Support emulation projects

There are several ways to support or contribute to an emulation project (or similar projects such as compatibility layers, game engine recreations, source ports or simulators). Explained here are different ways you can get involved, even if you have low technical skill and/or no money.

Note that almost all these methods require getting involved in some way. Offering to help in a specific area may not be necessary in some cases, so you'll have to check with each project you're interested in to determine what they're looking for and what they find useful.

Testing & bug reporting

One area you may be able to help in is reporting information, especially if you notice bugs in games that you play. This can be done a number of ways, but they all help the developer see where the emulator still has to improve.

Compatibility reporting

A compatibility report communicates the emulation quality. It is aimed at other users, and often consists of a compatibility list.

Some emulators use GitHub for their lists. Most projects have instructions on how they should be written. Make sure you search to see if any issues you're having has already been encountered by another user. Note that sending users to GitHub is dangerous - you should only do it if the project has a simplified compatibility list which doesn't require technical understanding / writing; most projects actually use wikis or custom tools / websites for compatibility reporting. Some use spreadsheets and forms to get their data.

Bug reporting

A bug report concerns one specific problem. It is aimed at emulator developers.

Because bug reports are meant for developers, they are expected to be more technical than a compatibility report. They're also typically expected to include details about specific situations when the problem arises, but also technical details as to why it happens. Developers also read compatibility reports and create respective bug reports themselves.

Sometimes you need a fair bit of experience in order to report bugs to the major projects. If you lack the experience to match what developers themselves report then most smaller projects are fine with it as long as you try to make it coherent and professional. Many projects have the program set up to automatically forward logs to developers at the user's discretion. This can avoid having to explain the problem, though sometimes they'll want context in case they need to reproduce it.

Generally you should chat to other developers / maintainers (via IRC or Discord) before creating a bug report. Often they are aware of issues and have grouped them under a known technical term.

Console verification

Despite being aimed at developers, users should read / follow bug reports they care about.

Many emulators not only need games tested in the emulator, but also on real hardware, because games aren't perfect. If you've been involved with the speedrunning community, you know bugs exist, and can be taken advantage of to get a faster time. Determining what is a bug in the game and what is inaccurate emulation can prevent developers from wasting time on problems they didn't create. All projects encounter this at some point; even the testers behind Dolphin encounter bugs that happen on hardware. Ideally, you should have a capture card for recording footage from hardware.

During the research and documentation phase, some developers will also write small programs to test hardware behavior. In some cases the developers don't have access to the physical hardware or they need to confirm results by having multiple users run the tests. This can also be done in cases where the code doesn't work on all hardware revisions, and the developer needs to test it on all revisions to understand where each model has deficiencies; sometimes they don't have all models, but the more accuracy-focused projects will have this covered in some way. Hackers and those in the homebrew scene may have documented these deficiencies already. You can follow developer chat-rooms, and offer assistance by running tests and collecting data from real hardware.

Providing support for end users

Helping and guiding other users through problems is one of the pillars of open communities. If there's one thing a developer doesn't want to have to do alone, it's troubleshoot problems that end users get themselves into. Providing support for end-users will allow developers to focus on the software they make, creating a filter that allows actual bugs to be reported and saving time in the process. You also need a slight sense of confidence to make decisions for the user. For most people who work in IT (or just Google their problems), this comes naturally.

Support can be provided on a Discord server, IRC server, or a project's forums.

Outreach & promotion

Outreach and promotion is an important factor in the success of an emulator because it gets people talking about it, especially emulators for newer consoles that make strides in their efforts regularly.

This can be done by writing official blog posts, posting news on social media, providing information, making videos for YouTube, explaining and summarizing change logs, etc.

Archival & hardware donations

Optical discs like CD and DVDs have a limited lifespan. They degrade over time and will eventually be unreadable to a disc reader. Preservation projects like No-Intro and Redump are focused on identifying all officially released carts and discs, respectively. Each known cart/disc is stored with information which makes it possible for users to verify the correctness of their cart/disc. Contributing to these databases (by dumping your cart/disc and contributing metadata) helps to build a full-set for testing emulators. It also encourages users to make legal backups of their carts/discs before they break.

Game databases like MobyGames can be used to find additional information for each game. Launchers can use the uploaded descriptions and cover artwork. You can contribute by scanning your game artwork, finding and adding game information (such as release dates). MobyGames also stores barcodes and serial numbers which can be used to find releases in Redump's database. You can look at the existing cover artwork and extract such information.

You can donate games or hardware to developers or other volunteers who are accepting such donations. Donated games can then be analyzed by the recipient and their information can be added to databases such as those listed above. Emulator developers usually require a large number of consoles, games, and peripherals (controllers, memory cards, ..), so donations are typically welcome. Depending on the project structure these will be forwarded to people who are in need of such hardware. Contact project maintainers to find out what they accept.

Help with technical documentation

Emulators depend on technical documentation about the systems they emulate. Typically, there are dedicated communities (often including people from the homebrew scene, and much less commonly the piracy and warez scene) for these research and documentation tasks.

These research communities often uses wikis that need to be maintained. Beginners can help by fixing typos or formatting. For some of these tasks, no coding skills are required. Advanced users and developers can contribute their own research, or participate in technical discussions.

Many of these communities also maintain their own tools which can be helpful for ROM dumping or testing emulation. These tools are often written in beginner-friendly programming languages (such as C# or Python) and can be stepping-stone for moving towards actual emulator development.

Communities

• XboxDev for original Xbox and SEGA Chihiro
• 3DBrew for 3DS

Learn how to code and help out

A pretty obvious one, but it should be stated that most open-source emulation projects don't get nearly enough support in the programming area. Bigger projects often have an abundance of developers to constantly check on the code and make sure it's written well, but those are rare, so most projects are often one man operations or have few (if multiple) developers. Many projects are actively looking for programmers, so if you have knowledge in systems programming and such, you could definitely be of help.

Programming for the emulator itself isn't even necessary, as many projects are in need of websites and continuous integration (CI). If the emulator doesn't use stable builds (or all that exists are instructions for compiling from source), you could implement CI and integrate it with the website so it can host precompiled builds for users. Continuous integration is also useful because it can run the program with test ROMs to ensure that compatibility isn't broken between commits. The major projects will have this covered. Sometimes older project developers don't like to change the website's infrastructure, so you're better off handling projects for which there is no existing website.

Porting, typically adding new operating system support, sometimes as large as a entirely separate class of devices. This can be difficult it greatly increases the possible systems that the emulator can run on. If you're experience with Linux, you can help port a program to it, your distro (Like Debian) or your favorite packing format (like AppImages).

Maintaining or Fixing code, while this can be active development with refactoring of code it can also be re-writing or fixing lines of code, such as minor inaccuracies, off-by-one errors and other small errors not noticed by the developers.

Donate money

Emulator development is a time-intensive task. A lot of projects could use some money, especially ones where they often don't get it when they should. Some projects are simply possible because the developers have money from their existing job to be able to fund their efforts on the emulator. Sometimes it goes a long way in helping archivists on the team hunt for rare items.

Many projects are often a group effort, so from a user's perspective there's no fair way to distribute what comes in. Often developers of emulators can only do their work because research has been done by other people - unfortunately, that work often goes unrewarded. It's therefore important to understand who you donate to, and how that money will be shared and used among the group. Make sure developers are upfront about who gets paid and what they're using your donations for. More informal ones will say they use the donations on a beer or coffee, but it's also often put towards project operations like domain registration for the website and such to keep the website running.

Some problems may arise from this; money can potentially be a deterrent for newcomers on open-source projects. By only supporting the core developer group, it might actively discourage other contributors because the reward system would be unfair. ("Why do I have to work for free when x is getting paid on a monthly basis?") This can quickly lead to one "hero" developer - if they ever disappear, the project essentially dies because nobody else is familiar with the source code. Some projects have countered this by implementing a bounty system, where newcomers can be rewarded for fixing bugs that are outside the scope of what the core developers focus on. Keep in mind that even in the hundreds of dollars, a bounty isn't going to pay the developer's bills, but it's a better incentive than otherwise.

For some projects, there is no practical use for money: money doesn't write code. There's also a lot of free services for open-source projects, so many projects don't have any expenses.

Monetary donations

There are several emulators that support donations, some emulators have Patreons, PayPal addresses and such on their homepages.

Big projects

Note that this list is only intended to provide examples of ways to help out/getting involved, so we only list major examples.

MAME

Has a contributing page and you can submit bug reports to MAME Testers.

It's not possible to donate money directly to MAME, but several other projects that help MAME's development by dumping and decapping ROMs can be supported. See this Reddit post by a MAME developer for more info.

• The Dumping Union - Accepts donations from PayPal.
• Team Europe - Accepts donations from PayPal. See info here on how to donate.
• CAPS0ff - Has a Patreon.

Libretro / RetroArch / Lakka

The libretro Team has

• A contribute page with wish lists for hardware and other info.
• A Patreon.
• A Liberapay page.
• A GutHub Sponsor page.
• Ronald Brown (a Lakka developer) – Has a Paypal.

ScummVM

The ScummVM Team has

• A PayPal.
• A bug tracker.
• A translation portal.
• A Developer Central page with instructions on how to contribute code.

Wine

The Wine Team has a Donate page where you can find information on how to donate with PayPal and other ways to send money. You can also support them by buying merchandise.

Another option is to buy CrossOver which is a commercialized, supported version of Wine from CodeWeavers. They contribute all of their work on CrossOvers back to Wine and make up about two thirds of the commits made to Wine.

Patreon is a service that allows fans to contribute to creators' projects on a recurring basis (where they're known as patrons). A ton of emulator developers are already using it so if you wish to support any project with money, we've listed the accounts below. We also have a page on other ways to support emulation projects.

Winlator

Has a page on Buy Me A Coffee. The development had previously temporarily stalled due to an incident involving shipping infected builds (described in detail in the corresponding article), however it seems to have continued.

CLK

The author doesn't accept donations but maintains a US Amazon wishlist.

ZEsarUX

Has a PayPal page.

Hypseus Singe

Has a page on Ko-fi. Supports Singe 2, the standalone, Daphne-independent Windows/Linux/macOS successor of Singe, Daphne's dynamic library to adapt/create LaserDisc games.

DREAMM

Has a page on Ko-fi.

Emulators

Note: If a single author or developer team maintains several different emulator projects at once, then instead of creating a separate entry for each emulator and listing the same author/team with each entry, just list the author/team in question along with all the emulators under author's/team's maintenance. Additionally, don't confuse commercial emulators/payware with free emulators with an option to donate to the dev(s), the table below is for the latter case. The only case where adding payware is fine is where there's an option for OPTIONAL financial support IN ADDITION TO (not instead of) buying a licensed emulator. And please only add active emulators still being worked on.

Name	System(s)	Sponsorship link(s)	License(s)	Early access	Other rewards
3Beans	Nintendo 3DS	Patreon PayPal	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
86Box	x86 CPUs	Patreon PayPal	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	Name in YouTube videos, and on website. Priority video requests.
AmiArcadia, WinArcadia, Super Bug Advance	Arcadia 2001 (AmiArcadia, WinArcadia), GBA (Super Bug Advance)	PayPal	Proprietary	✗	✗
Amiberry	Amiga	GitHub Sponsor Ko-fi	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✓	Name on website, and in releases notes. Logo on website and Readme. Priority issue responses. Amiberry Certified Partner badge for business.
BGB	Game Boy/Game Boy Color	Bitcoin	Proprietary	✗	✗
BigPEmu	Atari Jaguar	Patreon	Proprietary	✓	Discord, credits/homages in author's all solo work
Cemu	Wii U	Patreon	MPL 2.0 (Copyleft)	✓	Discord, exclusive news, name in emulator
Clean Flash Player	Flash	GitHub Sponsor Liberapay Ko-fi	MIT (Permissive)	✗	✗
ClownMDEmu	Genesis/Mega Drive, Sega/Mega CD	GitHub Sponsor	AGPLv3 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
Cxbx-Reloaded, ares	Microsoft Xbox, Sega Chihiro (Arcade, WIP) (Cxbx-Reloaded), Multi-system (ares)	Patreon Ko-fi GitHub Sponsor PayPal	GPLv2 (Copyleft) ISC (Permissive)	✗	Exclusive news, name in emulator
Deecy	Sega Dreamcast	GitHub Sponsor	BSD-3-Clause (Permissive)	✗	✗
Delta	Multi-system	Patreon	AGPLv3 (Copyleft)	✓	iPad and SEGA Genesis support in Delta, 3rd-party sources in AltStore, QOL improvements and bug fixes, Interaction with developers and community, active support from dedicated channels, providing feedback on upcoming features
DOSBox Pure	x86 CPUs	Ko-fi PayPal Gamepad Phoenix	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
DOSBox Staging	x86 CPUs	GitHub Sponsor Open Collective	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
Emulicious	Game Boy/Color, Master System, Game Gear, MSX	PayPal	Proprietary	✗	✗
Flycast	Sega Dreamcast, NAOMI/2/Multiboard/AtomisWave/System SP (Arcade)	PayPal Buy Me A Coffee	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
FS-UAE	Amiga	PayPal	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
Geargrafx, Gearboy, Gearcoleco, Gearsystem, Gearlynx, Geartowns	PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16), SuperGrafx (Geargrafx), Game Boy (Color) (Gearboy), ColecoVision (Gearcoleco), Sega Mark III, SG-1000, Master System, Game Gear, Othello Multivision (Gearsystem), Atari Lynx (Gearlynx), FM Towns (Geartowns)	GitHub Sponsor	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
Genesis Plus GX	SG-1000, Master System/Game Gear, Genesis/Mega Drive, Sega/Mega CD	PayPal	Non-commercial	✗	✗
Gopher64	Nintendo 64	Patreon GitHub Sponsor	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✗	Exclusive news
Hi65	Commodore 65	PayPal	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
Iris, psxe	PlayStation 2, PlayStation	Buy Me A Coffee	MIT (Permissive)	✗	✗
Manic EMU	Multi-system	Ko-fi	AGPLv3 (Copyleft)	✗	Roadmap, Discord channel to discuss it
melonDS	Nintendo DS	Patreon (Arisotura, formerly Staplebutter) PayPal	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
Mesen	Multi-system	Patreon	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
mGBA	Nintendo GBA, GB, GBC	Patreon	MPL 2.0 (Copyleft)	✗	Special icon, name in emulator
Mikage	Nintendo 3DS	Patreon	Proprietary	✗	Exclusive news, technical support
NooDS	Nintendo DS	Patreon PayPal	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✗	Discord
Nova	Sega Saturn, Sega Titan Video (Arcade)	Patreon	Proprietary	✓	Exclusive news, name in emulator
OpenEmu	Multi-system	Patreon Cash App Bitcoin BitcoinCash	BSD-3-Clause (Permissive)	✓	Name in emulator
Panda3DS	Nintendo 3DS	Patreon Ko-fi	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
PCBox	x86 CPUs	Patreon	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	Discord, technical support
PCSX-Redux	PlayStation	Ko-fi	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
PCSX2	Sony PlayStation 2	GitHub Sponsor Liberapay Ko-fi (F0bes)	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✗	Discord
Planet Virtual Boy emulator	Nintendo Virtual Boy	Patreon	zlib License (Permissive)	✗	✗
Play!	Sony PlayStation 2, Namco System 246/256/Super 256/147 (Arcade)	Patreon GitHub Sponsor PayPal	BSD-2-Clause (Permissive)	✗	Discord
PPSSPP	PSP	Buy PPSSPP Gold	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	Special PPSSPP gold skin
Project64	Nintendo 64	Patreon	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✓	Remove prompts for support
Provenance	Multi-system	Patreon GitHub Sponsor Open Collective Open Collective (Joe Mattiello) Buy Me A Coffee Author's Amazon wishlist	BSD-3-Clause (Permissive)	✗	Discord, Bug fix requests, Feature requests, Cloud saves, Patron shout-out, Cloud ROMs, and ISOs, Phone call, Digital comissions, Dedicated feature development (2 hours of time).
puNES	NES	PayPal GitHub Sponsor Ko-fi	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
Retro Virtual Machine	ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX-1, SG-1000 and Master System	Patreon PayPal Ko-fi	Proprietary	✓	Exclusive news, name in emulator
RPCEmu	RISC OS	Buy Me A Coffee	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
RPCS3	Sony PlayStation 3	Patreon	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	Discord, exclusive news, technical support, development polls, name in emulator
Ruffle	Flash	Open Collective GitHub Sponsor	Dual licensed Permissive (MIT and Apache 2.0)	✗	✗
SameBoy	GB, GBC	GitHub Sponsor	MIT (Permissive)	✗	✗
SquirrelJME	J2ME	Ko-fi Patreon Liberapay PayPal GitHub Sponsor Bitcoin	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
StarPSX	PlayStation	Buy Me A Coffee	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
Stella	Atari 2600	Donations PayPal	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
shadPS4	Sony PlayStation 4	Ko-fi	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
SUPER ZSNES	SNES	Patreon	Proprietary	✗	✗
TeknoParrot	Windows-based Arcade systems	Patreon	Proprietary	✓	Exclusive emulator features, Discord, exclusive news
vAmiga, VirtualC64	Amiga (vAmiga), Commodore 64 (VirtualC64)	GitHub Sponsor	GPLv3 MPL 2.0 MIT GPLv3	✗	✗
VBA-M	Nintendo GBA, GB, GBC	GitHub Sponsor	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
Vita3K	Sony PlayStation Vita	Ko-fi	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	Discord, name in readme, higher priority on reported issues
WinUAE	Amiga	PayPal	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
xemu	Microsoft Xbox	Patreon	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	Name on videos
Xenia	Microsoft Xbox 360	Patreon (xenia_project) Patreon (gibbed) GitHub Sponsor (gibbed) GitHub Sponsor (JoelLinn) GitHub Sponsor (Razzile)	BSD-3-Clause (Permissive)	✗	Discord
Yaba Sanshiro (Yaba)	Sega Saturn	Patreon Liberapay GitHub Sponsor	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	Patron-only posts and messages
Ymir	Sega Saturn	Patreon	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✗	Exclusive news

Miscellaneous

Name	Description	Sponsorship links	Rewards
CAPS0ff	Chip decapping, currently used for improving MAME's emulation.	4805718	Chance to influence what they work on, early blog posts.
EmuVR	Game room simulation in VR.	EmuVR	Exclusive news.
GLideN64	One of the more popular N64 plugins.	Gliden64	Early access, exclusive news.
JayFoxRox	XQEMU, Citra, Sega Lindbergh, pinball emulation, open-source PC game ports.	jayfoxrox	✗
Lioncache	Core developer on Dolphin, Citra and yuzu.	9377665	Monthly cat photos.
Libbers (AKA 'Libby')	Revived private server for Xbox games. Twitter.	LibbyLoops	✗
Lutris	An open-source frontend for Linux.	lutris	Early access, remote support with a desktop sharing program, custom forum badge.
m4xw	Works on improving various emulators, such as Mupen64Plus, Mupen64Plus-Next, RetroArch libnx port, Switch PPSSPP Port. Also makes Nintendo Switch homebrew.	m4xwdev	Discord, feature requests.
Martin Korth	Developer of the No$ emulators.	martin_korth	✗
MooglyGuy/TheMogMiner	Assist with expenses in acquiring obscure computers and electronic hardware for MAME's emulation.	moogly	Patreon posts
Playnite	An open-source frontend for Windows.	playnite	Early access, access to polls prioritizing upcoming features, credits.
Silent (AKA 'CookiePLMonster')	Occasional contributions to Xenia, RPCS3, Cxbx-Reloaded; unofficial patches/enhancements for PC games & some old console games; other mods for Grand Theft Auto games.	CookiePLMonster	Patreon posts, credits, access to private to-do list.
thrimbor	Revived private server (For Xbox games), Xbox original tools, various fixes/mods to open-source projects and games/software. Twitter.	StefanSchmidt	✗
Wine-Staging	Testing area and experimental features for Wine.	winestaging	✗
Zophar's Domain	Emulation/game data archival website.	zophar	Ad-free, your own post, link to your emulation project.
Fightcade	Matchmaking software client for facilitating online sessions of classic arcade and console games bundled with emulators	Fightcade	Exclusive color themes, joining multiple game channels, favourite channels with search and filters, disabling live spectators, option to see your ELO score in ranked game channels after every match, ability to create Private Lobbies, very useful for Streamers, TOs, or communities who organize tournaments, access to Discord, silver or gold role grouping in Discord.
Tuxality	Developing Infuse (Zeebo and BREW emulator) and PowerVR SGL wrapper	Tuxality	✗
System 16 - The Arcade Museum	Information compendium on tons of released arcade boards	PayPal	✗

Romhacking

Name	Description	Sponsorship links	Rewards
Hilltop	Localizations of Japanese-only videogames (Especially PS1 & PS2) titles.	hilltopworks	Patron-only Discord room, patron role, exclusive posts, early access to content, BTS developer info, answers to romhacking questions, patch credits.
ROMhacking.net	Rom hacking website. The biggest (?) database of ROM hacks and translations.	Romhackingnet	Site themes, site development forum, ad-free, sticky article, new site feature or improvement of your choosing.

FPGA

Name	Description	Sponsorship links	Rewards
atrac17	Fixes to arcade FPGA cores for MiSTer and others, MAME contributor.	atrac17	Private posts
José Manuel Barroso Galindo	Maintains the old Update_All_MiSTer script and newer, improved MiSTer Downloader for MiSTer FPGA.	theypsilon	Early access, private posts, Patreon keys, Discord benefits, shout-outs, chance to influence what he works on.
Jose Tejada	Arcade FPGA cores for MiSTer and others, MAME contributor.	topapate	Early access, private posts, name/face in projects, chance to influence what he works on.
MiSTer	Open source FPGA project targeted to replicate retro computers, consoles and similar devices using modern USB input devices and output high quality video to HDMI.	FPGAMiSTer PayPal	✗
RetroRGB.com	A website with corresponding YouTube, Podcast and social media accounts dedicated to highlighting the people and projects in the retro gaming scene (particularly FPGA scene too).	retrorgb, Floatplane, Ko-fi, PayPal, Others	Early access, private posts, Discord.
Robert Peip	Development and enhancements to console FPGA cores for MiSTer and others. Best known for creating PSX core. Also made Atari Lynx, GBA & Wonderswan cores, and added improvements to other cores. Check his Twitter updates, too.	FPGAzumSpass	Early access, private posts.
Sergey Dvodnenko	Console FPGA cores for MiSTer and others. Best known for creating Saturn core. Also did major work on Sega Genesis, Mega CD & TurboGrafx-16/CD. Check his Twitter, too.	srg320	✗

Game engine recreations

Name	Games	Description	Sponsorship links	Rewards
OpenMW	TES 3: Morrowind	List of several individual devs.	Several devs	✗
ReC98	Touhou 1 - 5 (PC-98)	Updated page with many completion status bars needing certain amounts.	GitHub Sponsors (Progress bars)	✗

Video game preservation

Name	Description	Sponsorship links	Rewards
classicrebirth.com (The Apple of Eden)	Plug & play enhancements for classic Resident Evil and Dino Crisis games on modern Windows (i.e. Vista+).	classicrebirth	Private posts, full patches collection, early access, in-game credit.
HG101	Comprehensive web overviews/retrospectives, ebooks/books and podcasts of retro/modern video games.	hg101	Private posts, private messages, Discord, ebooks/books (also autographic option), materials, votes/nominations.
Hit Save!	A non-profit dedicated to video game preservation, their history, and related physical and digital materials.	hitsave, Ghost, Others	Private posts, messages, polls, Discord, early access content, credit, memorabilia.
Home of the Underdogs	A non-profit site dedicated to the preservation and promotion of 5000+ underrated PC games (and a few non-PC games) of all ages, 1000+ documents. Includes game info, reviews, media, download/purchase links. Old versions with game/docs downloads ended in 2009.	hotu	Discord.
Unseen64	An historical archive with articles, screenshots and videos for cancelled, beta & unseen videogames. Full U64 backup on Archive.org.	unseen64	Private posts, polls, credit in posts, ebook.
Axed
The Video Game Preservation Collective (VGPC)	Video game preservation. Contributes to Redump, No-Intro and Internet Archive.	vgpc	Name on website

External links

• Graphtreon - View a project's Patreon earnings, statistics, graphs and rankings.

Bounty

WIP

Happy Wars revival: $1000 (Discord)

Notable projects and people

WIP section, kinda pointless atm.
This section is for relevant/notable emulation projects and people who are part of them.

Tiers of Emulator Compatibility

These categories are not based solely on official compatibility lists; they also account for notable issues found in emulators dedicated wiki, unofficial community reports, and minor bugs that require manual user tweaking. The systems listed below represent the primary target platform(s) for each recommended emulator in this categorization. Many of these emulators support other systems as well, but only these target(s) are considered here for tier assignment.

	BigPEmu	Atari Jaguar/Jaguar CD
	Ares	ColecoVision, SG-1000, NES, SNES, PCE/PCE-CD/PCE2, NeoGeo Pocket (Color), WonderSwan, Sega 32X, Sega CD 32X, LaserActive
	Genesis Plus GX	Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Sega CD
	mGBA	Game Boy Advance
	SameBoy	Game Boy (Color)
	melonDS	Nintendo DS/DSi
	Supermodel	Sega Model 3
	86Box	MS-DOS
	RetroArch	Atari 8-bit, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Commodore 64, Amiga, CD32, CDTV, NEC PC-98, Sharp X68000, PC-FX, Virtual Boy, Atari Lynx, 3DO, NG-CD
	FBNeo	2D Arcade
	DuckStation	PlayStation
	Flycast	Dreamcast, NAOMI
≥90%	Dolphin	GameCube, Wii
	PCSX2	PlayStation 2 *
	Ares	Nintendo 64/64DD
	PPSSPP	PSP
	Ymir	Sega Saturn
	Azahar	Nintendo (new) 3DS
	Cemu	Wii U
≥70%	86Box	Windows 9x
	Eden	Nintendo Switch
	RPCS3	PlayStation 3
	Xemu	Xbox *
	Vita3K	PlayStation Vita
≤40%	RetroArch	CD-i
	touchHLE	iOS 32-bit
	Xenia Edge	Xbox 360
	ShadPS4	PlayStation 4

People in the emulation and related scenes

WIP, I think this section would fit better if distributed across the page, as the article already highlights some of these individuals.

This section highlights key contributors to the emulation community and recognizes the developers who create and maintain these projects. Thank you to everyone who has worked on emulation projects, whether currently active or in the past. If a game doesn’t function as expected or a desired feature is missing, keep in mind that developers may have different priorities or face technical limitations. Consider providing constructive feedback or support. Usually, these projects are driven by volunteers who dedicate their time and skills without compensation. Testers, bug reporters, compatibility list maintainers, and forum moderators also invest significant effort to support these projects and their communities.

Hans-Kristian Arntzen (Themaister)	CEO & Founder of Arntzen Software AS
	Contributor for lots of crucial emulator-related projects
	paraLLEl-RDP
	paraLLEl-GS
Aaron Giles	DREAMM
	ymfm
	Contributions for the MAME
	Hyper-V
	Windows on ARM
George Moralis (Shadow)	Founder of PCSX2 project
	Founder of PCSX project
	JPCSP project
	Contributions for the ShadPS4 project.
Luke Usher	Contributions for the ares project
	Contributions for the CXBX-Reloaded project
	Revived private server project for OG Xbox.
Connor McLaughlin (Stenzek)	Contributor to Dolphin Emulator
	DuckStation
	Contributions for the PCSX2 project
Henrik Rydgård	Contributions for the PPSSPP project.
David Kirk Ginder (Near \ Byuu)	Developed higan
	Contributed to fan translations and SNES preservation efforts.
Gliniak AdrianCassar chrisps/chrispy disjtqz heeltrick Reality (xeniosjp) bomabomabomaboma (goldislead) The-Little-Wolf ryanwisemanmusic Vitaliy Kuzmin (Triang3l)	Contributions for the Xenia Edge project
	Contributions for the XeniOS project
	Contributions for the Xenia Canary project
	Contributions for the Xenia Canary Netplay project.
	Contributions for the Xenia project
	"VK_EXT_fragment_shader_interlock" situation.
Raphael Jean-Leconte (flyinghead)	Contributions for the Flycast project.
Refraction JordanTheToaster lightningterror	Contributions for the PCSX2 project
	"VK_DEPENDENCY_BY_REGION_BIT" situation
Megamouse elad335 kd-11 Malcolm Jestadt (Whatcookie)	Contributions for the RPCS3 project
Matt Borgerson	Contributions for the xemu project
Admiral H. Curtiss	Contributions for the Dolphin project
Miran Grča (OBattler)	Contributions for the 86Box project
scribam	Contributions for the Flycast project
	Contributions for the Vita3K project
Alexandro Sanchez (AlexAltea)	Orbital project
	One of the developers of the RPCS3 project.
	One of the developers of the Nucleus project.
Rich Whitehouse	BigPEmu project.
	Killer Instinct 1+2 emulator project
Sarah Walker	PCem.
Ryphecha	Contributions for the mednafen project.
ciciplusplus hikari-no-yume	Contributions for the touchHLE project
Martin Korth	the creator of the No$ series of emulators
Michael Pavone (Mask of Destiny)	BlastEm.
Mireille (fleroviux)	NanoBoyAdvance project.
GPUCode	Contributions for the Citra project and Citra forks.
	Contributions for the ShadPS4 project.
Steve Kwok	Nova.
Ivan Roberto de Oliveira (StrikerX3)	Ymir.
RogerSanders (Nemesis)	Author of Exodus
	Impoved the dumping techniques for Pioneer LaserActive PAC titles, properly dumped them, implemented support in Ares.
D. S. Baxter (Shonumi)	Video game historian and preservationist
	Author of GBE+, an emulator aiming to emulate all GB/GBC/GBA accessories.
Stefanos Kornilios Mitsis Poiitidis (skmp/drkIIRaziel)	nullDC.

External links

• list of NES emulators and authors

See also

• History of emulation
• List of recommended emulators
• Preservation projects
• Special:Statistics