best supported emulator for sega consoles on ubuntu 23.10
best supported emulator for sega consoles on ubuntu 23.10
I use kega fusion on my ubuntu 23.10 to emulate sega's master system, game gear, genesis and cd. I don't need to emulate anything else. The problem with fusion is, it stopped being supported in 2009 and while the latest version is stable, there is no sound. Because it's not supported, I don't know where to ask for help.
if I execute 'kega-fusion' on the terminal I get:
ALSA lib dlmisc.c:337:(snd_dlobj_cache_get0) Cannot open shared library libasound_module_pcm_pipewire.so (/lib/i386-linux-gnu/alsa-lib/libasound_module_pcm_pipewire.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)
I have this same sound issue with mednaffe. With mednaffe, however, controls don't even work.
Don't suggest retroarch: it seems to be a full suite that's too much for me and I enjoy fusion's minimalist approach.
Don't suggest MAME either, it's also a suite but the mouse reacts oddly and graphics look silly.
I'd also settle for a solution that gives me sound back with fusion.
Try the Flatpak:
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The flatpak has all of the required dependencies included in the file and are sandboxed when you run the program. Typically installing the app via your package manager or storefront would rely on dependencies previously installed on your system or install them during the setup process, and running them on the system will draw those resources from wherever they're stored. This is why you'll find flatpaks are typically much larger than the footprint of a traditional program on Linux.
I can't say for sure but I'd venture a guess that the code for the emulator hasn't necessarily changed, so they haven't seen fit to iterate the version number in some time, but the flatpak was rebuilt to include the newer versions of dependencies that interface with your newer hardware. Just a guess though.
Have you tried the flatpak to see if it solves your issue?
It should have all of the dependencies to run it bundled.
Blast Em. https://www.retrodev.com/blastem/
Standalone (not retro arch). Modern emulator (don’t think it’s updated anymore though). Linux support. I think it’s also available on Flathub if you want to get it via there.
Or…
Ares. https://ares-emu.net
Multi system emulator originally developed by Near (rip). Yes, it plays more systems than you are looking for, but it is simple, standalone (no retroarch/libretro), very good, Linux support, and still updated (latest version 23 Jan). Also available on Flathub if you want it there.
I suggest to try these emulators, they’re modern and they aim for cycle accuracy, rather than finding a way to keep a 15 year old emulator running.
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Ares as a project has a goal of accuracy at any cost, so tends to need a lot more resources than most other emulators. Before the tragic loss of Near, they wrote an absolutely exceptional article about the development of bsnes/higan and how much power it required for cycle-accuracy of SNES hardware, and it's way more than you would think is feasibly necessary given that emulators like ZSNES (or Gens, as was my Sega emulator of choice at the time) ran under a crappy Celeron in the 90s.
I will say your CPU will likely throttle back well before it'll shut down due to overheating. It might affect emulation performance some, but your PC shouldn't shut down or anything.
I remember Gens back in the day, really solid competitor to Fusion, but hasn't been updated in a good decade. Last system I had it installed on was a laptop with 14.04, IIRC. I might still have a .deb of it on a hard drive somewhere, now I'm curious to see if it would work on a more modern OS/machine. On a similar note, anyone know if Gens was forked or anything like a successor cropped up anywhere?
My favorite emulator is OpenEmu on MacOS. So far it supports the most systems and is the easiest to use. I have a Mac but I don’t use it for games and would love to see a port for Linux.