Searching for the best Atari Lynx Emulator? Then search no more as we have a definitive recommendation for you!
To be honest, there are no frills with this recommendation, Atari Lynx emulators have been around for some time now with the likes of Handy for the PC being well established (almost retro you could say!) and OpenEmu for the Mac, are always safe bets.
But when you just want solid performance and speedy access, our old friend RetroArch hasn’t let us down yet, and this is the case with the Atari Lynx too!
What Is The Best Atari Lynx Emulator For PC, Mac & Linux? – RetroArch
Cutting straight to the chase, RetroArch and the Beetle Lynx core is the way I play Atari Lynx games with emulation.
As is the same story with many systems, I prefer RetroArch because of its familiarity and its wealth of configurations available to tinker with both the emulation as well as the excellent range of display filters available.
If you are keen to try out the Beetle Lynx core, you will need to ensure you have the Lynx BIOS placed in the RetroArch ‘system’ folder (this is found where you have installed RetroArch). Simply search online for the file ‘lynxboot.img’, this is the file you need to get Beetle Lynx booting games, otherwise, without it, you’ll just be left with a blank screen.
Beetle Lynx is actually a port of Mednafen Lynx, which itself was a development fork of the original Handy emulator, so the Beetle Lynx core roots are firmly set with the most established Atari Lynx emulator.
What Is The Best Atari Lynx Emulator For Android? – RetroArch
Once again, it’s the RetroArch Beetle Lynx core that is the best Atari Lynx Emulator for Android. It is just simply the easiest and most modern way to play Atari Lynx games on your Android device.
Installation and set up of Beetle Lynx on RetroArch is the same as the desktop version as detailed above. You need to make sure you obtain the Atari Lynx BIOS file, which is called ‘lynxboot.img’. Search online for this file and copy it to the RetroArch ‘system’ folder, and then your games will boot with no problems.
The Atari Lynx was a behemoth in both size and power for its time. Things looked quite promising for Atari when it was released as it really looked as though it would be able to take on Nintendo’s Game Boy.
Ultimately though, the Lynx just could not take on the might of the Game Boy with it’s long battery life and HUGE library of original games. Even the Sega Game Gear had the edge on the Lynx with it’s much more recognisable game library, courtesy of many Master System conversions and Sega franchises (Check out our best game gear emulators guide to experience more colour handheld retro goodness!).
Atari’s latter consoles tended to pretty much be commercial flops, but as a result, their games libraries tend not to be experienced as much as the big sellers of the day.
Why not give the best Atari Jaguar emulator guide a look to see what Atari’s 64-bit system had to offer, or maybe go back a few years and check out the best Atari 7800 emulator.
If you’d rather check out the competition and not more Atari emulators, then read our comprehensive emulator guide where you’ll find all sorts of recommendations for emulating other classic systems.
A lifelong avid gamer and computing enthusiast, Matt has decades of Retro Gaming experience. Now over 40 years old, Matt now even considers himself retro, but fortunately, nobody has developed a Matt emulator (not yet at least!).