whats the difference between
Arcade Hyper Fighting
Genesis Special Championship Edition
SNES SF2 Turbo?
Both home ports are missing animation frames in certain places(SNES is missing less than the WW port, but some are still not there. Doesn’t affect timing tho), music isn’t the same quality, but offhand I can’t remember much else.
are the sprite sizes correct?
Not even close. 
Both Genny and SNES versions are really far from arcade perfect. Much smaller sprites, messed up music and sound (Genny had better music, SNES had better clarity and effect samples), lots of frames missing (entire moves are different for some characters), changed hit boxes, much lower detail, different bonus stages, (no flaming barrel stage) changed timing, etc. Nothing come close to being perfect on the 16 bit ports. The PC Engine SF2 CE was a little better but still no where near close to perfect.
The PS1/Saturn versions are closer to perfect, but still not exact. They’re missing some color and have load times, some changes in move timing too.
The PS2 and Xbox versions in Capcom Classic Collection vol.1 are just the PS1 version ported.
XBox Live Arcade Hyper Fighting is also a port of the PS1 version, with the load time improved but not eliminated. Color is also improved. Technically it’s the closest home port of HF but there still isn’t a perfect home port, if you want to be pedantic.
so whats the concensus on which is the best way to play on a console?
the version in CCC2 is “arcade perfect” and/or the version in SFAC (i don’t know why this version is not liked at SRK). It’s my personal favorite SFII version.
If you can’t get a hold of those, then MAME/arcade board is your only option.
CE Bison
He’s talking about HF, NOT ST. There’s no universal answer, because not everyone plays HF anymore. Technically you COULD play HF-only in HSF2, but IIRC that’s not 100% accurate either.
I have the Mame roms. I have Mame on my PC and my Xbox. But I live in Washington and Pink Godzilla (a import and retro game store) wants to have SF2 tournaments. Well since the owner is a lawyer, and a bunch of other technicalities Emulation is frowned upon in the store.
So home versions is my option. I’ve heard people bitch nag and moan about every home version of every sf2 except HF for some reason. Do all the trade off’s between all the versions act as some sort of check and balance system? Is there no accepted answer to this question because of that?
What exactly is wrong with the XBox360 version of HF? I mean, sure you have loading screens and the net code is crap. But I mean, gameplay-wise, are there any differences between the XB version and the arcade? It feels about right to me.