Aficionados of game console emulator history will almost certainly be familiar with ZSNES, an MS-DOS-based (and, later, Windows-based) emulator for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System that originally launched back in 1997. Originally written in x86 assembly code, it was known best for its performance on low-end PCs and was capable of running some games at full speed on chips as slow as a 233 MHz Pentium II, though it usually did so at the expense of emulation accuracy.
ZSNES developed rapidly (alongside the contemporary, competing Snes9x project) throughout the late ’90s and early 2000s. Updates slowed after the original creators left the project, and new releases ceased entirely around 2007.
But a successor to ZSNES has arrived. The project’s original creators (who go by the handles zsKnight and _Demo_) have returned 19 years later with a new follow-up project called “Super ZSNES,” an SNES emulator that emphasizes audio-visual upgrades to those aging ’90s-era Super Nintendo games. The only more surprising emulator news would be if NESticle somehow rose from the dead.
Aside from the name, the developers, and an updated version of the falling-snow menu screen, Super ZSNES has nothing to do with the original project. The new emulator has been “re-written completely from scratch” with “no vibe coding.” The emulator features “far more accurate CPU and Audio cores than the original ZSNES” and makes extensive use of GPU-based rendering instead of the mainly CPU-based emulation of the original and most other SNES emulators.
But the main selling point for Super ZSNES, and the reason for its existence alongside mature full-featured emulators like Snes9x and Higan/bsnes, is its new “super enhancement engine.” These enhancement features go beyond typical image upscaling and screen filters, adding features like widescreen support and texture mapping that can optionally give supported games “a higher resolution look.”
Super ZSNES can also replace the original audio samples with uncompressed versions (“restored” versions of SNES game soundtracks that claim to use uncompressed versions of the original audio samples are a whole thing), and can add actual 3D to games that use the Mode 7 effect rather than just upscaling it. These enhancements don’t directly modify the ROM files, nor do they include data from ROMs, insulating the project from legal action.
An overview video by Modern Vintage Gamer shows many of these new updates in action, and they can definitely give old SNES games a dramatically different look and sound. They likely won’t do much for the kinds of retro-game purists who spend their time looking for the perfect CRT filter, but they can give you something new to look at and listen to while you work on your 17th playthrough of Super Mario World.
These enhancements need to be created on a per-game basis, and the initial Super ZSNES release only includes enhancements for seven “popular games”: F-Zero, Gradius 3, the first Mega Man X, Super Castlevania 4, Super Ghouls & Ghosts, Super Mario World, and Super Metroid. The creators plan to add support for more games in the future, and players will also be able to create their own enhancements for individual games using tools built into the emulator.
The initial Super ZSNES release supports Windows, Intel and Apple Silicon Macs, Linux, and Android, with an iOS release “coming soon.” Future releases will include general bug fixes and performance optimizations, support for popular enhancement chips like the DSP-1 and SuperFX, “more types of enhancements,” online netplay, and more.
