is, I only JUST heard about the basic gp32 this week, and had a huge amount of trouble even tracking one down. I really wanted it because EVERYONE said it was great and it seemed to suit my gaming purposes. I apparently could've bought the newer system for roughly the same price, which was very tempting. But I guess I can always get that one later if I really want to, I just wanted to make sure that with my initial investment, I was getting a system that everybody already knew about. After all, that's why I'm on these boards!

So yeah, thanks for the advice. I'm sure that 2x will kick ass, but i wanted to start with the basics so I could get help if I needed. And this kind of information is really helping me out. Again, does anyone have any news on Final Fantasy or Ultima 6?

​

There are alot of emus that run great on the older GP32. We say the new one should be better but we don't even have it yet so we don't know how long it will even be before SNES comes out. We don't even know if anyone is even working on one. It may be better but it may not be decent for a year as that is how long it will take before it is optimised. First versions of emus generally aren't that good. Who knows the one we have now may be better than the GP2X version for 6 months to a year.

SNES is a hard system to do. It doesn't run very fast now sorry to say. You will have to play with no sound to get any kind of speed out of it

You may want to get interested in Genesis/Megadrive. That emulator is fantastic running most games full speed with sound. Also try other emus like PC-Engine NES etc, they work great.

 

[mrdark]

Yeah, your response describes why I waited on the new system in the first place. It may kick ass, and probably will, but I only just learned about either system this week, so it made more sense to me to get the version that's already well-known and with an established user base of knowledgable people.

I am looking forward to Nes and TG16 emulation actually. It may sound cheesy but for years I've been wanting to play maniac Mansion, Startropics, Ultima 4 and Castlevania 3 on a handheld. And I bought the TG16/PC engine years ago for one game, "Order of the Griffon", so to have that again would be awesome.

I guess I'm looking forward to the Megadrive/Genesis as well, but much less so because I've had the Nomad (portable Genesis) for a decade now. Still, to have all my games for a similar system but taking up infinitely less space is cool, especially since I can then start playing some Nes games instead without switching to a different system. Very convenient.

Sorry to beat a question to death, but I must ask again- does anyone have any first hand experience with Final fantasy 2 and 3 (4 and 6) and Ultima 6 for the Snes emulator?

 

[Apeiron]

Link to the past crashes after the first amulet, everytime making the game uncompletable.
I think I've played 6 of my GP32, but ir crashes and is very slow most of the time.

 

[mrdark]

Oh....that sucks. I keep getting conflicting reports on how well this emulator works. I guess I don't expect perfection, but it seems like some people have success with it. My system is supposed to be at 166 mhz, so I guess I'll know when I see it, but that's why I keep asking about these specific games. It's one thing to wanna play all my snes games, but it's another to not know how high your hopes should get with just a dozen of your favorites..

 

[Esn]

The Donkey Kong Country games work REALLY well on OpenSNES9xGP.

Pretty high FS, music, and all that, even at 156Mhz. The only thing is that you have to fiddle with the transparency settings from time to time.

The reason you're getting conflicting reports is that it varies widely between different games. MOST do not work that well, but some of them work quite well. It also depends on how high your GP32 can overclock.

Oh yeah, and don't count the Genesis out - there are many wonderfull games that you probably haven't played, even if you have a big collection. Ever heard of Panorama Cotton, for example?

Try Tuskenraider's Atari Lynx emulator too - the port of Klax on that system is hilarious (mainly because Tuskenraider's emu has a bug which makes all of the voices sound lower than they are, which makes the game much more fun to play)... and Skeezix's Atari ST emulator.

 

[Magus 86]

It's a decent emulator, but how well it runs depends on which games you're playing and what settings you're running the emulator with. That's why there are conflicting reports. Not everybody plays the exact same games, and some people might have different clock speeds for their GP32s, so they'll experience the emulators differently. Super Mario World will run at about 95% speed with sound on frameskip 2 or 3. Meanwhile, Chrono Trigger is only about 85% speed during Overworld and Field areas, about 90% in the menu, about 75-80% during fights, and about 100% on overworld during the prehistoric era cuz that's when the least shit is going on. Even within one game, the performance of the emulator varies. As long as you're not expecting perfection, I think you'll be at least somewhat happy. Because of what I heard, I wasn't expecting perfection before I got my GP32, but I wasn't dissapointed with what I got.

 

[mrdark]

This all seems fair. I don't expect perfection, I'll just be grateful to take some of these great games on the road. I don't care if I have to mess with them a bit.

My gp32 should be at 166mhz from what I understand, so I guess things should run pretty well. Like I don't mind Chrono Trigger having some transparency issues and so on. But again, the last of the games I'm really concerned about are the Final Fantasies, Ultima 6, and probably Sim CIty. Surely one of you out there plays these games too, right?

Well anyway, thanks for the advice. I'm happy to know that these games can at least work to some tweakable extent.

 

[IG98]

Link to the Past is working fine on my Blu+ 166, good framerate with the sound turned off, I'm well past the second amulet, just finished the flooded dungeon in the Dark World. Haven't progresssed too far in FF4 and FF6 so far, but both run at a decent framerate. In general, most Snes rpg's are very playable when overclocked to 166 without sound, well worth it. Haven't tried Ultima 6 yet, but Ultima 4 for Sega master system works perfectly on Fsms.

 

[alyinsanfran]

What I tend to do is have a bunch of different emulators, and if I'm looking for a particular game find out what platforms it ran on, and try different ones until I find one that works well.
Of course many games were SNES-specific, but even then quite a few run reasonably, though the SNES emulators are among the least compatible in GP-land.
If you load up your smc with emulators for GEN, SNES, NES, MS, PCE, GBC, ST and MAME (and C64, Spectrum, 400/800, Lynx etc etc) you'll have a better than 90% chance of having every game you'll want.
Also keep in mind there are quite a few top quality homebrew remakes.
I'd particularly draw attention to CaSTaway (Atari ST) as the library is huge and straddles all genres, so you'll find some excellent RPG's if that's your thing. There is sometimes an issue with 'cracked' disks not running all that well but if you find a problem with one just get another with the game you want and you'll likely be fine.
I quite enjoy browsing Genesis Collective and finding titles I wasn't aware of. Because the latest build of DrMD offers near-perfect compatibility with most games it's usually my first port of call.
PCEngine runs perfectly but (drat) doesn't support save states, a real problem but luckily the games I personally play on it (BoxyBoy and Military Madness) use password saves anyway.

Don't worry too much about not getting every single game you want. I know how you feel as it took me almost 7 weeks to get my GP and I was looking for what problems I'd run into, and found plenty! But as it turned out once I actually had the thing in my hot hands I spent the best part of a week downloading, transferring and playing, and being completely amazed at how cool the thing was. And near-stunned that they hadn't managed to sell 50 million of the things! 8 months on I'm still loving the thing and still browsing for new stuff.

 

[Creature XL]

Secret of Mana - I believe this exceded the rom limit, no

I am playing it currently and had just the transparency problems which aren't as anoying as with ChronoTrigger. So Go for this.
I played FF2 a bit, untli my savestate got earased and no problems aswell. Except the transparency which I could live with.


salut,
creature

 

[BaDToaD]

I was disapointed when I got my GP that SNES wasn't too good. It's improved a lot since I got my GP but it's unlikely to get much better and is at best OK now.

TBH I have hardly touched the SNES emulators as there is so much else the GP32 can offer. Believe me even if the GP32 couldn't run SNES you could be forgiven for not noticing. The community is excellent too. Want some ideas for games just ask and you'll have serveral peoples suggestions inside a couple of hours.

 

[mrdark]

Thanks for all the detailed information, there's a lot to respond to in the last few helpful posts.

For starters, thanks for letting me know specifics about games like Chrono Trigger, Mana, and lastly the Final Fantasy games. I appreciate it, these are some of the bigger games I'm interested to play portably. There were lists here and there that said a game was "good" or not, but that's what I mean- I needed someone with firsthand experience to tell me whether a game can still work if it's frameskipped or sound off and so on. Again, thanks, this was definitely the kind of info I needed to rest a little easier with my purchase.

The reason is because it's been rollercoaster styled news- first I heard the system could emulate everything up 'til the Playstation, then I heard no Snes at all, now I'm hearing that some games work and some have slight issues. That's cool, I can live with that now that I know it's the case. I'm used to kind of fiddling with the game options when I run them on my laptop, so it's no biggie. I just wanted confirmation that they work at all.

It does bug me about Final Fantasy IV though- didn't a couple of you say that it erased your saves? That really sucks, that pretty much does render the game unplayable. Something to look into I guess.

I'm still curious about SImcity and Ultima 6, but most of my questions have been answered. Thanks everyone, this information definitely helps and I'm looking forward to getting the machine. The last post on page 1 (sorry, forgot the name) describes exactly how I think my own gp32-getting situation is going to be like, and it sounds like it's gonna be a kick ass little system.

Oh sorry, one more definitely relevant question: Someone mentioned multiple emulators. Are there several (good) emulators for some of the systems like SNes? Of course there are more than one for the PC but I didn't know if there are more than one emulator for each system on the gp32. If so, that would help too.

 

[mrdark]

Oh yeah, and thanks for the links and descriptions of the Genesis collective and the Atari stuff, I'll be looking into it.

 

[yaustar]

THere was two snes emulators for the GP32,
opensnes: http://www.gp32x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,5,6
and snes: http://www.gp32x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,5,89

Basically you want Opensnes since Snes runs pretty slow... Also some people have had better results of games running in the older Opensnes version of 0.2 then the latest which is 0.3.