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
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.
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.
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.
The ScummVM Team has
- A PayPal.
- A bug tracker.
- A translation portal.
- A Developer Central page with instructions on how to contribute code.
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.
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.
The author doesn't accept donations but maintains a US Amazon wishlist.
Has a PayPal page.
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.
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. And please only add active emulators still being worked on.
Misc
| 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. |
| 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 | ✗ |
| 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.org, No-Intro and Internet Archive. | vgpc | Name on website | ||||
- External links
- Graphtreon - View a project's Patreon earnings, statistics, graphs and rankings.
Notable projects and people
This section is for relevant/notable emulation projects and people who are part of them.
- Platforms that need attention
- Main article: Category:Partially emulated
- There are several systems that require more attention from the emulation community. While multiple emulators may exist, none of them appear particularly promising. These systems for which a PC cannot yet fully replicate the experience, because emulators are incomplete, or lack support for key hardware features, peripherals, or specialized components. As a result, certain software or functions remain usable only on original hardware.
- Gizmondo
- Apple iPod
- Apple iOS
- PlayStation Mobile
- GP2X, GP2X Wiz
- Pokitto
- Thumby
- Xbox 360's Avatars, HD DVD player, XBLIG and Kinect
- PSP's XrossMediaBar (XMB) and UMD Video, UMD Music, UMD-PG
- CD-i DVC — No existing emulator fully supports CD-i games with full-motion video due to the absence of DVC emulation. Implementing DVC emulation would significantly enhance CD-i emulation compatibility, and also enabling proper/full support for CD-i Digital Video and Video CD 1.1 on PCs as well. Good news is, there are promising progress for DVC emulation on both CDi_MiSTer core and CD-i Emu.
- Game Boy (Color) hardware feature implementations
- Game Boy Advance hardware feature implementations
- DS hardware feature implementations and enhancement features
- Enhancement features for Original Xbox
- ACPI PC hardware support implementations and enhancement features
- Enhancement features for J2ME
- Apple Pippin
- Symbian
- Xbox One (X/S)
- Windows XP
- Mac OS X PPC
- Zeebo and BREW
- Nuance
- Official emulators
- Tiers of Emulator Compatibility
| Compatibility | Emulator | Target Systems |
|---|---|---|
| BigPEmu | Atari Jaguar/Jaguar CD | |
| Ares | ColecoVision, SG-1000, NES, SNES, PCE/PCE2, NeoGeo Pocket (Color), WonderSwan, Sega 32X, Sega CD 32X | |
| Genesis Plus GX | Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Sega CD | |
| mGBA | Game Boy Advance | |
| SameBoy | Game Boy (Color) | |
| melonDS | Nintendo DS/DSi | |
| Stella | Atari 2600 | |
| Altirra | Atari 8-bit, Atari 5200 | |
| ≥95% | VICE | Commodore 64 |
| FS-UAE | Commodore Amiga line | |
| DOSBox-X | MS-DOS | |
| FBNeo | 2D Arcade | |
| DuckStation | PlayStation | |
| Flycast | Dreamcast | |
| Dolphin | GameCube, Wii | |
| PCSX2 | PlayStation 2 * | |
| 86Box | Windows 95 | |
| Ares | Nintendo 64/64DD | |
| PPSSPP | PSP | |
| ≥80% | Ymir | Sega Saturn |
| Cemu | Wii U | |
| Azahar | Nintendo (new) 3DS | |
| ≥60% | Eden | Nintendo Switch |
| RPCS3 | PlayStation 3 | |
| Xemu | Xbox * | |
| ≤40% | 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 The-Little-Wolf ryanwisemanmusic Vitaliy Kuzmin (Triang3l) |
Contributions for the Xenia Edge project |
| Contributions for the Xenia Canary project | |
| Contributions for the Xenia Canary Netplay project. | |
| Contributions for the Xenia project | |
| Vitaliy Kuzmin (Triang3l) | 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