I have always used NLMSX.

People tend to tell me, "That sucks, why don't you use a different one!"

Well, I tried BlueMSX and RuMSX, but in use, those just appear to be less user friendly, or something. They just seem to demand more work to "work".

So, would you guys like to state the advantages/disadvantages of the several emulators, so we (or I ) can sort it out once and for all?

(Oh, this must be some lame, outdated entry, but I'm slow at things. Excuse me!)

NLMSX is my default MSX emulator too, I'm used to it and it's good enough for me (that is, it runs my favourite games like Magical Tree and Zanac just fine), but it's certainly not the best MSX emulator.

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So, would you guys like to state the advantages/disadvantages of the several emulators, so we (or I ) can sort it out once and for all?

You don't need us to do that for you. Compare the emulators by looking at their featurelists:
NLMSX: see user-manual that comes with NLMSX
blueMSX: http://www.msxblue.com/manual/
openMSX: http://openmsx.sourceforge.net/features.php

Have a look at snout's MSX Emulator Comparison too: http://www.msx.org/MSX-Emulator-Comparison.articlepage8.html

Thanks! This did help me!

But, moreover, so you can save/load states on the other ones, but there's a lot of other features I doubt someone would make use of, like emulating the sounds a diskdrive makes?

If I would, say, try to play Famicle Parodic II with MIDI (I got a MIDI-interface and a fancy synthesizer), would that be possible on any emulator? Or is that too much hope?

Because, to my surprise, even NLMSX does emulate the MoonSound. Is there difference in "sound quality" amongst the emulators? Guess not, is there?

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Thanks! This did help me! But, moreover, so you can save/load states on the other ones, but there's a lot of other features I doubt someone would make use of, like emulating the sounds a diskdrive makes? If I would, say, try to play Famicle Parodic II with MIDI (I got a MIDI-interface and a fancy synthesizer), would that be possible on any emulator? Or is that too much hope? Because, to my surprise, even NLMSX does emulate the MoonSound. Is there difference in "sound quality" amongst the emulators? Guess not, is there?

oh, there is...especially if you're picky about it

I never found NLMSX to be user-friendly at all btw (very 'uncommon' use of the windows interface), but maybe that's just me.

I thought the sound of the diskdrive in bluemsx was a funny feature. Right now it sounds like a flushing toilet though (maybe dvik's MSX diskdrive just sounds like that ), it could use some better samples. I ought to try and record my diskdrive to see if I can do any better

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there's a lot of other features I doubt someone would make use of, like emulating the sounds a diskdrive makes?

Which reminds me of a nice missing emulator feature Valken (#openmsx IRC) suggested yesterday evening over a beer and pizza: all emulators emulate all kind of graphical nonsense - scanlines, blur, 'cable noise', tv image distortion and all that blah.
But... none of them emulates the audible nonsense, like that 50/60 Hz humm and buzz you get on a real MSX sound output, or the extra noise coming from the VDP, due to badly filtered hardware!

ah, I remember when we had this cracked 128kb version of nemesis2 without sound, we'd turn up the volume loud and listen to that instead.

And then there's the monitor hum. lower pitch when the MSX is turned off, a little higher when it's turned on, and a little higher than that when you push the reset button (or keep it pressed). And I want to hear the diskdrive roar before the MSX beeps

Too bad the MSX I have now isn't the one I originally had. They're both 8250's, but I still remember the exact sounds of that old one (it's mostly the same with this one, just a few slight differences, and the hacked diskrom might play a role in it) =P

Haha! It's so recognisable what you guys are talking about!

Let's record sounds of every MSX diskdrive/monitor/cassette port/etc. possible and make a house remix or something of it.

Whaddaya think?

heh.. well, now that you mention it, the casette data sounds ... it would be nice if bluemsx supported datarecorders through the soundcard connectors. real disk support would be nice too (it does kind of work, because you can mount A:\ as a directory, but it's not entirely the same).

a house mix eh? I'll remember that one

Maybe it would invoke a nice nostalgic collective laugh...

that reminds me, I did actually make a few MSX related tunes (if you can call them that) in a Tracker program on PC, but I'm not exactly a musical prodigy

One was an attempt at Gangsta Rap using SD Snatcher speech, and the other one a , uh, 'musical' intepretation of playing Road Fighter.
Oh yeah, also a guitar version of the Boulderdash tune that didn't sound like Boulderdash anymore after it was finished, and actually one serious attempt at the menu music of Greatest Driver, but neither of those use actual MSX samples.

Aurora: mechanical noise and other buzzes are irritating. But the scanline/blur thing is almost required! Since gfx were made on those old monitors, ppl anticipated on the blur (rasters etc.) so the gfx we've made in the past are made for scanlines and blur! A single pixel will look round, rather than a perfect square, and round is what ppl wanted.. I think. At least it makes sense for stars 'n stuff.

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that reminds me, I did actually make a few MSX related tunes (if you can call them that) in a Tracker program on PC, but I'm not exactly a musical prodigy One was an attempt at Gangsta Rap using SD Snatcher speech, and the other one a , uh, 'musical' intepretation of playing Road Fighter. Oh yeah, also a guitar version of the Boulderdash tune that didn't sound like Boulderdash anymore after it was finished, and actually one serious attempt at the menu music of Greatest Driver, but neither of those use actual MSX samples.

Heheheh, I especially like the Road Fighter part. Hiiiing, hiiiiiiiiiing... Imagine! We could have a good laugh out of that!

Wolf, is that "pixel-blur" you're talking about never emulated, in any feature?

it's emulated.. in blue, in open ... it was not a feature request but an explanation towards Aurora

Really... I should check it out then. You see, hard-core NLMSX-user...