One of my favorite ways to spend my free time is watching old movies. I love catching up on classics on my big OLED screen, and delving into the history of a medium I love. Unfortunately, it’s harder to do that with video games. While pulling up an old movie is usually as easy as finding it on streaming or renting it digitally, old video games are split across a number of different consoles, and you can’t always count on rereleases to make them accessible on modern systems.
What is video game emulation?
Emulation is a massive rabbit hole, and can get about as deep as you want it to be. I’ve been using it for decades, and I’m still learning new things. But there are some basics you should know that will help you get started, including how it works, its legal status, the drawbacks of not playing on real hardware, and the benefits it offers beyond simple convenience.
Credit: Michelle EhrhardtGranted, you might expect Nintendo’s not too happy about that, but the kicker is that there’s not a lot the company can do about it (aside from trying its best to scare emulator developers). A court case from way back in the day ruled that, so long as emulators don’t distribute copyrighted software, they’re allowed to write their own code that mimics official hardware all they want. That means you’ll need to provide your own games for your emulators, and in some cases BIOS (or operating system) files. To stay on the right side of the law, most emulator guides won’t tell you how to go about that, but there’s at least one method that’s totally fair game.
Still, even if everything’s above board, there are a few drawbacks to emulating rather than playing on real hardware. The biggest issue you’ll notice is with accuracy, as some games might have graphics or audio bugs. Input lag is also a common complaint, as emulators often need extra time to register your button presses, since they need to both read them and feed them through your software. Finally, some games might not even run on emulators at all, especially ones with unusual requirements. The original Xbox, for instance, is notoriously difficult to emulate.
Still, those are enough improvements that I often prefer playing retro games through emulation, even if I have real hardware available to me. And while some of those enhancements are available on official emulation—Nintendo Switch Online has save states, for instance—not all of them are. I haven’t even gotten into widescreen hacks, which lets you play old 3D games in a more modern aspect ratio without stretching the video, or HD texture packs yet. Benefits like these are why, if you’re willing to put in a little elbow grease, unofficial emulators are well worth trying out.
What you need to start emulating
The fans who develop emulators are crafty, and they’ve had plenty of time to refine their work, so most modern devices are able to emulate retro games to some degree. It’s become a running joke that Doom will play on just about anything, including a pregnancy test. But from a realistic point of view, there are a few things you’ll probably want on hand before you get started.
Credit: Michelle EhrhardtIf you want to play on a TV, though, you could have a bit more of a shopping list in store for you. In addition to a controller, you’ll also need some type of computer to emulate your games with, and while you can drag a laptop or desktop PC into your living room, it’s often not the most convenient solution. Instead, I suggest getting either a docked Steam Deck or a Raspberry Pi.
The latter, meanwhile, is far cheaper (although its price has also been inflated by the RAM crisis) and smaller, but will take a bit of knowhow to set up and can struggle when emulating systems released after the PS1. Your best bet if you choose to go this route is probably to buy a Raspberry Pi kit, as these will come with a case, cables, storage, and often a fan to get you started. You can also sometimes find these cheaper than a Raspberry Pi motherboard on its own.
Which emulators to get, and how to set them up
Now, it’s time to actually install your emulators, of which you have many choices. I've compiled a list of the apps you’ll probably be using to emulate your games, depending on the platforms you're interested in, before going into how to get them:
Duckstation: A standalone app for emulating PS1, with enhanced stability and graphics features compared to Retroarch.
Flycast: A standalone Sega Dreamcast emulator with support for upscaled graphics and widescreen hacks.
Azahar: A standalone Nintendo 3DS emulator with community-driven forks that can run on two separate displays for a more authentic experience. Supports custom graphics drivers on mobile.
Dolphin: A standalone GameCube and Wii emulator with high stability, support for custom mobile graphics drivers and upscaled graphics, and the ability to use motion controls. Usually preferable to emulating PS2 or Xbox, if playing a multi-platform game.
NetherSX2: A standalone PS2 emulator for mobile. Many of the same features as Dolphin, but lower stability, and no motion control or custom driver support.
RPCS3: A standalone PS3 emulator with support for upscaled graphics, custom mobile graphics drivers, and save states. Requires a high-end machine.
Phew, that’s a lot. On the plus side, most of these emulators are available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android, although iOS users have a bit less to pick from, as Apple restrictions on certain programming techniques mean higher-end devices like GameCube and beyond are difficult to run on its phones. On the plus side, iOS does have access to some potentially more convenient options for older systems, like Delta, which comes with cute touchscreen control overlays built-in.
In this case, installers are programs that will help you set up all your emulators in one fell swoop, or will sort your games into collections by system or genre for you, and will boot you into the appropriate emulator when you select a game.
Alternatively, there’s Retrodeck. This is a Linux-only tool, but some users prefer it to Emudeck thanks to more fluid hotkey settings and a less bug-prone (but potentially slower) update process. Nicedeck is another alternative that aims to hit a middle-ground between Emudeck and Retrodeck, and conveniently is the only one of these options that also works for Mac.
But just because your emulators are installed doesn’t mean we’re done yet. Instead of having to bounce from emulator app to emulator app and scroll through what can often be ugly built-in menus, let’s put all your games in one convenient, easy-on-the-eyes place.
Emulator frontends
A frontend is an app that will sort your games by system, or by custom collections you set up, like genre. You’ll choose a game from one of its many lists, and the frontend will tell the appropriate emulator app to boot up the game. Then, when you’re done gaming, your emulator will take you back to your frontend. It’s a much more intuitive and console-like experience, and people have created plenty of themes to make them look just as nice as official console menus. Many frontends even come with “scrapers” built in, so they can fetch and display box art next to your games.
Credit: Michelle EhrhardtES-DE alternatives on desktop are rare, but options like LaunchBox may be preferable for some users. Other frontend apps are more common on Android, as ES-DE took some time to come to Android, and some users prefer a more playful interface while on mobile. Popular free options include Daijisho and Beacon, although I’m particularly interested in Cocoon, which is modeled after the Nintendo 3DS menu and has built-in dual screen support.
How to choose and install emulators and frontends for different systems and devices could be a whole series of articles on its own, but the community is welcoming, and is doing its best to make emulation easy and available to as many people as possible. The above programs should be enough to get you started, but if you have additional questions, experts like Retro Game Corps and subreddits like r/emulation are always there to help you out.
How to make your games look old school (or HD)
Credit: Michelle EhrhardtFor 3D games, the idea is to try to get a more modern experience. Widescreen hacks are a good place to start. These extend the aspect ratio to 16:9, then apply tweaks to the emulation so that the screen renders more of the play environment instead of simply stretching the default 4:3 image. It doesn’t work for every game, and can break the design in others (Resident Evil has very purposeful camera angles), but it’s often worth trying, especially in games where situational awareness is helpful, like platformers.
Improving the look of 2D emulated games
For 2D games, I like to try to make my game look like it’s playing on an old-school TV, and that’s not just for flavor. Pixel art was designed with CRT televisions in mind, which would smooth and blur harsh edges together to make pixels look more hand drawn (here’s a good example). You lose that effect if you just use raw emulation footage on a modern television, but you can mostly get it back with the right filters.
But CRTs provided an additional benefit beyond making pixel art look nice. Because of the way they scan in their images, they’re highly resistant to motion blur. If you have a device with a 120Hz screen, you can mimic this using a technique called black frame insertion. This technique inserts a single black frame into every other frame of your video output, breaking up the image and helping your eyes reset. While this will slow down your gameplay on a standard 60Hz screen, a 120Hz screen will let you use black frame insertion while still getting 60 fps gameplay. This is built into a toggle in Retroarch’s default Settings > Video > Synchronization page, but to be honest, I find this implementation comes with some pretty intense flickering.
With tools like these, it’s clear that the appetite for playing games from older consoles isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, even if it’s harder than pulling up an old movie on Netflix. Whether you’re on PC, Mac, a Steam Deck, or mobile, you’ve got plenty of options already, even as hardware costs rise. From where I'm sitting, the frontier for retro gaming looks bright.
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