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{{WonderSwan/WonderSwan Color emulators}}
{{WonderSwan/WonderSwan Color emulators}}
{{Neo Geo Pocket/Neo Geo Pocket Color emulators}}
{{Famicom (NES) emulators}}
{{Famicom (NES) emulators}}
{{Super Famicom (SNES) emulators}}
{{Super Famicom (SNES) emulators}}

Revision as of 03:45, 10 February 2026

ares
Developer(s) Near (formerly known as byuu (謬/view)), LukeUsher
Latest version v148 [+]
Active Yes
Platform(s) Windows
Linux
macOS
FreeBSD
Architecture(s) x64, ARM64
Emulates 2600
Famicom / NES
Super Famicom / SNES
Nintendo 64
Game Boy (Color)
Game Boy Advance
WonderSwan (Color), Pocket Challenge V2
SG-1000
Mark III / Master System, Game Gear
Mega Drive / Genesis
PlayStation
PC Engine (SuperGrafx) / TurboGrafx-16
Neo Geo
Neo Geo Pocket (Color)
MSX2
ColecoVision
ZX Spectrum
My Vision
Website ares-emu.net
Support ($) Patreon
Ko-fi
GitHub Sponsor
PayPal
Programmed in C++
License ISC
Source code GitHub
Issue tracker GitHub

ares is a free and open-source, multi-system emulator. It is a descendent of higan and bsnes, and focuses on accuracy and preservation.

Download

Windows macOS Windows on ARM Official releases
Windows macOS Windows on ARM Official Nightly builds
Linux Flatpak
ArchLinux AUR
AppImage
FreeBSD FreshPorts

Overview

ares began development as bsnes on October 14th, 2004. It is available under the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) license, which is a permissive license that is functionally similar to the BSD and MIT licenses. It used to be under the terms of the Creative Commons (CC) BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, which it made the ares emulator a non-commercial software that does not permit publishing modifications (forks) online. The reason for this was to prevent splintering development between higan and ares.

Most cores in ares are original and were started when the project was run by Near, although its Nintendo 64 core's graphics emulation is based on Themaister's ParaLLEl-RDP Vulkan renderer as well as MAME's software renderer, and an original Atari 2600 core was added later. Its most useful cores are the ones that have been in development the longest or that have few competing options. Its SNES emulation is derived from that of the original bsnes project and is the most accurate one around. Its WonderSwan and Neo Geo Pocket emulation are also the most complete and accurate, with the highest compatibility available (100% in the case of the WonderSwan). The Genesis emulation is highly accurate across the console and its add-ons, albeit slightly less compatible than some competing options. 32x and CD emulation both have >95% compatibility with commercial games, making ares by far the best option for the 32x across emulators.

Other cores are less useful, with known incompatibilities and other emulators available that are both faster and more accurate. The GBA emulation was derived from work done in bsnes for the ST018 coprocessor, but is slower and less accurate than mGBA. Its Atari 2600 emulation is well behind Stella and MAME, and its PlayStation emulation has some noticeable compatibility gaps that you won't find in DuckStation or Mednafen.

In terms of features, ares is one of the first emulators to make use of librashader, a project designed to provide a portable implementation of RetroArch's SLang shader engine. See Shader Presets for more information.

Additionally, support for Pioneer LaserActive LaserDisc format to play Sega Mega-LD games meant for Sega PAC (PAC-S10/PAC-S1) was added by v146 and support for NEC LD-ROM² games meant for NEC/PC Engine PAC (PAC-N10/PAC-N1/PCE-LP1) will be added by v147.

Features

  • Native multi-platform UI
  • Adaptive sync
  • Dynamic rate control
  • Save states
  • Run-ahead
  • Rewind and fast-forward
  • Pixel shaders
  • Color correction
  • 6th-order IIR audio filtering
  • Input multi-mapping
  • Built-in games database
  • Debugger

High CPU usage under Windows

On some Windows systems, the default audio driver causes very high CPU utilisation, even with no game actually running. Switching from WASAPI to SDL will resolve that issue on OpenGL video driver. If your video driver is Direct3D, switching to DirectAudio audio driver should resolve any audio crackles and instability.

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