Emulation & ROMs
Console emulators, ROM libraries, and setup guides for every platform.
EMULATION & ROMS
Every console emulator, ROM library, and setup guide the community trusts — from arcade cabinets to the latest handhelds.
Emulation itself is legal in most jurisdictions — it's the ROM files that carry legal risk unless you own the original media. The safest path is dumping your own cartridges/discs, but the community resources below reflect how most people actually approach this.
Several emulators listed below (marked with a gear icon in the source material) require BIOS or firmware dumps to function correctly or at all — without them you'll get broken graphics, missing audio, or games that refuse to boot. These files are copyrighted, so sourcing them carries the same legal considerations as ROMs themselves.
Emulation General Wiki
The single best reference for emulator recommendations, BIOS sourcing guidance, and per-console setup notes — bookmark this before anything else.
One emulator, many consoles. These are the best starting point if you don't want to juggle a separate program for every platform.
The community consistently flags certain built-in cores as inferior to their standalone counterparts: avoid the PPSSPP, Dolphin, and Citra cores for PSP, GameCube/Wii, and 3DS respectively, and avoid the Neo Geo, PlayStation 1, and Game Boy Advance cores too. Use the standalone emulators listed below for those systems instead.
If you're setting up emulation on a Steam Deck or a Linux gaming distro, EmuDeck automates nearly the entire process — installing RetroArch, standalone emulators, and organizing your ROM library into a single unified launcher.
Standalone emulators consistently outperform their RetroArch-core equivalents for these systems. Gear icons in the source material mark emulators that need BIOS or key files.
Snes9x
The long-standing standard for Super Nintendo emulation, accurate and lightweight enough to run on almost anything.
Project64
The most widely used Nintendo 64 emulator, with broad plugin support for graphics and input.
Getting Dolphin running smoothly, especially for demanding titles like Breath of the Wild via the Wii U layer, benefits heavily from a dedicated tuning pass — see the Dolphin Performance Guide for graphics backend and settings recommendations.
DuckStation
A modern, actively maintained PS1 emulator with far better compatibility and upscaling than older alternatives.
RPCS3
A genuinely impressive PS3 emulator given the console's complexity, with strong and growing game compatibility.
Switch, Vita, and 3DS emulation all require dumping encryption keys and firmware from a console you own — there's no legitimate way around this step, and guides that skip it are usually pointing to piracy of the keys themselves.
Ryujinx
One of the two leading Switch emulators, known for strong compatibility and active development.
Cemu
The definitive Wii U emulator, particularly popular for running Breath of the Wild at enhanced settings.
If a downloaded ROM file has a .exe extension instead of the expected format for that console (.nes, .iso, .z64, etc.), it is almost certainly malware. Legitimate ROM dumps never need to be "installed" — they're loaded directly into an emulator.
Myrient
Widely considered one of the cleanest and most reliable ROM archives currently active, with a straightforward directory structure and no popup-laden download flow.
No-Intro
Not a download source itself, but the preservation project whose checksums verify that a ROM dump is clean and unmodified — cross-reference downloads against this when in doubt.
For fan-made modifications rather than original dumps, SMWCentral hosts an enormous library of Super Mario World hacks, while Pokemerald is the reference project for Pokémon ROM hacking built on a full decompilation.
No install, no setup — just click and play. Great for quickly testing a game before committing to a full emulator setup, though performance and accuracy trail dedicated emulators.
Getting your own console to run custom firmware, homebrew apps, or emulators natively — distinct from PC emulation, but closely related in spirit.
cfw.guide
A conglomerate of community-written custom firmware guides covering nearly every console and handheld, the best single starting point for modding your own hardware.
ConsoleMods
A community-driven modding wiki, strong on older consoles though it lags behind on the newest hardware.
Entering RCM mode on a Switch to install custom firmware traditionally required soldering a jig by hand. It's strongly recommended to buy a proper RCM Jig instead of attempting solderless workarounds, which carry a real risk of damaging your console.
Once you've built up a ROM library, these tools help organize it and confirm nothing in it has been tampered with.
Every safety practice from the Game Acquisition page applies here too — uBlock Origin, a real VPN if torrenting ROM packs, and scanning anything before you run it. Emulators themselves are safe software; it's the ROM sourcing around them that needs care.