Legendary SNES emulator ZSNES is back in active development, with two of the original developers involved.
As revealed by Zophar, zxKnight and _Demo_ are working on Super ZSNES, a GPU-powered successor to the original emulator.
This new emulator – which is currently on v0.001b – promises the following:
+ Far more accurate CPU and Audio cores than the original ZSNES
GPU-powered PPU core to allow for hi-res Mode 7 and special per-game enhancement features
+ Classic UI with falling snow, modernized with higher definition and improved UX
+ Fast forward, rewind, save states, auto save history, save bookmarks, cheat codes, quick load, and more
+ No Vibe Coding. Classic development style
+ Super Enhancement Engine, where the ZSNES developers are enhancing the games one at a time
The Super Enhancement Engine is perhaps the most exciting aspect of this project. It currently supports seven games (Super Metroid, Super Castlevania IV, F-Zero, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Mega Man X, Gradius III and Super Mario World) and offers higher resolution visuals, texture mapping, overclocking, wide screen support, uncompressed audio and even 3D effects for perspective-style Mode 7, which "replaces tiles with 3D height-mapped data." All of these features can be toggled on and off.
It goes without saying that this is a super-early build of the emulator. "There are still emulation bugs and special chips (DSP1, SuperFX, etc.) have yet to be implemented," explain the developers. "A bunch of optimization work has yet to be done so performance may be a bit slow."
You can download Super ZSNES here. It's available for Windows, Mac and Android, and an iOS version is coming soon.