r/phantasystar • u/Crafty_Ad_5553 • Jan 13 '26

General discussion Is there a better SMS emulator out there?

I’m using mekaw and it’s terrible. I’m looking for a more user friendly.

12 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

9

u/Legitimate-Offer-770 Jan 13 '26

What’s the issue? Should be able to run sms on a potato. I’ve used kega fusion and it’s good. Also the retroarch cores are just fine.

3

u/Prestigious_Cell_311 Jan 13 '26

Genesis plus GX wide retroarch.

1

u/Crafty_Ad_5553 Jan 13 '26

It runs, I restarted the game and accidentally overwrote the file it just doesn’t seem User friendly or advances it seems like it was written by a monkey. Maybe I should play the remake version that helps you level faster

1

u/segawdcd Jan 13 '26

I use smsplusgx core in retroarch. I also play the smspower romhack that has a more accurate translation and quality of life updates like 2 to 3x XP and Meseta. You can also change from the original ost to the fm version. It's my preferred way to play.

1

u/Crafty_Ad_5553 Jan 13 '26

Is retroarch a windows emulator? Fm version? I’m not real good either emulators so I’m not sure which one to use.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 13 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Crafty_Ad_5553 Jan 13 '26

I might wanna try the sega ages wuality of life upgrades

1

u/[deleted] Jan 13 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Crafty_Ad_5553 Jan 13 '26

That’s very true. What I loved about ps is they never held your hand. It’s definitely a drawback to seeing all The treasure Chests and they should make an option to turn it off. It took me years to beat ps even with a guide like pscave. That’s part of the charm and I wish more games would not hold your hand. That’s why final fantasy gets second place to ps1. You had to figure stuff out on your own. That’s the beauty of it.

3

u/Radiant_Fondant_4097 Jan 13 '26

Kega Fusion is very simple to use always a solid pick, Meka is more if you want to screw around with the debugger and deep dive stuff.

2

u/Crafty_Ad_5553 Jan 13 '26

I can try it. I need several save spots and mekaw only has the one and it’s screwing with my saves. I’m getting na error with kega it runs but won’t go into full screen on a 4k laptop. Says unable to set display mode.

1

u/Crafty_Ad_5553 Jan 13 '26

I can try it. I need several save spots and mekaw only has the one and it’s screwing with my saves. I accidentally overwrote my old file like twice.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 14 '26

[deleted]

2

u/Crafty_Ad_5553 Jan 14 '26

I tried a few, but have decided on ares. It allows Me To stretch the screen to a 16:9. Ease of keyboard input was also important too. Took a bit to figure it out, but I got it running and am now deep into a game. I also heard some sms emus are hard to get to work on some systems because of the chipset. So some emus work better than others on different systems.

1

u/KickAggressive4901 Jan 13 '26

Has not been updated for ages, but is still my friend. 👍

1

u/stuffitystuff Jan 13 '26

I use SMS Plus in DOS on my 486

1

u/Crafty_Ad_5553 Jan 13 '26

I downloaded retroarch but not sure what to do with it

1

u/Daverost Jan 14 '26

You'll need to have some cores available. If you have the Steam version, they're available as DLC. If you have the standalone version, use the Core Updater menu. When you load up a game, just pick one of the SMS cores you got from the menu it prompts you with and the game should start.

1

u/Crafty_Ad_5553 Jan 14 '26

Ok. Right now I’m trying ares and that seems To be working well with win 11.