in the end i still feel like it was worth it to get one, but it's hard to recommend when 100% of them have some kind of defect out of the box.
my description of what emulators a gamecube could run was woeful, i didn't really test them out hardly if at all and i didn't want to make wild claims. but i've gone through the ones most interesting to me and given them each at least an hour.
sd media launcher is back on the codejunkies website for $20 as of this second
http://us.codejunkies.com/Products/G..._EF000589.aspx. if you don't mind taking care of a single irreplacable disc then this is the solderfree option for you.
all the emulators i've tried can be run off of the sd card, though if you prefer to burn them to dvd that's an option also. most of them had the ability to output in progressive scan though the gc component cable is expensive beyond reckoning and depending on your model it might not even be an option.
also most emulators allow you to load roms using smb via a crossover cable, and i believe gcos will also do this with your backup games much like the ps2, however the gamecube broadband adapter might as well have been forged of meteor iron i've never seen one in the wild.
here's the stuff i tried out
nes - fce ultra gx 3.2.6
looks really good, sound is good though sometimes maybe a slight imperfection here and there only a supernerd would notice. my sample size was small but i had no problems as expected.
snes - snes9x gx 4.2.8
i wasn't expecting much when the ps2 failed to deliver, but this is really good :o i played several games at full speed with no sound issues. if i have any problem with it at all it's that the gc controller layout isn't really that good for snes games. you can remap it any way that suits you but even so i just couldn't figure out a way that seemed super comfortable.
genesis - genplus gx 1.7.1
no troubles here, it has no problems with the reflection effect and the weird sprite rotation that i remember genesis emulators having issues with in the past. though that may have been a far distant past, i didn't get a genesis til late in it's life and i don't play that stuff as much :< several internet websites described this emulator as genesis/32x/segacd but they are liars, nothing but genesis is implied or delivered.
turbografx16 - hugo gx 06-13-2010
no supercd support unfortunately :< at least i don't think so :o pretty sure. this is an excellent emulator that i'll likely only use to play devil's crush. once or twice i saw a weird flicker of screen garbage i dunno what that's about, but it didn't really detract from the overall experience.
neogeo cd - neo cd redux 1.52a
i didn't test this as much as the others because the only neogeo cd game i could somehow put my hands on was samurai shodown 4. loading times are vastly reduced, though how could they not be :o music and sound was fine and everything appeared to move at full speed.
n64 - cube64 beta 1.1
unusable :< some n64 games will work using the emulator nintendo made for the zelda collector's edition which i know runs mariokart 64 and mario 64 and starfox 64, maybe some other stuff too, i know it was limited to things that saved directly to a cartridge. i guess i was meaning to talk about this cube64 emulator though :o everything i tried was impossibly slow or just didn't work.
vba/gbc/gb - visual boy advance gx 2.2.5
i had initially overlooked this because i have a gameboy player stuck on my gc already but i thought i'd check it out while the checking was good. i might actually like its handling of original gameboy and gbc better than the gameboy player because it has a lot more options for adjusting the visuals. the gameboy advance part however is choppy and slow, playing some kind of action themed game would be impossible.
here's some things that exist that i haven't tried
master system/game gear - smsplus-gx
atari 2600 - stellagc
neogeo pocket/color - neopop gx
playstation - pcsx revolution
scummvm
Hybrid Mode
