The Atari Lynx may not have been the best-selling handheld system at the time, but it is perhaps the most visually appealing. Not only was the Lynx the first full-color portable console, but it also had a sleek retro-futuristic design, which has proven to be ageless. The Lynx also houses games that, perhaps surprisingly, have withstood the test of time. Here are the top emulators for the Atari Lynx.
1. Mednafen
Mednafen is more than just an Atari Lynx emulator. It emulates the Apple II/II+ systems, the PlayStation One, Neo Geo Pocket, WonderSwan, GameBoy Color, and Gameboy Advance, the NES and SNES, Virtual Boy, PC Engine / TurboGrafx 16 (CD), SuperGrafx, PC-FX, Sega systems before Dreamcast—Game Gear, Genesis / Megadrive, Master System, and Saturn, and, of course, the Atari Lynx. Among these systems, the PC Engine, Sega Saturn, and PlayStation One stand out for their accuracy and compatibility.
Other cores improve on emulators that have been abandoned for a long time and are rarely updated. The SNK Neo Geo Pocket/Color, Bandai WonderSwan/Color, and Atari Lynx cores are among them. Still, Mednafen is accurate enough for emulating the Atari Lynx while being lightweight and feature-full.
Pros
- Accurate
Cons
- Not beginner friendly at all
- Needs Bios
2. MAME
Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME) is a multi-platform, open-source, multi-system emulator written in C++. It is distinct from Retroarch in that Retroarch is not an emulator, but MAME is. MAME is massive, with thousands of machines and ROM sets supported; however, what is supported is not always what is playable; your mileage may vary. If you don’t like MAME’s default interface, there are a slew of alternatives, including the aforementioned Retroarch. Retroarch is the third recommendation on this list, despite the fact that it is not an emulator.
The principal objective of MAME is to save decades of arcade, computer, and console history. MAME prevents these vital retro systems from being lost and forgotten as technology evolves. While MAME usually runs cycle-based emulators, it also accepts plugins.
These plugins are largely for utility and not to improve performance or accuracy. Because the Atari Lynx is no longer difficult to emulate due to its age, having plugins for that purpose is pointless.
Pros
- Accurate
- In (very) active development
- Fast
Cons
- No standalone port for ARM / mobile devices
3. RetroArch
Retroarch is a multi-platform front-end, not a standalone emulator. It is a lightweight and fast front end that can run on any hardware. What distinguishes Retroarch from standalone emulators is the ability to swap systems within the software, eliminating the need to exit from one program and open another, in the process losing all the pre-set configurations, control schemes, filtering, and other useful features. This is especially useful for older systems such as the Atari systems like Atari 2600 and Atari Lynx.
Retroarch’s settings and customizations are great. The user interface can be scaled to fit the size of the screen, whether it’s a small screen like a 3DS or a large one like a 4k television (although running Atari Lynx on a gigantic screen and resolution is less than ideal). Searching for those options can be tedious, but they do exist. Because core performance is based on the power of your hardware, the UI experience should be consistent regardless of your hardware.
The key advantage of Retroarch is its ability to remove input lag. However, for Atari Lynx emulation, this is ineffective because all hardware from this and previous decades can run games from that platform without requiring input latency reduction from Retroarch.
The achievements obtained through Retroachievements are another advantage of Retroarch. It gives gamers the ability to gain achievements by playing emulated games on a console which was decades before the achievements are introduced.
It is entirely up to you which core you use to imitate Atari Lynx games since all of them are running off Handy.
Pros
- Highly configurable
- Miraculous input lag reduction (although not necessarily needed for playing Atari 2600 games)
- Available in a surprisingly broad range of gaming hardware including the PSP and the 3DS
Cons
- Not beginner friendly
- Menu digging
4. OpenEmu
OpenEmu, just like Retroarch, is not an emulator per se. It is a front-end software that uses cores from other emulators to run games. The core used in this front-end application is Mednafen, so expect all the bells and whistles in the standalone to be here. OpenEmu is macOS only, unfortunately.
OpenEmu has support for the most common of controllers without needing further tinkering. However, the Xbox controllers may need drivers. For some reason though, there is no controller navigation support.
This Atari Lynx emulator is gorgeous on the Mac with its UI following the macOS design language. It adds box art and organizes your ROM collection neatly. OpenEmu is incredibly good-looking even.
One of the few drawbacks of this emulator is that it does not offer upscaling. This is a problem for older systems, and especially a handheld like Lynx due to the small screens and/or resolutions. Until OpenEmu does not offer this feature, Retroarch is just the better frontend for Mac users.
Pros
- Gorgeous to look at
- Accurate
Cons
- No upscaling
- No controller navigation
5. Handy
Handy has been dead since 2007. A lot of developers have ported versions of this emulator into almost every gaming hardware. Handy has versions running on the PlayStation Portable, the PlayStation Vita, the Wii, and the 3DS.
Handy is also the foundation of Mednafen’s emulation of the Atari Lynx. In fact, all of the emulators listed here are based on Handy, one way or another. For example, Retroarch uses the Mednafen core for the Atari Lynx emulation, which was based on Handy. The same is true with OpenEmu’s core.
While Retroarch can run on old video game hardware, and through that, you can emulate the Atari Lynx, there are actual standalone emulators for the portable console. All of these emulators, just by going by their names: HandyPSP, Handy Vita, Wii Handy, and Handy 3DS, are all based on Handy. It might not be in active development anymore but others have taken the mantle to make it playable on past and, maybe future, hardware.
Pros
- The foundation of all Atari Lynx emulators
Cons
- Super dead since 2007
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