GoNES vs Nintendulator

GoNES is a free, open-source NES emulator written in Go. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux and web browsers; the browser version compiles to WebAssembly, and the project links to a hosted instance. At startup, the app opens a file picker for selecting a .nes ROM, and it can also be launched from a terminal with a ROM file argument. The project lists support for mappers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 69 and 71, which it says cover 84.34% of official NES games. Keyboard controls for two players are configurable. Save-state, load-state and undo bindings are listed. GoNES creates a configuration file on first run, with its location documented for each desktop platform. Release downloads are provided, and macOS installation through Homebrew is documented. Source installation is also documented. Building requires OpenGL development libraries because rendering uses Ebitengine. The project says its GUI renders, but menu options still need to be added.

Nintendulator is a free, open-source Win32 NES emulator written in C++. It aims to reproduce NES hardware behavior, including quirks and special cases. Supported formats include .NES, UNIF, FDS images in fwNES format, and NSF; mapper support uses external DLLs, with extra sound channels available for most games that provide them. Features include FDS image writing, Game Genie codes, customizable controllers including four-player setups, input movie recording and playback, AVI capture, and a debugger with simple breakpoint support. Savestates and battery-backed RAM are stored in the current user's Application Data folder, so the emulator can run without administrator privileges. The official release listed is version 0.980, dated January 1, 2019. Version 0.985 Beta is an unstable development build that may have significant bugs. Versions 0.985 and later have 32-bit and 64-bit editions and are officially supported on Windows 10 and later; older Windows versions may work, and recent builds are tested with Wine. Full-speed emulation is estimated to require a 1500MHz or faster CPU.