crater vs pico-smsplus
crater
github.compico-smsplus
github.comSide by side
| Figure | crater | pico-smsplus |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Game Gear Emulators | 8.4 (#6) | 6.7 (#29) |
| License | Crater is distributed under the MIT License, which permits free use, copying, modification, distribution, sublicensing, and sale subject to its conditions. | The GitHub repository identifies the project as GPL-3.0 licensed. |
| Maker | GitHub identifies the repository owner as Ben Kurtovic and lists New York City as his location. | The repository credits Frank Hoedemakers with the Pico port, menu, settings screen and board support. |
| Purpose | Crater is a Sega Game Gear emulator with an included Z80 assembler and disassembler, written in C. | pico-smsplus is an emulator for Sega Master System, Game Gear, and SG-1000 games on RP2040/RP2350-based microcontroller boards. |
| Save support | For compatible games, crater saves cartridge RAM to a .sav file; save states are not yet supported. | It supports save states and stores battery-backed game saves on the SD card for games that support them. |
Plans
In their own words
crater
crater is a free Sega Game Gear emulator written in C, with a Z80 assembler and disassembler included. Games can be loaded from the roms directory or from a command-line path. Display controls include fullscreen mode, integer scaling in a window, and an option to force square pixels. Keyboard and joystick or controller input are supported; SDL controller mappings can be defined in gamecontrollerdb.txt. Compatible games can save cartridge RAM to a .sav file, with custom save locations or saving disabled. Save states and custom keyboard mappings are not supported. The assembler converts Z80 source into a Game Gear ROM image and is described as complete. The disassembler attempts to produce assembly but cannot distinguish code from data. Most games are described as playable with minor bugs, while audio, some uncommon CPU instructions, and advanced graphics features are missing. Building requires a modern C11 compiler and SDL 2; OS X and Linux are the tested systems.
pico-smsplus
pico-smsplus has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.