ArcEmu vs BigPEmu
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
ArcEmu
Experience retro gaming on your Apple Watch, iPhone, and iPad. This emulator supports Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance cartridges. Enjoy features like multiplayer, cheats, and customizable controls.
- Game Boy, GBC, GBA emulation
- Multiplayer support
- Cheat codes
- Customizable on-screen controls
- Save State sharing
- iCloud support
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ArcEmu brings retro game emulation to Apple Watch. It also works on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV, delivering a seamless gaming experience across your Apple devices. Supported Consoles - Game Boy (.gb) - Game Boy Color (.gbc) - Game Boy Advance (.gba) - Pokémon Mini (.min) - Nintendo Entertainment System (.nes) - Super Nintendo Entertainment System (.sfc and .smc) - Atari 2600 (.a26 and .bin) Main Features - Accurate, high-performance emulation powered by the mGBA and Ares cores - Game Link Cable support with online multiplayer for up to four players* - Cheat-code support with a built-in database of popular codes** - Frame-independent emulation at 30 or 60 FPS - Multi-touch and Digital Crown support on Apple Watch - Support for all screen orientations on iPhone and iPad - Precise, thoughtfully designed on-screen controls - Customizable control position and transparency on iPhone and iPad - Fast-forward at 2×, 4×, or maximum speed - Slow motion at 0.5× speed - Touch-based light gun controls for NES and SNES - Custom color palettes for Game Boy games - Button hold/sustain feature - Accelerometer support - Gyroscope support on iPhone and iPad, with Digital Crown input on Apple Watch - Haptic feedback on iPhone - Game controller support with customizable button mappings - ZIP archive support - Automatic saving - Save-state sharing between devices - iCloud support for ROMs and save states - ROM sharing through iCloud using share codes - Support for Apple Watch devices configured with Family Setup - ROM sorting and search Apple Watch Compatibility - Apple Watch Series 4 or later - Apple Watch SE or later - Apple Watch Ultra or later ArcEmu does not include any games or ROMs. You can import compatible ROM files from your iPhone and store them in iCloud. Your Apple Watch can then download them directly from iCloud. On an Apple Watch configured with Family Setup, ROMs can be downloaded from iCloud using share codes. Games Featured in the Screenshots - Acorn Grove: https://gibbongl.itch.io/acorn-grove - Anguna: https://gauauu.itch.io/anguna - Hauntsfield: https://alliemackie.itch.io/hauntsfield - µCity Advance: https://skylyrac.itch.io/ucity-advance * Requires a Game Center account. ** Cheat codes may cause unexpected behavior or affect game stability and save data. ArcEmu is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Nintendo. Nintendo and the names of its game systems are trademarks of Nintendo Co., Ltd.
BigPEmu
This application emulates the Atari Jaguar console, offering high accuracy and performance for its entire retail game library. It provides advanced features like saved states, movie recording, and customizable controller support, enhancing the classic gaming experience.
- Full retail library compatibility
- High performance emulation
- Accurate emulation
- Saved states and movie recording
- Jaguar CD support
- Customizable controller overlays
- Fast forward and rewind
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BigPEmu is the first Atari Jaguar emulator to feature compatibility with the entire retail library, along with excellent performance and a wide variety of unique features: • Fast. The emulator runs the entire Jaguar retail library (with default settings) at full speed on most devices. • Accurate. It's the most accurate Jaguar emulator to-date, although it's still being improved all the time. • Better than hardware. Although the emulator defaults to settings which are catered toward compatibility and accuracy, it's capable of far more. BigPEmu enables you to play lots of Jaguar games at a full 60 frames per second for the first time ever! • Saved states and movies. Everything is completely deterministic, just like real life. That's right, I went there. This means that all "randomness" is also controlled by a preserved seed. BigPEmu can record movies from nothing but controller inputs, and play them back with perfect accuracy. You can even interrupt a movie's playback and start playing yourself at any point. • Jaguar CD support. In addition to supporting the entire retail disc library (along with Memory Track), complete hardware emulation means that the Virtual Light Machine is fully functional. Also featured is a virtual disc system with an audio loopback option, allowing the VLM to be used as a native audio/music visualizer. • Excessive presentation detail. There's native support for the Jaguar Game Drive's MRQ format in the software browser (as well as box art sourced from PNG files), support for global and per-game backgrounds, and even support for controller overlays! Everything about the touch overlay for the iOS port is fully customizable, from appearance to collision boxes. • Extra device support. Featuring emulated device support for analog controllers (both via external bank switching and the ADC), driving controllers, rotary controllers, and Team Tap. For native input devices, the iOS port supports any MFi "Extended Gamepad" type device as well as keyboards through Apple's Game Controller API. • Glorious shaders. The emulator comes equipped with a powerful, fully customizable postprocessing system. The system supports any type of effect you can imagine, from applying smoothing filters to simulating CRT displays. • Per-game profiles. Mapping the Atari Jaguar controller to anything other than a telephone with wings can get a little complicated, so you might want to switch your controller mapping up for different games. You can do that! With per-game profiles, you can automatically load up a new input scheme (or any other emulator setting) each time you load a game. • Time travel. Native fast forwarding and rewinding capability means you can speed forward through time or go back in time whenever you please. • Flexible scripting. BigPEmu features a powerful scripting system. The emulator comes with a variety of scripts to enhance popular Jaguar games in amazing ways, from analog controller support to native-resolution and stereoscopic rendering! • The usual. Enjoy all of the emulator niceties you've come to expect in modern times. Automatic preservation of EEPROM, PAL support, custom boot ROM images, native support for multiple display aspect ratios, resolution scaling, custom display cropping, extremely customizable input, and a whole lot more. BigPEmu and Swinecrafters LLC are in no way affiliated with Atari. The name "Atari" and all associated game console names are the property of their respective owners.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: ArcEmu at $1.99 against BigPEmu's $9.99. ArcEmu also leads on update cadence (fortnightly vs every 4 months) and ratings volume (1.3K vs 26). On rating, review sentiment, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
ArcEmu costs $1.99 and BigPEmu $9.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for ArcEmu against 5.0 for BigPEmu. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: ArcEmu has 1.3K ratings behind it against 26, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 95% and 94% positive.
ArcEmu ships an update fortnightly, BigPEmu every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | ArcEmu | BigPEmu |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.99 — better | $9.99 |
| Rating | 4.9 (1.3K ratings) | 5.0 (26 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 94.6% of reviews — better | 94.1% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1.3K — better | 26 |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly — better | Every 4 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.5 | 15 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 172 MB | 16 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | +9 |
| Developer | Raffaele D'Amato | Swinecrafters LLC |
Customer experience
ArcEmu
BigPEmu
Bugs and requests
ArcEmu
Reported bugs
3 issues- Occasional crashes
- Graphical glitches with certain ROMs
- Save data not transferring properly between devices
Requested features
6 requests- Add cheat/GameShark support
- Improve volume controls
- Implement fast forward/slow motion options
- Allow multiple save slots per game
- Improve Game Boy Color support
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- Add joystick/button support for Apple Watch
BigPEmu
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
ArcEmu
No in-app purchases
BigPEmu
No in-app purchases









