• Flexible Storage - Your games / ROMs can be anywhere, across multiple drives / NAS, etc.
• Universal Input - Keyboard, mouse, or any game controller
• Responsive UX - Adapts perfectly to any screen size / orientation
• Smart emulator management - Emulsion uses your installed emulator, or installs it ; Standard and up to date.
• Flexible Metadata Management - Manual curation, and / or batch automation. Downloads from multiple sources, Wikipedia API default ; All manageable from the platform page.

Emulsion is reproducible - one single config file - and arcade ready ; Perfect for driving an arcade cabinet.

• Linux Debian / Ubuntu
• Linux RPM
• Linux AppImage
• Linux Arch
• FreeBSD (testers needed)
• Windows
• Mac OS (testers needed)

All Releases

⚠️ Note: If your Linux distro uses Wayland you 1-are a very brave person and 2-may have to run Emulsion like this: emulsion --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=x11 until it (Wayland) is finally ready for production.

npm install && npm start

1. Get some games - Let's say NES ROMs
2. Open Emulsion → NES
   • Games Directory: Click Browse, navigate to your NES games folder
   • Emulator:
     • Click Install, choose... Let's try nestopia.
     • Click Select
     • Click Enable, click Save
3. Done - That's it, your NES Platform is set up forever.

When you're done, optionally set "disabled platforms: hide" in the global setting menu, so you only see the enabled platforms. Also enable "Recents" and "Favorites" ; I guess we're all set now. You are welcome 🙂

💡 Pro Tip: Your config lives in ~/.config/emulsion/preferences.json - back it up!

Emulsion finds your emulators, helps you install the ones you don’t have, and sets them up with sensible defaults (file extensions and CLI arguments) — all configurable. Emulsion is flexible: You can put all your Vic20 games in the C64 page if you want.

Emulsion keeps up-to-date on platforms emulators and their extensions and arguments.

⚠️ Note: Automatic emulator installation / selection is currently only available on Linux. On BSD, macOS and Windows, emulators must be installed manually. No biggie, the result is the same anyway: setup and forget.

For Windows, we're thinking of implementing something like Scoop or WinGet, when we find the time and motivation. Again, it's not a big deal: Install youe emulator, select it with the "Browse" button, save (optionally tweak the arguments) and you are done.

Press □ or I to select the cover art for the selected platform / game.

By default, Emulsion uses Wikipedia to fetch cover images and game metadata — so even without any setup, you get images, release info, and other useful text details automatically.

Want more options and higher-quality covers? Add free API keys to expand Emulsion’s reach:

• Login at steamgriddb.com
• Get your API key from Preferences
• Paste it into Emulsion Settings

• Register at giantbomb.com/api
• Paste your free key into Emulsion Settings

• Wikipedia – API (default) text metadata (title, release date, description, etc.)

• WikiMedia – API (default) good coverage
• SteamGridDB – API, best coverage & high-quality images
• GiantBomb – API, actually quite poor, thinking of removing it.

All images and metadata are saved alongside your platform games / ROMs, keeping your collection organized.

The console carousel

The games gallery

They work everywhere

• Left Click: Launch game / Select cover art
• Right Click: Open game cover menu
• Scroll Wheel: Navigate

emulsion [options]

Options:
  --kiosk                        Read-only mode (perfect for kids/arcade)
  --full-screen                  Start fullscreen
  --auto-select=PLATFORM         Jump directly to a platform
  --help                         Show this help

Available consoles:
  atari spectrum c64 nes sms pcengine amiga megadrive
  gameboy lynx gamegear snes jaguar saturn psx n64
  dreamcast ps2 gamecube xbox psp ps3 3ds xbox360 ps4
  recents settings

Example:

emulsion --kiosk --full-screen --auto-select=snes

Use Emulsion? Consider supporting development:

Report it on GitLab - We track everything there!

Open an issue and let's discuss it!

Check out our issues - contributions welcome!

Emulsion is open source under the GPL V3 and brought to you for free by yPhil. You are welcome.

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• GitLab (Primary)
• GitHub (Mirror)
• Blog