Need Games?

Downloads

No limit

• The Internet Archive. Add a slash (/) after the URLs to view the contents of compressed archives from the browser. 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.
  • No Registration Required
    • MAME and MESS sets.
    • No-Intro Nintendo DS set (2017-02-13). File names are organized by scene release order.
    • Redump 3DO set (2017-04-04).
    • Redump GameCube (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) USA sets (2016-05-27).
    • Redump Dreamcast set (2015-09-20). Missing some games. Includes manuals.
    • Redump Sega CD set. Includes DAT files to verify with ClrMamePro.
    • Redump PC-Engine CD/Turbografx CD set (2016-11-06)
    • TOSEC (The Old School Emulation Center) sets.
    • Vintage Software Many DOS collections and older games.
  • Registration Required (If you do not have an account at the Internet Archive, you can use these credentials.)
    • No-Intro Collection for most cartridge-based systems (2016-01-03).
    • Redump PS2 (Part 1, Part 2) USA sets (September 2016). Game IDs are used for file titles. CD-based games are .bin files, DVD-based games are .iso files.
    • Redump PS1 USA set (2016-06-17).
    • Redump PS1 NTSC-U and PAL sets.
    • Redump Saturn set (2015-09-13). Includes manuals and magazines.
• Atarimania Contains a complete Atari 2600 ROM set.
• ROM Hustler Has Renascene PSP dumps. Has a good selection of games from all consoles Gen-6 and earlier
• Emuparadise Good for No-Intro sets (which require registration). Hosts a lot of bad disc rips with no indication. Avoid the PSX section in particular, because many titles don't work with the standard emulators. Many GBA games have had intro screens added. (Most Nintendo-published titles have been DMCA'd as of June 2017.)
• Doperoms Has some Redump PSX/GCN among other things. (Nintendo-published titles have been DMCA'd as of July 2017.)
• The ISO Zone Many systems and PC
• MAME Directly from the MAME site. Games that were released with permission for free and non-commercial use.
• Nicoblog A site where people can share their games.
• Planet Emulation Very old, weekly updated and classy French ROM site, full MAME CHDs, also good for GBA ROMs. Just click on "Telecharger" for download.
• Portal Roms Torrent site for ROMs and ISOs. Mostly Nintendo stuff. Especially good for Wii U, Wii, and no-intro 3DS.
• PSNdl PSN Packages direct from Sony. Can get official PSX eboots here as well as PS3 games. Decrypt the files with psnpkgdecryptor-extractor
• World of Spectrum For ZX Spectrum games and applications as well magazines, cover art, booklets, and much more.
• GameTronik
• Abandonware France

Download limit

• Partial PS2 Redump (2016/03/19) (5046/6863 games)
• Partial Wii Redump (2016/03/19) (602/1037 games)
• RomToHome ~50kB/s downloads, but has proper scene releases for a variety of consoles including (but not limited to) Wii U, Wii, PS2, 3DS, DS and PSP.

Registration Required

• Romulation Useful for Wii, GameCube, NDS, PS2 etc, may be 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.

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

Use some common sense while downloading!

• 3dschaos.com 3DS games, including 3DS Cia and Roms; but also retro Nintendo games like NES, N64, GBA.
• wiiuchaos.com Wii U games
• pspiso.com PSP and PS1 games
• wiiso.com Mostly Wii games, but also other Nintendo games
• ps3iso.com Many 'premium-only' links.
• 3dsiso.com 3DS games
  • Decrypted 3DS games for Citra.
    • Dec3DS uses the database shown above, but has direct links, no longer needing to login on 1Fichier.
• warez-bb.org General warez site.
• Rom Shepherd Great site to request or fill requests for ROMs. Also has an invite only tracker, but do not ask for an invite on the forums, only privately.

BitTorrent

Note: Here's a list of public trackers you can use to increase the amount of peers you can reach.

• RuTracker Account required for some stuff, site entirely in Russian, use translate if you really need to.)
  • Redump PS1 sets: USA, JAP, PAL
  • TOSEC Dreamcast set
  • TOSEC SegaCD and 32X set Format is .cue, .wav and .iso and therefore may not work with some emulators (bin/cue preferred)
  • TOSEC 3DO set
  • TOSEC CDi set
  • Tru-Rip TurboGrafx-CD set
  • DS/DSi 2014 Fullset
• ALL NTSC WiiWare titles

Getting Wii U and 3DS titles

Wii U

• Download an NUS downloader such as WiiU USB Helper.
• Paste this URL into WiiU USB helper when prompted for the titlekey database. - https://wiiu.titlekeys.gq/

Select the game you want to download, click get it and then download games.

• This will download the files for the game you chose (the same as the .tik's title). May I suggest that you choose your own region where possible, so the download is quicker (from your regional servers).
• Now we need to convert the game into loadiine format for emulators.
• Simply right click your newly downloaded game, then click Unpack/Convert to Loadiine (Pack/Unpack - Loadiine/CIA).
• Load the .rpx file from [Your gamelocation]/code/[yourgame].rpx.

===3DS===hunie If you have a 3DS with homebrew installed (A9LH + Luma):

• Get FreeShop or CIAngel and the encTitleKeys.bin from this site (there's a similar site for WiiU keys). 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/CIAngel will just install the tickets you need for the game you chose. Note: You're still restricted to games that are on the eShop and that people bothered to upload their tickets to that site. So, rare or physical-only games are excluded.
• Get Decrypt9. You can use it to generate a CIA from installed games on your 3DS, convert that CIA to a 3DS and vice versa, decrypt it... So far decryption still needs a real 3DS though early work has started on Citra to load encrypted games as well (using files ripped from your 3DS).

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.

• /v/'s Recommended Games Wiki
• Retro-Sanctuary's Top 100 Lists
• Racketboy's Defining Games
• Racketboy's Hidden Gems

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.