ROM & ISO sites

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If you are looking for BIOS/Firmware files, you can find them on the Emulator Files page.

Downloads

Internet Archive

Add a slash (/) after the URLs to view the contents of compressed archives from the browser, but please keep in mind that this does not work with 7z archives, only Zip and RAR. This helps you avoid downloading upwards of 400 gigabytes just to get only a fraction of the contents. The archive also creates torrents of each entry (that are not the same as any original torrents the user may have uploaded) that you can use to speed up your downloads, but be warned however that these torrents can be problematic if the uploader has added/removed/renamed files in the collection as they tend to not update correctly, if at all, so you may end up with only part of the collection, or an older version of the collection. A better recommendation is to use a download manager listed below to grab all the files rather than use the torrents.

NOTE: If downloads are restricted (greyed out), copy the file name and append it to the end of the URL (ie: https://archive.org/downloads/NameOfPack -> https://archive.org/downloads/NameOfPack/ROMPack.zip)
Set Date Registration
Required
Notes
SmokeMonster's ROM Packs 2020-06-29
MAME and MESS
Redump Original Xbox Must extract with Xbox Image Browser to play on CXBX-R.
Redump 3DO 2019-06-21
Redump Fujitsu - FM-Towns 2020-07-15 Maintained and updated regularly. Also includes the dumps of the floppy disks which came with the games. Please read the "ABOUT" section on the page for more information.
Redump NEC - PC Engine CD & TurboGrafx CD 2020-05-24 Maintained and updated regularly. Currently labeled as "highbandwidth" and "Log In Required" by Archive staff, probably due to more traffic caused by the new MiSTer support on May 17, 2020.
Redump NEC - PC-FX & PC-FXGA 2020-03-24 Maintained and updated regularly.
Redump Sega - Mega CD & Sega CD 2020-06-11 Maintained and updated regularly.
Redump Sega - Saturn 2020-07-19 Maintained and updated regularly.
Redump Sega - Dreamcast 2020-07-12 Maintained and updated regularly.
Redump SNK - Neo Geo CD 2020-06-12 Maintained and updated regularly.
TOSEC (The Old School Emulation Center)
TOSEC - Sega Dreamcast
Vintage Software Many DOS collections and older games.
Neo-Kobe NEC PC-9801 2017-11-17
Neo-Kobe NEC PC-8801 2016-02-25
Redump Wii America (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) 2017-09-07
Complete Gameboy Roms 2019-02-19 US/EU/JP/World/Proto/Demo/Etc. Includes Translated and Hack Titles.
Complete Super Nintendo RomPack 2019-02-11 US/EU/JP/World/Proto/Demo/Etc. Includes Translated and Hack Titles.
No-Intro Collection 2016-01-03 Outdated.
Redump GameCube America 2018-08-25
No-Intro Nintendo DS 2019-06-30 File names are in alphabetical order.
No-Intro Nintendo DS 2020-03-08 Files compressed to 7z format.
No-Intro Nintendo DSi 2018-06-30
Nintendo DSiWare 2019-01-29 Formatted to .nds, can be used on homebrewed DSi's running TWiLight Menu or converted into a .cia for 3DS. Will NOT work on any emulators (in theory could work with No$GBA).
Redump PS2 NTSC-U (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4) 2018-08-01 Game IDs are used for file titles. CD-based games are .bin files, DVD-based games are .iso files.
Redump PS1 America 2017-10-02
John (Mr) Smith Uploads Redump PS1 NTSC-U and PAL sets.
No-Intro Collection 2017-06-27 Outdated.
Complete North American GameCube Collection 2015-09-13 Redump verified full ISO image files. To bypass registration look in comments for magnet link (torrent).
Redump Saturn 2015-09-13 Includes manuals and magazines.
FinalBurn Neo 2020-07-20 Maintained and updated regularly.
No-Intro Collection 2020-07-15 Maintained and updated regularly.

No limit

  • ROM Center Ybin Pastebin Links to most ROM and ISO collections. May 2020.
  • The Eye has complete ROM sets for over 25 different consoles.
  • Ps1Games Contains a complete PSP, PS2 and PSX ISOS.
  • Atarimania Contains a complete Atari 2600 ROM set.
  • Gamulator Small website where you can download all sort of retro console ROM's and ISO's.
  • ROMsForever Complete sets for up to 5th gen systems, plus a fair amount of 6th+ gen.
  • ConsoleRoms Standard selection of ROMs up to 6th gen, plus Wii.
  • ROMsGet & Download ROMs Standard selection of ROMs up to 6th gen, plus Wii.
  • RetroStic Standard selection of ROMs up to 5th gen, plus NDS.
  • RomsDownload Standard selection of ROMs up to 5th gen, plus some 6th and 7th gen.
  • RomsMania A lot of stuff for 5th gen and below, also includes GCN, Wii, NDS, and PSP. NOTE: when downloading, press 'More Options' and choose 'Browser Download', else you'll get an executable file. PS1 ISOs are not redump.
  • Nitroblog PS3, VITA, Wii and PC games for download. if you come here for PlayStation 3 games and wanna play them on RPCS3, be mindful that the game might not play on RPCS3 due to the RPCS3's team strict stance on piracy. so... there's that.
  • CDRomance Ex-Nicoblog contains their PSP ISOs and PSX2PSP eboots collection but also PS2, PS1, Gamecube, NDS, GBA, GB, SNES, losts of romhacks and English patched games. Also contains a collection of PSP DLCs.
  • Replayers The most complete SEGA Dreamcast collection in BOTH CD & GDI formats. But also Sega CD, 32X, Genesis, FDS, ScummVM games, old MS-DOS and Windows 95 games.
  • Planet Emulation Very old, weekly updated and classy French ROM site, full MAME CHDs. Just click on "Telecharger" for download. (All ROMs from Nintendo-based systems have been taken down as of July 2018.)
  • RomUniverse Wide selection of retro titles (Nintendo first-party titles nuked, but third-party titles remain).
  • ROMsie ROMs up to 6th gen.
  • EmuRoms.ch Torrent site for ROMs and ISOs.
  • World of Spectrum For ZX Spectrum games and applications as well magazines, cover art, booklets, and much more. ROMs and tape images on the site were released with permission from their original authors.
  • GameTronik French ROM site.
  • Abandonware France Also, a French ROM site.
  • Vimm's Lair A lot of games as well as scans of the manuals. All dumps are verified by Redump or No-Intro, however GameCube and Wii dumps are scrubbed. *Note that scrubbed discs can be restored to 1:1 copies using Nkit.
  • WiiWare and Virtual Console WADs also hosted on Google Drive, can be used on Dolphin or a modded Wii.
  • Ziperto good for decrypted 3DS games for Citra. Use an adblocker.
  • DownloadGamePS3 Providing PS2/PS3/PS4 games. When using this site, make sure to have a good adblocker to protect you from malicious ads and whatnot. It's a legit site, just wear a digital condom. Sister websites:
  • PS3 Games Download Small amount of PS2/3/4 and 360 games
  • eagleforces hosted in Korea, has no-intro sets for various 8 and 16-bit consoles available as individually downloadable roms. Links are direct with no redirects, confirmation pages, or captchas.
  • Emuparadise Good for No-Intro sets (which require registration). Since Emuparadise removing ROMs download links from view, a TamperMonkey/GreaseMonkey script is currently required for downloading ROMs from it (outside of the forums).
  • CoolROM Wide selection of retro titles (Nintendo first-party titles nuked, but third-party titles remain).
  • FreeROMS Wide selection of retro titles (Nintendo first-party titles nuked, but third-party titles remain).
  • Macintosh Garden Abandonware archive for old Macintosh games. Popular vintage PC abandonware site, "Home of the Underdogs", originally hosted this site. It has small guides to running a few Macintosh emulators.
  • MacGameFiles.com Site dedicated to basic shareware and demo versions of Macintosh games; as well as patches, mods and tools.
  • Pokemonlog Small website where you can get the latest Pokemon ROM's and Pokemon rom hacks.
  • JapaneseCompendium A blog dedicated to old PC games from Japan.
  • MAME Directly from the MAME site. Games that were released with permission for free and non-commercial use.

Download limit

  • Partial PlayStation 2 Redump (2016/03/19) (5046/6863 games)
  • AlvRo's Collection A collection of many consoles, which contains Xbox/Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, and many other retro consoles. Runs on 1fichier, any passwords that are needed are always ByAlvRo.
  • RomToHome ~50kB/s downloads, but has proper scene releases for a variety of consoles including (but not limited to) Wii U, Wii, PlayStation 2, Nintendo 3DS, DS and PlayStation Portable.
  • Retro Zone Many systems and PC. Successor to the now defunct ISO Zone (even recovering the links from it). The filehost it uses for most TiZ-recovered links (firedrop.com), not only maxes out at ~500kb/s download speed and has a 4gb per day limit but it can also rate limit you to 200kb/s "due to heavy daily usage". However, with the addition of no filehosting limits and allowing to add mirrors, mirrors for some Firedrop-uploaded files as well as most new uploaded files can use another option.
  • k73 A Chinese site that relies on baidu as a hosting service. Whenever prompted to install an external application (really persistent malware), always refuse since most if not all links are not premium. Has lots of Chinese fan-translations as well as Japanese games on newer consoles not usually uploaded, and more importantly latest gen dumps.
  • /1cc/ imageboard, good for the latest arcade releases (from recent machines no less) but links don't stay up for too long.
  • ROM Hustler Has Renascene PlayStation Portable dumps. Has a good selection of games from all consoles Gen-6 and earlier. Limited to one download at a time; additional attempts "503" while a download is active. Currently you can't download Nintendo related ROMs from here.

Registration Required

  • Romulation Useful for Wii, GameCube, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2 etc, maybe no-intro rips. (account required - use bugmenot or make one with a temp email account) (Many games (including most Nintendo titles) have been DMCA'd as of January 2017)
  • Pleasuredome Great private tracker for getting full sets of many systems (No-Intro, Goodsets, Trurip, Redump, TOSEC). Does not allow newer systems. Strict ratio site that requires you to maintain a positive upload to download ratio. No longer hosts Nintendo game torrents.
  • TheOldComputer

User Uploaded Direct-Download (Forum post) Sites (Registration Required)

Use some common sense while downloading!

  • Arcade Punks Various sets
  • Emudesc Spanish forums where you can find Nintendo 64, GameCube, Wii, Nintendo DS, 3DS, PlayStation, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable roms (possibly more stuff too).

BitTorrent

Note: Here's a list of public trackers you can use to increase the amount of peers you can reach, and a service that attempts to convert magnet links into torrent files in case your BitTorrent client doesn't support magnets.

Trackers

Outside the trackers

Tools & emulator forks for auto-download

Official Dumps

Nintendo Wii U

Nintendo used to deliver games the same way Sony does with the PlayStation Network; with a big encrypted disk image where all the data is useless without an authentication key. Unfortunately, they've changed this for 3DS and Switch, but not for Wii U (yet).

You need a titlekey database, covering base games, updates, and DLCs. A notable one is titlekeys.ovh. Note you're still restricted to games that are on the eShop and that people bothered to upload their tickets to that titlekey site, so rare or retail-only games are excluded. You can likely still find these types of games from ROM sites above.

On real Wii U hardware, you could also download a package of all tickets ever of all regions and trick the official eShop into thinking you own the game and can redownload it, but on real hardware, it has been reported some out-of-region tickets cause problems. freeShop will just install the tickets you need for the game you chose.

If you're using Cemu with physical dumps, you'll also need the Common Wii U Key, and individual game keys for games you're emulating.

Once you have the titlekey database including your game, you can download the game off the official servers using your tool of choice.

NUS Downloaders (PC)

You can get Wii U dumps this way. First of all get the NUS Downloader, for example Wii U USB Helper. Make sure to use the appropriate URL for the titlekey database.

Then, it's as simple as selecting the game you want to download, clicking "Get It" and then "Download Games". This will download the files for the game you chose (the same as the .tik's title). Choose your own region where possible, so the servers are closer to you.

Once the download is complete:

  • Wii U dumps: You can either install the game to your Wii U by moving it to an SD Card and using WUP Installer GX2, or if you're using the deprecated Loadiine (or Cemu), you can "Convert" it "to Loadiine/CIA". Simply right-click your newly downloaded game, and then click "Prepare for Emulation". The .rpx file will be available in the game's folder, at /code/[yourgame].rpx.

Updates and DLCs can be downloaded the same way. Right click on a game's name to choose which to download. For Wii U games for emulation on Cemu:

To install updates and DLC on Cemu:

  • Run the game at least once.
  • Check Cemu's log.txt file and look for a line that says "Mounting local storage (AOC): .\mlc01\usr\title\NUMBERS\NUMBERS\aoc\"
  • Add (create) folders with the same name as the above (substituting the "NUMBERS" bit with the actual numbers) in your "CEMUFOLDER/mlc01/usr/title" folder.
  • Add any updates (which must be added first) you want to the "CEMUFOLDER/mlc01/usr/title/NUMBERS/NUMBERS/" folder.
  • Create a folder named "aoc" and put the DLC files into there. The "code", "content", and "meta" folders of the actual game itself also go in the "aoc" folder.

Nintendo Amiibo

Amiibo are special figurines that interact with a number of 3DS, Wii U and Switch games. Depending on how hard they are to find, they can either be bought at a local retailer or on eBay for a fortune. NFC tags are dumped to binary files (.bin). Android users can use TagMo to read and write these files, provided they have the appropriate encryption keys.

Sony PSP / Vita / PlayStation 3

Similar situation as Nintendo. As of now, you need RAP license files and the game dump proper to install your game on your CFW'd console, or on real hardware. Some people offer their own license files on some applications and websites so that everyone can get their dumps. Of course, these are limited to popular games people bothered to upload their license files for and only digital games.

The PSNdl website is a good way to get PlayStation 3 games for example, including PlayStation Classic versions of PlayStation and PlayStation 2 dumps that can be extracted and run on regular emulators. Make sure to get the RAP license as well. The pkg file can be decrypted with tools like psnpkgdecryptor-extractor (useful for ripping PlayStation Classics), though emulators like RPCS3 now offer built-in installers for those, and PlayStation 3 CFW supports those as well.

PSNStuffX is another PC downloader tool that comes with a database and covers some games that PSNdl doesn't.

An even newer project is NoPayStation, offering both a database of pkg links and licenses, as well as a Windows downloader and auto-converter: NPS Browser

For PlayStation 3 game updates, go to https://a0.ww.np.dl.playstation.net/tpl/np/{game_id}/{game_id}-ver.xml (replacing both {game_id} with the game's ID) to see links to available update .pkgs for that game.

Verifying Good Dumps

Main article: File_Hashes#Determining_Good_Game_Dumps

Game Recommendations

Game recommendations are highly subjective, but big lists like these usually cover the worthwhile games for each system.

Searching for ISOs

A lot of the above sites have ISOs for disc-based games, but some of the more obscure titles can be hard to find. If you want to find these games, searching for their ID number is generally more effective than searching for their title. Both Mobygames and GameFAQs will list these under the game's release information. This number is region specific and is very useful if you want to find an ISO from a specific region.

Download Managers

Many resources we've listed will link to files called .DLCs that contain a list of urls to download. We've voluntarily listed some programs you can use in the event that you come across one and don't want to deal with the links manually.

  • JDownloader 2 (Adware-free installer) - Written in Java, and quite possibly the most recognized tool for the job.
  • pyLoad - Written in Python under AGPL3, PyLoad is a good alternative.
  • Internet Archive Python Library - Archive.org specific command-line download tool.

See Also

  • Ripping Games - If you don't feel comfortable downloading ROMs you can try dumping the game yourself.