Computer specifications

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Most emulators tend to be CPU-dependent in general, meaning that their performance is greatly determined by the CPU's speed. The GPU on the other hand, usually serves as a graphics enhancer by allowing for higher resolutions, anti-aliasing, etc. If your CPU isn't fast enough, you will not likely to be able to emulate a system at full speed. This page will explain and state other possible choices to take, provided that the above choices are not feasible.

Recommended Reading
Check out the Displays, Controllers, and Input lag pages for additional context. Websites like PCPartPicker can help with hardware selection.
Demanding Emulation
If you're aiming for demanding emulation (e.g., 3D arcade boards, Pentium II emulation, PS2, Xbox, GameCube, or newer systems), avoid mobile devices or low-power Single Board Computers (SBCs) like the Raspberry Pi, as their CPU performance is generally insufficient for these tasks. Even recent Android-based handhelds such as Retroid Pocket 5, or handheld gaming computers such as the Steam Deck, may struggle to meet the requirements for these tasks. If you're purchasing a handheld gaming computer, look for one with a CPU, such as a Ryzen U family chip, that at least offers some level of AVX-512 support. Keep in mind that; for demanding emulation, dynarec and Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation support is vital for good performance (See Emulation accuracy for more information). Unlike on iOS/iPadOS where 'jailbreaking' might be needed to enable JIT, emulators on Mac systems typically utilize JIT without such modifications, but graphics performance in emulation on Macs is significantly influenced by Apple's native Metal API. Software relying on Vulkan or OpenGL may use wrappers like MoltenVK to run on Metal, or may use older, deprecated versions of OpenGL, which can impact efficiency compared to native Metal implementations.
Architecture Recommendation
Recommended to stick to x86 or ARM CPUs. Non-x86/ARM architectures (e.g., PowerPC, SPARC, MIPS, IA-64, Alpha, PA-RISC, 68000) lack support and often require inefficient x86 emulation. Native emulators for these are rare or outdated. But keep in mind, software emulator library and development on ARM-based systems, whether mobile or desktop, not as much getting attention compared to x86 due to its toxic community according to various developers.
Key Components
As mentioned earlier in this page, CPU is the most critical component when building or upgrading a PC for running emulators, especially for accurately recreating performance-demanding systems. While a good graphics card (GPU) is important for rendering visuals and using various graphical and post-processing enhancements provided by emulators, the raw computational work of mimicking another system's hardware primarily falls on the CPU. Some emulators offers all of the graphics processing can be done on the CPU (Software Rendering), but that is performance costly.
Desktop vs. Laptop
Desktop CPUs outperform laptop variants due to higher clock speeds and better cooling. Laptops face thermal and power limits, and performance varies by cooling design (thicker laptops often perform better). Some laptops use desktop CPUs, but they’re heavy, noisy, and costly, making desktops preferable for demanding emulation unless portability is key. Although, this situation is not as bad as older days.
Overclocking
This can boost performance but requires compatible CPUs and motherboards. Risks include overheating and instability, especially on laptops, where cooling is limited. For desktops, older boards may use front-side bus overclocking (risky without PCI/AGP locks) or safer ‘CPU BSEL Select’ settings. In the older days; laptops rarely supported overclocking natively; third-party tools (e.g., ThrottleStop, SetFSB) was an option but unsafe without excellent cooling (keep below 100°C/212°F). Check power supply and voltage regulator limits too.

X86 (recommended)

CPU
  • Prioritize Single-Core Performance: This is the top factor for emulator performance. Focus on CPUs with high Instructions Per Clock (IPC), typically found in newer generations and architectures. Beware the Megahertz Myth: higher clock speeds don’t always mean better performance. There are other factors due to architectural differences that affects performance; e.g., fewer pipeline stages, wider execution units. Similarly, Some CPUs that have high clocks but weaker single-threaded performance and shared FPUs (e.g., FX-4350 has 2 FPUs for 4 cores), making them poor choices for emulation. See TechPowerUp emulation chart and CPU Tier List for RPCS3 for benchmarks with emulators. If you don't have the time to research, it is recommended to get one of the most single thread price/performance value chip on the market with considering the factors mentioned below.
  • AVX2 and x86-64-v3 Support: Consider this a baseline requirement for a modern emulation build. Many emulators use AVX2 instructions to significantly speed things up nowadays. Ensure any CPU you consider supports it.
  • AVX-512 and x86-64-v4 exists and can offer benefits in specific emulators due to more registers or specific instructions, but support is less widespread, hardware implementations vary, and it's less critical than strong AVX2 support for most users currently. Early implementations sometimes required multiple clock cycles for certain operations or could cause the CPU to downclock significantly under heavy load due to power/heat constraints, potentially negating performance gains in some scenarios. Newer implementations are better. See uops.info, and PlayStation 3 emulators#Emulation issues section for more information.
  • Core Count: Multithreading often irrelevant prior to PlayStation 3 emulation. While CPUs with very high IPC performance are usually recommended for emulation, most CPUs nowadays feature more than 4 cores with even higher clock speeds. This in comparison to the previously released 6-core or 8-core HEDT CPUs with far lower clock speeds, is a fine improvement. Therefore, purchasing a 6-core or an 8-core CPU with said higher clock speeds would hold no disadvantages over a lower core-count CPU, as it no longer forces a clock speed reduction over a similarly clocked 2-core or 4-core CPU.
  • Minimum: Aim for at least 4 cores / 8 threads.
  • Recommended: 8 cores / 16 threads is a good sweet spot for handling demanding emulators alongside compiling modules, shader compilation and background tasks.
RAM

If you don't want to waste your time, just prioritize getting two sticks of RAM for dual-channel performance and aim for a total capacity suitable for your needs within your budget. If you have time however, when choosing speed and latency, target the recommended 'sweet spot' for your platform. Be aware that the quality of the underlying memory chips used on the modules affects how reliably and stably they perform at those rated speeds and latency (recommended to see buildzoid's youtube channel for this). Opting for kits considering these, including motherboard's Memory QVL and better-quality or better-binned memory chips, generally provides better experience compared to the absolute cheapest or expensive options.

GPU

Choosing the right GPU for emulation is more important now than it used to be. This increased importance is due to recent advancements like compute shader renderer implementations, which may leverage specific GPU hardware features and APIs for optimized rendering, as well as the graphical and post-processing enhancements offered by modern emulators. For example, see "VK_DEPENDENCY_BY_REGION_BIT" and "VK_EXT_fragment_shader_interlock" situations.

ARM

CPU
  • Minimum: Aim for at least ARMv8.2-A (or derivatives such as 'Kryo 300' series and onwards) at this point.
  • Recommended: ARMv9.2-A or later (or derivatives such as 'Oryon' series and onwards)
GPU

Choose Snapdragon Adreno platforms for GPU as much as possible due to better driver support and possibly capabilities regarding to API and libraries. placeholder text

Before diving in
Why? In the '90s and '00s, there are various popular tools and webpages for users to check system compatibility for games and software. Similarly, this page aims to guide emulation users by highlighting the system requirements for modern, actively maintained emulators. These emulators implements and rely on up-to-date frontends, standards, compiler features, functions, library and API related stuff from time to time (such as "XAudio2 situation[7][8][9]", "using D3D12", "qt6", SDL3", "Zstandard"/"lz4"/"zlib", "memcpy", "timers", "VirtualAlloc2", "mapviewoffile3", time zone APIs) which usually depends on actively maintained and supported operating system versions and hardware via drivers (considering using binaries provided by official sources, not building software by yourself without some serious patching).[10] There are even some interesting discussions happening recently about dropping SSE4 support from some of the emulators.[11]
Windows: 10 (64-bit) based on servicing supported build or later
Linux: Distributions based on 64-bit active kernel releases/EOL
macOS: still maintained version
Android: still maintained version
iOS: still maintained version
  • If you're gonna edit this section, please provide only the official system requirements page URL and nothing else, but for emulators that lacking detailed official information, we offer unofficial guidelines and data to help you decide.
86Box and PCem

See this forum thread.

Yuzu and forks

See official requirements page for yuzu. Also see TOTK Optimizer recommended specs.

Ryujinx

See official requirements page for Ryujinx.

Xenia
Official requirements page, see Xenia Linux and Steam Deck guide.
Minimum
  • CPU: x86-64 processor with AVX2[12] support and 4-cores, 4-threads - (Intel Core i5-4460 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200)
  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti or AMD RX 570
Some release titles and 2D games which underutilized the Xbox 360 hardware may run acceptable on less powerful hardware such as;
Still driver supported NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750Ti or AMD RX 460
AVX supported Intel Core i5-2300 or overclocked AMD FX-4350
  • RAM: 4 GB
Recommended and using enhancements
Some of the titles needs the top-notch latest lineup of graphics cards to play on higher than 2x internal resolution.
  • RAM: 8 GB or more
xemu
Official requirements page for xemu
Windows OS performance considerations for xemu

As mentioned in Xbox emulators#Comparisons section, some titles require powerful hardware for full-speed emulation, particularly single-threaded performance, is often the bottleneck.[15] Additionally, using demanding graphical enhancements may also require a strong GPU.

Minimum
  • CPU: x86-64 processor with AVX2 support and 4-cores, 4-threads - (Intel Core i5-4460 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200)
Some release titles and 2D games which underutilized the Xbox hardware may run acceptable on less powerful SSE4.2 hardware[16] such as: Intel Core i5-750 or AMD FX-4350 CPUs.
  • GPU: OpenGL 4.0-compatible hardware
  • RAM: 4 GB
Recommended and using enhancements
Some of the titles needs the latest lineup of graphics cards to play on 4K internal resolution.
  • RAM: 8 GB or more
Cxbx-Reloaded

See official requirements page for CXBX-Reloaded

ShadPS4

See this page for official system requirements.

RPCS3
PCSX2
Mednafen

Depends on which core used for emulation.

PPSSPP

See official requirements page for PPSSPP. Also see this issue page.

Minimum
  • CPU: Any CPU based on ARMv7-A or a 2-thread CPU with at least SSE2 support will be sufficient for bare minimum.
  • GPU: Any GPU that handle OpenGL 3.0 will be enough for bare minimum.[17]
  • RAM: Recommended amount by the operating system.
Recommended
iOS notes

Note that the JIT does not currently function on 64-bit iOS builds[1] It is possible to install PPSSPP (or any iOS app for that matter) on a non-jailbroken device through Cydia Impactor, however. Since 2024-05-15 it is officially available through app store with some cut capabilities[2].

Cemu

See official requirements page for cemu

Minimum
  • CPU: Any AVX2 x86-64 hardware and 4-cores, 4-threads - (Intel Core i5-4460 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200)
Similar to #PCSX2 situation, some release titles and 2D games which underutilized the Wii U hardware may run acceptable on less powerful SSE4.2 hardware such as i5-750 or AMD FX-4350.
  • GPU: OpenGL 4.5 or Vulkan 1.2 required - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 or AMD RX 460
  • RAM: 4 GB
Recommended and using enhancements[18]
Dolphin

See official requirements page for Dolphin

Minimum
  • RAM: 4GB
  • Desktop CPU: Any SSE4.2 x86-64 hardware and 4-cores, 4-threads - (Intel Core i5-750 or AMD FX-4350)
  • Mobile CPU: ARMv8.2-A or later
Some release titles and 2D games which underutilized the GameCube and Wii hardware may run acceptable on even less powerful hardware such as: Core 2 Duo E8400 or AMD Athlon II X2 255 or ARMv8-A based CPUs, on top of that there are several performance and hack options such as "VBI Skip" which is a powerful tool for weaker devices, especially in games that struggle. It's obviously not perfect, but the mixture of slowdown and frameskip keeps the game fairly playable[23].
  • Desktop GPU: Direct3D 11 / OpenGL 4.4 supported hardware
  • Mobile GPU: OpenGL ES 3.0 required but OpenGL ES 3.2 / Vulkan 1.1 supported hardware preferred
Recommended
  • RAM: 8 GB or more
  • CPU: Any AVX2 instruction set supported x86-64 hardware[24] and at least 4-cores, 4-threads - (Intel Core i5-4460 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200)
Some intensive titles and incompatible ones with performance options such as "dual core"[25][26][27][28] may require Intel Core i5-7600 or OC'ed AMD Ryzen 3 2300X level of single thread performance for running on full speed.
  • GPU: Vulkan 1.1 supported hardware that have active driver support. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 or AMD RX 460
For using enhancements[29][30];
  • Desktop GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1650 or AMD RX 570 or better
  • Mobile GPU: Recent RDNA2 or recent Snapdragon based graphics processors hardware
See the Dolphin page for further information, such as controller setups.
Citra

See official requirements page for Citra.

DeSmuME

See official requirements page for DeSmuME.

mGBA

See official requirements page for mGBA, also see this section.

Vita3K

See official requirements page for Vita3K.

MelonDS
Minimum
  • Desktop CPU: Any SSE4.2 x86-64 and 2-cores hardware will be sufficient for acceptable performance - (Intel Core i3-530 / Pentium G850 / Celeron G530)
  • Mobile CPU: Any ARMv8.2-A or later [31]
  • GPU: Any GPU that handle OpenGL 3.1 will be enough for bare minimum.[32]
  • RAM: Recommended amount by the operating system.
Recommended

References

  1. ↑ http://www.ppsspp.org/faq.html
  2. ↑ https://www.ppsspp.org/news/live-on-app-store/
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