The best emulators available in Apple’s App Store

Around the beginning of April, Apple made the move to allow emulators on the Apple App Store. While it did take some time for some to start appearing, appear they certainly have. With a good variety of options available, and more on the way, you might wonder which one you should actually use. After all, some of these emulators overlap in terms of which consoles they can emulate.

Delta: The all-in-one Nintendo emulator

For simplicity, and for the love of Nintendo games

The first major emulator to hit the Apple App Store was the Delta emulator. Delta can emulate a number of different Nintendo consoles including:

• Nintendo Entertainment System
• Super Nintendo
• Nintendo 64
• Game Boy
• Game Boy Color
• Game Boy Advance
• Nintendo DS

All of these emulators make Delta a must for Nintendo fans. But, there’s more to love about Delta than its selection of consoles. The biggest factor, by far, is its simplicity. Delta is absurdly simple to use. If you’ve never used an emulator before, you’ll have no issues using Delta.

Beyond that, the user interface is beautiful. The on-screen controls provided for each system are fantastic to use, and feature haptic feedback to make them that much more usable. You can also download different skins for each controller on each console Delta can emulate. Emulating games on your phone is awesome. Being able to do it comfortably without needing to carry a controller around is even better. Another standout feature of Delta includes save syncing, which will be particularly handy when the iPad release of Delta hits the App Store in the near future.

As far as emulating Nintendo DS games goes, Delta is probably the best option available on the app store, but emulating Nintendo DS games will require you to get the BIOS files from a Nintendo DS.

Delta does have its drawbacks, however. The most significant drawback of Delta is the performance of Nintendo 64 games. Nintendo 64 games are generally plagued with texture issues across Delta, rendering them sometimes unplayable. Some Nintendo 64 games will only have minor texture issues, while others will have entire characters replaced with black blobs. Despite this one issue, Delta is pretty much positive in every other regard. If you mainly want to emulate handheld Nintendo games and classics from the NES and SNES, Delta will be the best emulator for you. Delta will be even better if you prefer an emulator with a great on-screen controller option.

Related

How to use the Delta emulator to play retro Nintendo games on iOS

The Delta emulator has made its mark on the Apple App Store — here’s how to install and use it on your iPhone to play Nintendo games.

Gamma: A conflicting PlayStation 1 emulator

Riddled with ads, but still has some redeeming qualities

Gamma is a more recent app store release, and it’s by far the most mixed bag in the bunch. Gamma is a PlayStation 1 emulator, and only a PlayStation 1 emulator. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is single use. This on its own wouldn’t be offensive if Gamma could make up for it in every other area. Unfortunately, Gamma is far too mixed to justify only emulating one console.

To its credit, Gamma has a fantastic user interface. Gamma is largely modeled after Delta, with the same UI and the same feature set. Everything great about Delta’s interface is present in Gamma’s. From the haptic feedback to the save syncing, and even to the controller skins. It’s all on Gamma. And, it even has iPad support already.

But, Gamma is not all positives. Unfortunately, Gamma is absolutely crawling with ads. Every time you launch a game, you will get an ad. Occasionally, you won’t get one, but I can’t seem to find a pattern to what determines when you don’t get one. I have left a game for less than twenty seconds to tweak some settings, and was greeted with an ad when I got back. Thankfully, gameplay is never interrupted with an ad, which would elevate this issue from negative to absolute dealbreaker.