Emulator Tier List: The Best and Worst PC Emulators

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Thanks to channel patreons / youtube members:
• Paolo • Cecilia • martinez3010 • Kesnei • MunzMadeThis

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0:00 Intro
0:48 Sega Saturn
1:04 BizHawk
1:37 Kronos
2:16 Yaba Sanshiro 2
2:46 Playstation
2:55 ePSXe
3:30 Duckstation
4:07 Nintendo 64
4:32 Muphen64Plus (Retroarch)
5:03 ParaLLEl N64 (Retroarch)
5:35 Dreamcast
6:32 Redream
7:08 Flycast
7:44 !Play
8:22 PCSX2
9:00 GameCube / Nintendo Wii
9:25 Dolphin
9:50 Xbox
10:06 Xemu
10:34 Cxbx-Reloaded
11:00 Nintendo DS
11:20 DeSmuME
11:51 MelonDS
12:16 PPSSPP
12:53 Xbox 360
13:07 Xenia Canary
13:32 Playstation 3
13:51 RPCS3
14:31 Nintendo 3DS
14:46 Citra (PabloMK7)
15:09 Mandarine
15:41 Lime3DS
16:09 Playstation Vita
16:20 Vita3k
17:00 Nintendo Wii U
17:14 CEMU
17:48 ShadPS4 (Playstation 4)
18:23 Nintendo Switch
18:36 Sudachi
19:13 Torzu
19:41 Suyu
20:17 Ryujinx

💻 Specs 💻
💻 CPU - Intel i5-10400F (4.00 GHz)
💻 Motherboard - Gigabyte B460M Gaming HD
💻 GPU - Nvidia RTX 4070 OC 12GB GDDR6X
💻 RAM - (16x2) Asgard Loki W2 RGB - 3200MHz, DDR4
💻 PSU - Cooler Master 650 85+ Bronze

#tierlist #emulator #bestpcemulators

[AlexwpiGame]

Thanks to channel patreons / youtube members:
• Paolo • Cecilia • martinez3010 • Kesnei • MunzMadeThis

Game list:
0:00 Bayonetta 3
0:48 Castlevania Symphony of the Night
1:38 Die Hard Arcade
2:16 Road Rash
2:50 Crash 3
3:30 Megaman 8
4:07 007 GoldenEye
4:31 Mario Kart 64
5:03 Conker's Bad Fur Day
5:35 The house of the Dead 2
6:32 Capcom vs. SNK 2
7:10 Sonic Adventure 2
7:44 Tékken 5
8:21 Gran Turismo 4
9:01 Mario Kart 7
9:50 Dead or Alive 3
11:03 New Super Mario Bros
11:51 Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow
12:16 Ace Combat X
12:53 Forza Horizon
13:32 Lollipop Chainsaw
14:31 Fire Emblem Awakening
15:09 Senran Kagura 2
15:41 Heroes of Ruin
16:09 Dead or Alive 5 +
17:00 Zelda: BotW
17:50 Sonic Mania
18:22 Bayonetta 3

[marcell]

"ryujinx was the only nintendo switch project that has not yet faced problems with nintendo" famous last words

[keyaamabrahams]

Cemu deserves an S-tier rating. It is easy to use and runs smoothly on my low-end potato PC. It's the easiest emulator to set up and use. The only downside is that the Wii U has few games and exclusives.

[matthewharris]

PPSSPP is definitely one of the BEST and most stable emulators out there
But most emulators are best ran on PC with controller (except for DS and GB which are better on phone)

[douglasscott]

Duckstation literally changed EVERYTHING that we thought was possible for ps1 emulation....there's soo many emulators I play....pcsx2, dolphin, rpcs3, xenia....what we need is a better version of xemu

[RegalPixelKing]

For NDS I would put DeSmuME in B tier and MelonDS in A or even S tier. MelonDS already has outstanding compatibility, plus MelonDS' upscaling in leagues better than what DeSmuME could ever hope for as it currently is. MelonDS utilizes the GPU which make upscaling very easy and lite even on moderate hardware, meanwhile DeSmuME uses on the CPU which means upscaling can and will cause lag even the most powerful CPUs on the market.
Also Citra got robbed. On PC it's practically perfect for 99% of games with great upscaling and an easy setup.
As for N64 I think that you should look at more projects outside of RetroArch. simple64 for example is outstanding. As the name implies it's as simple as can be and it practically plug and play, it's an easy contender for an S tier as well, it also has some of the best online utility that you could ask for in an emulator. Also the standalone version of Mupen64 is far ahead of the RetroArch version and with the RMG frontend is also S tier worthy.

[danpatrick]

Awesome video and well thought out positions

[DanielRobson]

RPCS3 deserves S tier with there recent improvements etc... and every game is bootable and the highest compatibility rate

[GeorgePerakis]

PCSX2 and Dolphin are the actual GOATs, the Michael Jordan and Lebron James of emulators. It took PCSX2 especially so many years to get where they are, but those years have been so incredibly worth it. Three entire console libraries with absurd amounts of variety and novelty available on pretty much any device with decent horsepower is so incredible.

[MysterionLL-]

I think it's unfair to rank Bizhawk D only taking into consideration its Saturn Emulation, since Bizhawk is not a "saturn-only" emulator, but a multisystem emulator and a nice libretro front-end with a traditional mousecentric GUI and its actually pretty good at emulating other systems like N64, SNES, Turbografx16, Sega Genesis, 32x, Sega Master System, Game Gear, NES, Colecovision, Intellivision.

[Goober]

I didn't realize Xenia was that lacking, quite unfortunate.

[MattKimura]

Rosalie's Mupen GUI is a fantastic option for N64 emulation and it comes with both GlideN64 and Parallel graphic plugins to choose from. One for accuracy and one for performance. It's better than Project64.

[jmtradbr]

Zsnes is the goat for introducing me to emulation in 2005

[dreyb]

Very good video👏. I appreciate your hard work bro. I already have Vita3k, PCSX2 1.7 (yet to update to 2.0), Dolphin 5.0, Cemu, & PPSSPP. My laptop is old & low-end (4th-gen core i7 & Nvidia quadro k2100m). I haven't bothered getting OG Xbox, Xenia, or RPCS3 b'cos I'm sure my system will struggle with those. I used to have Yuzu & Ryujinx & I could play 2d games okay but 3d games struggled.

[persondude]

It’s wild to see how far PCSX2 has come. I still mostly associate it with being pretty buggy and difficult to use (and tbf I haven’t tried the new 2.0 version yet).

I guess it also doesn’t help that I was almost entirely interested in the more difficult games to emulate like Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper, and Ratchet and Clank. I still remember trying to play Jak X Combat Racing on v1.4 when that game would freeze/crash after 5 minutes; had to find a fan patch just to extend that to 20 minutes

[NyxTheNerd]

The list is pretty good, but I have a couple of problems with how certain entries are.

I don't quite think it's fair to include ShadPS4 or any PS4 emulators in the list yet, as the scene is still in it's infancy. Within the past few weeks, we went from merely booting Bloodborne to getting into game, fighting bosses with framerates over 30. Persona 4 went from not working to fully playable within days. The scene is still really early on, so while it *is* there, it's just not quite at a point where it'd be smart to consider it as an emulator to play PS4 exclusives such as Bloodborne or InFamous.

I would personally bump Cemu up to S tier; not only is it the only PC Wii U emulator, but it's great in all regards. It's easy to set up, it runs really well on lower end hardware, and it has a lot of potential for mods, which other emulators like Yuzu (at least for a while) or RPCS3 struggled with.

Likewise, I'd also bump Citra up as well, as most games run fine within Citra (speaking for the PC release), run well and also has mod support for the games it can run. Not quite S tier, but it's still a versatile emulator that works for pretty much anything you'd wanna throw at it.

[pranprotim]

Ryujinx and Cemu should be S tier, Xenia should be either B or C. Agreed with the rest.

[Witchling]

Disagree with Xenia Canary on d. I would put it in b. I have not yet found any xbla game that is not playable on it. :)

[NBWDOUGHBOY]

Only one I kind of disagree with is Ryujinx. It should be S-tier. For a long time kept up with yuzu and even surpassed Yuzu in some titles and Features. Overall good list tho.

[spiderphone]

I agree with you mostly on this list, and you did put time and effort in this video.
Thanks.