As the lead coder of bsnes, I’ve been attempting to perfect Super Nintendo emulation for the past 15 years. We are now at a point where that goal is in sight, but there we face one last challenge: accurate cycle timing of the SNES video processors. Getting that final bit of emulation accuracy will require a community effort that I hope some of you can help with. But first, let me recap how far we’ve come.
The bsnes saga is a fascinating story of how an obsession for perfection can lead to something beautiful – not just the emulator itself, but also the various technical details and stories written about it. I doubt most people really needs the insane emulation accuracy bsnes strives for, but in the future, when original, first party SNES consoles have all died out or get incredibly rare, the accuracy of bsnes will be a godsend.
I’d be interested to know how accurate the SNES emulator inside the SNES mini is, especially compared to bsnes.
It depends. For the specific set of games on the SNES Mini, the emulator on that could very well be more accurate than BSNES.
BSNES is trying to emulate the complete system accurately, which may be generally more accurate across all software, but maybe potentially less accurate in specific games that would otherwise just have game-specific hacks to fix shortcomings in the emulator. (Though, since the games on the SNES Mini are well-known and popular, the BSNES surely emulates them with a high degree of accuracy)