When comparing ZSNES vs Higan (Formerly BSNES), the Slant community recommends ZSNES for most people. In the question“What are the best Super Nintendo emulators for PC?” ZSNES is ranked 1st while Higan (Formerly BSNES) is ranked 2nd. The most important reason people chose ZSNES is:
ZSNES has been in development since the 90's, and in that time has been fixed to run the vast majority of SNES games smoothly. Due to it's "accuracy", it can run roms that most other emulators would break. Not because the emulation is broken, but because the roms are broken.
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Pros
Pro "Compatible" with most games
ZSNES has been in development since the 90's, and in that time has been fixed to run the vast majority of SNES games smoothly.
Due to it's "accuracy", it can run roms that most other emulators would break. Not because the emulation is broken, but because the roms are broken.
Pro Fast playback of ROMs
ZSNES is hand-optimized for x86, so it will run incredibly smoothly even on older computers.
Pro Built-in video capture
Gameplay can be recorded and saved as both raw or lossy files. Quality settings can be tweaked in zmovie.cfg file.
Pro Games can be saved at any point
Pro Multiplayer support
Games can be played with other people over TCP/IP network.
Pro Built-in support for cheat codes
ZSNES supports Game Genie, Pro Action Replay, and GoldFinger cheat codes.
Pro Built-in audio capture
Game audio can be saved to a .spc file.
Pro Can speed-up and rewind games
Pro 100% accuracy
Higan, originally BSNES, was built with the goal of 100% cycle-accurate SNES emulation. This ensures that games play exactly as they were on the original console, including low-level hacks requiring precise timing (such as shadows in Air Strike Patrol), to a degree not possible in any other emulator.
Pro 100% compatibility
Byuu, the author of Higan, went through the effort of acquiring all Super Nintendo/Super Famicom games with extension chips, and de-capping and reverse engineering those chips, to ensure perfect, cycle-accurate emulation and flawless support for every game ever released for the console.
Pro Supports other consoles
Since BSNES became Higan, the emulator has begun to support emulation for other consoles as well.
Cons
Con Laughably out of date
Not only was it abandoned over 10 years ago, the strides that other emulators have made in the same time is astounding.
Con Inaccurate compared to competition
ZSNES sacrifices emulation accuracy for speed (relative to e.g. Higan emulator). Sound emulation is a particularly large weakness.
Con Abandoned
While no official statement on discontinuing the software was made, last progress update was posted in 2007 and now seems highly unlikely that any further updates should be expected.
Con Gamepad-unfriendly GUI
There is no way to select, run, or exit a game with a controller.
Con High system requirements
In order to achieve such a high degree of accuracy, the emulator requires significant usage of system resources. Because of this, a system with a fast processor and a fair amount of RAM is necessary - Higan isn't recommended for use on older machines.