Multi-system emulators

Revision as of 08:19, 4 September 2025 by Ilyagredasov (talk | contribs) (Emulators)

Multi-system emulators focus on emulating many different systems under one program. They can be focused on a single company's systems because of the similarity of the systems or may have systems from many different companies.

To be defined as "multi-system" an emulator has to emulate two or more distinct systems. Although, for simplicity reasons in this wiki (not just this page), the term, "multi-platform", in the OS column fields can come to mean three or more covered platforms. For the purpose of this list, Add-ons (eg. Sega CD, 32X) are not counted as a separate system.

The term 'multi-system emulator' can sometimes be confused with frontend applications.

Emulators

Name Platform(s) Latest version Retro
Achievements
Libretro Core # of Emulated systems License Active Recommended
Multi-company
MAME         git artifacts[N 1]
0.289
libretro core[N 2]
0.289 (akatana and ddpsdoj unlocked)[N 3]
Thousands of electronics[1] GPLv2
BSD-3-Clause
Mednafen            
 
1.32.1
Wii
PS3
GCW Zero
15 GPLv2 (Copyleft)
Mesen       2.2.1 11 GPLv3
OpenEmu   2.4.1 35 GPLv2 (Copyleft)
BizHawk     Dev builds
2.11.1
30 (excluding the libretro cores) MIT
GPL)
ares       git Artifacts
v148
20 ISC (Permissive)
Delta   1.7.3s ~ 6 AGPLv3 (Copyleft) ~
Folium   2.0 ($)
Sideload
3 GPLv3 (Copyleft) ~
ZEsarUX         13.0 22 GPLv3 (Copyleft) ~
Pantheon   16.458 21 Proprietary ~
CLK       2026-07-23 14 MIT (Permissive) ~
WinArcadia       30.7 21 ? ~
Xpeccy       0.6.20260804 14 MIT (Permissive)
Z64K   3.0.0 5 Proprietary
DSP         0.24WIP3 More than 10 Non-commercial ?
Phoenix       2.8.JAG 5 Proprietary
higan (火眼)         v110 ~ 14 GPLv3 (Copyleft) [N 4]
WAVE Multi-Emulator   V1.1.3 7 (ROMs have to be converted to hex via a website to be played) CC BY-SA 2.0
EMU (Russian)   1.01 More than 50 ? ?
kindred   1.12 Preview Build 3 7 Proprietary ?
Xe     2.16.2 18 Proprietary
DarcNES       9b0401/9b0313 8 Proprietary
rew.     rew12stx ? 3 ? ?
Nintendo
Dolphin             2606a
libretro core
[N 5] 3 GPLv2 (Copyleft)
mGBA          
           
 
Dev builds
libretro core
0.10.2
~ 2 MPL 2.0 (Copyleft)
GBE+       1.10 4 GPLv2 (Copyleft) ~
No$GBA     3.06 3[N 6] Proprietary
Sega
Kega Fusion       3.64 10 Proprietary ~
PicoDrive          
       
           
   
2.05
libretro core
6 MAME license (Non-commercial) ~
Sinclair
EightyOne (81)   1.41 12 GPLv2 (Copyleft)
Retro Virtual Machine       2.1.20 2 Proprietary ~
Commodore
VICE         3.10 6 GPLv2 (Copyleft)
  1. CI-Windows CI-Linux CI-Macos
  2. As 0.251, 0.139 (2010), 0.78 (2003), 0.37b5 (2000)
  3. Akai Katana and Dodonpachi Saidaioujou removed at the request of the current rightholder, exA-Arcadia ([email protected]). https://github.com/mamedev/mame/commit/54899379258a7266db8d5bc6cda8b48169e67503
  4. Superseded by ares.
  5. work-in-progress, Topic: Gamecube Dolphin achievements soon?
  6. No$GBA also does PocketStation emulation.

References

  1. www.mamedb.org's list (Only shows the games covered, not systems)

See also