ares

ares

Developer(s)	Near (formerly known as byuu), LukeUsher
Latest version	v140 [+]
Active	Yes
Platform(s)	Windows Linux macOS
Architecture(s)	x64
Emulates	Atari 2600 NES SNES Nintendo 64 Game Boy/Color Game Boy Advance WonderSwan Sega SG-1000 Sega Master System/Game Gear Sega Genesis/Mega Drive Sony PlayStation PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 Neo Geo AES Neo Geo Pocket/Color MSX ColecoVision Sinclair ZX Spectrum Pocket Challenge V2
Website	ares-emu.net
License	Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) license
Source code	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

	Official releases
	Flatpak ArchLinux AUR

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 32x emulation has 95% compatibility with commercial games and is by far the best option for that system.

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 and is highly accurate, but is slower and less accurate than mGBA. The Genesis emulation lacks the 100% compatibility with commercial games claimed by other emulators. Its Atari 2600 emulation is well behind Stella and MAME.

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

Nintendo Game Boy Advance Emulators

• Windows: VBA-M • mGBA • higan • iDeaS • MAME • Meteor • NanoBoyAdvance • No$GBA • ares
• Linux: mGBA • MAME • NanoBoyAdvance • ares
• macOS: mGBA • NanoBoyAdvance • ares
• PSP: TempGBA4PSP • gpSP
• PSVita: mGBA
• DS: GBAemu4DS
• 3DS: CitrAGB • mGBA
• Wii: VBA-GX • mGBA
• Android/iOS: mGBA (RetroArch) • VBA-M/VBA-Next • My Boy! ($) • GBA.emu ($) • Gameboid
• Cell-phones: vBagX ($)
• Web Browsers: VBA-M-js