NES / Famicom
NES / Famicom Specifications
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), known in Japan as the Famicom, is an 8-bit video game console designed and manufactured by Nintendo. It is widely credited with reviving the American video game industry after the crash of 1983.
The NES launched some of Nintendo’s most popular series, including Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda and Metroid. It also saw the birth of Capcom’s Mega Man, Konami’s Castlevania, Square’s Final Fantasy and Enix’s Dragon Quest series (Square and Enix later merged to form Square Enix). All of these franchises are still going today.
The NES also changed how console makers worked with third-party developers: games could only be published with Nintendo’s approval under its licensing programme. This gave Nintendo control over the quality of the games released for the system, which helped restore public confidence in home consoles.
The console is no longer manufactured, but it has been emulated to the point where almost all of its hardware behaviour has been reproduced. Accuracy-focused emulators such as Nestopia emulate the hardware cycle by cycle, so what appears on screen should match what the original console produced.
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NES / Famicom Emulators
ares is an open source multi-system emulator focused on accuracy and preservation, covering the NES, SNES, N64, Sega consoles and more. The successor to higan.
Mednafen is an open source multi-system emulator, controlled from the command line, known for accurate Sega Saturn and PlayStation emulation.
Mesen is an open source multi-system emulator for the NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance and more, with a built-in debugger, for Windows, Linux and macOS.
Nemulator is an NES and Sega Master System emulator by James Slepicka, with cycle-accurate timing and support for most NES mappers and unofficial opcodes.
Nintendulator is an open source NES emulator for Windows that reproduces the console's hardware quirks, running games that less accurate emulators get wrong.
FCEUX is an all-in-one NES emulator that pairs accurate emulation with tools for debugging, ROM hacking, movie recording and Lua scripting.
Nestopia is a cycle-accurate NES emulator with near-perfect compatibility. The original ended in 2008, but forks such as Nestopia UE continue it.
Nestopia UE (Undead Edition) is the maintained open source continuation of the accurate Nestopia NES emulator, with builds for Windows, macOS and Linux.
puNES is an open source NES emulator and NSF music player with a Qt interface and wide mapper support, for Windows and Linux.
higan is a multi-system emulator by Near (formerly byuu), best known for its highly accurate SNES emulation, which puts accuracy ahead of speed.
Jnes is an NES emulator for Windows and Android by Jabo, one of the developers of Project64, with high compatibility, Zapper support and online play.
