Snes9x

Snes9x is a popular cross-platform emulator for the SNES. Initially the collaborative effort of Gary Henderson of snes96 fame and Jerremy Koot of snes97 fame, Snes9x is now maintained by Matthew Kendora and Brad Jorsch.

Snes9x has several capabilities which its Super Famicom and Super Nintendo counterparts did not have; it can "smooth" the appearance of the screen through a variety of anti-aliasing schemes, and it has a better quality of sound output than the original console systems. In addition, it can create screenshots of games, it can "save" the game at any point by recording the game state, and it can capture sound files, saving them as SPC700 sound format files which can be read by an external player or a specialized Winamp plugin, such as Alpha-II SPC player. SPC700 sound format actually sounds more realistic on ZSNES than on the actual Super Famicom or SNES console. Also included is a built-in Game Genie, which allows users to enter cheat codes for their games, and the ability to record time attack videos.

Snes9x was also the first SNES emulator to feature emulation of the SDD-1 chip used in, among other games, Star Ocean.