EmulationStation icon
EmulationStation icon

EmulationStation

 28 likes

A graphical and themeable emulator front-end that allows you to access all your favorite games in one place, even without a keyboard!.

EmulationStation screenshot 1

License model

  • FreeOpen Source

Application type

Platforms

  • Windows
  • Linux
  • Raspberry Pi
Discontinued

The project seems to be no longer developed. Last version, 2.0.1a, released in March 2015, can be still downloaded from the official website.

4 / 5 Avg rating (2)
28likes
2comments
0news articles

Features

Suggest and vote on features

Properties

  1.  Support for Themes

Features

  1.  Dark Mode
  2.  Custom themes
  3.  Multi System Emulator

 Tags

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EmulationStation information

  • Developed by

    Alec Lofquist
  • Licensing

    Open Source (MIT) and Free product.
  • Written in

  • Rating

    Average rating of 4
  • Alternatives

    29 alternatives listed
  • Supported Languages

    • English

AlternativeTo Category

Gaming Software

GitHub repository

  •  2,127 Stars
  •  905 Forks
  •  533 Open Issues
  •   Updated Jul 15, 2024 
View on GitHub

Our users have written 2 comments and reviews about EmulationStation, and it has gotten 28 likes

EmulationStation was added to AlternativeTo by swetoast on Mar 10, 2015 and this page was last updated Nov 4, 2020. EmulationStation is sometimes referred to as Emulation Station.

Comments and Reviews

   
 Post comment/review
Top Positive Comment
Anamon
Apr 4, 2017
2

I've been around the emulation world for a good two decades, and probably tried just about every emulator frontend at one point. A few years ago, one type became particularly popular: fullscreen multi-emulator frontends, heavy on graphics and animations, themed to reflect different emulated systems depending on which game list is being browsed, often even playing video previews and music taken from the currently selected games. The push to popularity was thanks to the spread of HTPCs (home theater PCs), and other low-cost computers such as the Raspberry Pi, which users connected to their TV sets for various entertainment uses.

GameEx and Hyperspin are the most widely known. However, in my personal opinion but by a large margin, I've never seen any of the alternatives reach the level of quality design and aesthetics that EmulationStation comes with right out of the box. Other frontends often go way too far into sensory overload, screens are too busy and irritating, and they could do with some serious improvement in the typography department. If you want to impress with, and be impressed by, a visually appealing multi-emulator system, EmulationStation is the way to go.

It's true that configuration is a bit of tedious manual work. The configuration interfaces of other frontends are completely missing at this point. Systems, emulators and game paths first need to be set up by editing a few configuration text files. It's largely painless, though. Modifying a handful of lines per system is usually enough, and the documentation is good. Complete computer newbies will have some trouble, but everyone who knows their way around a text editor and maybe has even edited an INI file before, should be fine.

Everything else is very simple in comparison. Setting up a controller happens right in the interface, most everything from there on out is done through pretty and simple menus. Scrapers allow you to download game metadata, descriptions and cover artwork from online databases.

Availability of add-on themes is lower than for other frontends due to fewer people using it at this point, and there are some small but bothersome bugs. Unfortunately, it seems that work on the software has stopped. The last version was released over two years ago, and no pull requests have been handled since. Thankfully, it's open-source, so work continues on various forks. The ones I found seem to focus on either the Pi or Linux platforms. However, if you look for a bit, you can find that people are successfully running, and sometimes offering Windows builds of, one of the most active Pi-focussed forks around, RetroPie. Here is one such.

redlolzgaming
Apr 26, 2016
1

Now don't get me wrong, EmulationStation is great! But, it is hard for first timers to setup, the first time i installed this on my pc it was too complicated to setup. So this is for the people who want to give it a shot!

  1. download and install ES
  2. put youre roms in C:\roms sorted with the names below (make this folder if it is not there)
  3. download Retroarch and put it in the sytems folder of .emulation (located in C:\Users<your username.emulationstation)
  4. open es_systems.cfg in a text editor and paste code 1 in there, change <username with your windows username
  5. get into EmulationStation and test it!

code 1

<systemList
	<system
		<namenes</name
		<fullnameNintendo Entertainment System</fullname
		<pathC:\roms\nes</path
		<extension.nes .NES</extension
		<commandC:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\retroarch.exe -f -L "C:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\cores\fceumm_libretro.dll" "%ROM_RAW%"</command
		<platformnes</platform
		<themenes</theme	
	</system

	<system
		<namesnes</name
		<fullnameSuper Nintendo Entertainment System</fullname
		<pathC:\roms\snes</path
		<extension.smc .sfc .SMC .SFC</extension
		<commandC:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\retroarch.exe -f -L "C:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\cores\snes9x_libretro.dll" "%ROM_RAW%"</command
		<platformsnes</platform
		<themesnes</theme	
	</system

	<system
		<namen64</name
		<fullnameNintendo 64</fullname
		<pathC:\roms\n64</path
		<extension.v64 .n64 .N64 .z64 .Z64</extension
		<commandC:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\retroarch.exe -f -L "C:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\cores\mupen64plus_libretro.dll" "%ROM_RAW%"</command
		<platformn64</platform
		<themen64</theme	
	</system

	<system
		<namegenesis</name
		<fullnameSega Genesis</fullname
		<pathC:\roms\sega32x</path
		<extension.bin</extension
		<commandC:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\retroarch.exe -f -L "C:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\cores\genesis_plus_gx_libretro.dll" "%ROM_RAW%"</command
		<platformgenesis</platform
		<themegenesis</theme	
	</system

	<system
		<namegbc</name
		<fullnameGame Boy Color</fullname
		<pathC:\roms\gbc</path
		<extension.gbc .zip</extension
		<commandC:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\retroarch.exe -f -L "C:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\cores\gambatte_libretro.dll" "%ROM_RAW%"</command
		<platformgbc</platform
		<themegbc</theme	
	</system

	<system
		<namegba</name
		<fullnameGame Boy Advance</fullname
		<pathC:\roms\gba</path
		<extension.gba</extension
		<commandC:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\retroarch.exe -f -L "C:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\cores\vbam_libretro.dll" "%ROM_RAW%"</command
		<platformgba</platform
		<themegba</theme	
	</system


	<system
		<namegc</name
		<fullnameNintendo GameCube</fullname
		<pathC:\roms\gc</path
		<extension.iso .ISO .gcm</extension
		<commandC:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\dolphin\dolphin.exe --batch --exec="%ROM_RAW%"</command
		<platformgc</platform
		<themegc</theme	
	</system

	<system
		<namemame</name
		<fullnameMAME</fullname
		<pathC:\roms\mame</path
		<extension.zip .ZIP</extension
		<commandC:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\retroarch.exe -f -L "C:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\cores\mame_libretro.dll" "%ROM_RAW%"</command
		<platformmame</platform
		<thememame</theme	
	</system


	<system
		<namewii</name
		<fullnameNintendo Wii</fullname
		<pathC:\roms\wii</path
		<extension.iso .ISO</extension
		<commandC:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\dolphin\dolphin.exe -e "%ROM_RAW%"</command
		<platformwii</platform
		<themewii</theme	
	</system

	<system
		<namepsx</name
		<fullnamePlaystation</fullname
		<pathC:\roms\psx</path
		<extension.cue .CUE</extension
		<commandC:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\retroarch.exe -f -L "C:\Users\<username\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\cores\mednafen_psx_libretro.dll" "%ROM_RAW%"</command
		<platformpsx</platform
		<themepsx</theme	
	</system


</systemList

all the names are below NOTE: These are case sensitive.

3do amiga amstradcpc apple2 arcade atari800 atari2600 atari5200 atari7800 atarilynx atarist atarijaguar atarijaguarcd atarixe colecovision c64 - commodore 64 intellivision macintosh xbox xbox360 msx neogeo ngp - neo geo pocket ngpc - neo geo pocket color n3ds - nintendo 3DS n64 - nintendo 64 nds - nintendo DS nes - nintendo entertainment system gb - game boy gba - game boy advance gbc - game boy color gc - gamecube wii wiiu pc sega32x segacd dreamcast gamegear genesis - sega genesis mastersystem - sega master system megadrive - sega megadrive saturn - sega saturn psx ps2 ps3 ps4 psvita psp - playstation portable snes - super nintendo entertainment system pcengine - turbografx-16/pcengine wonderswan wonderswancolor zxspectrum ignore - do not allow scraping for this system; will remove this system from the scraping list and remove the "scrape" button in the metadata editor.

What is EmulationStation?

EmulationStation is a graphical and themeable emulator front-end that allows you to access all your favorite games in one place, even without a keyboard!

Works with any controller

EmulationStation provides an interface that is usable with any 4-button controller, set up from within the program itself.

Give each system the look it deserves with the custom theming system

EmulationStation includes a custom theming system that gives you control over how each screen looks on a per-system basis, from the system select screen to the game list.

Don't like our style? Try another set, or make your own!

Easily download game box art with the built-in metadata scraper

Download the full name, description, box art, rating, release date, developer, publisher, genre, and number of players for every game in your library with the press of a button.

Official Links