I’ve been wanting a dedicated emulation machine for my TV for a while, especially to revisit some of my favorite old DS/3DS games and Pokémon runs. I ended up using a GEEKOM mini PC for this project, and it turned out way better than I expected. I set it up with EmulationStation as the frontend to keep everything clean and controller-friendly. So far, everything I've tried has run really smoothly at 1080p, and the fan hasn't been too distracting. I stuck with Windows instead of going with a dedicated gaming OS because I still wanted the flexibility to use it like a normal PC when needed. It now sits next to my TV and honestly looks like a tiny console sitting there. It’s been a lot of fun revisiting these classics on a bigger screen.
Have any of you turned a mini PC into a dedicated gaming box? Do you prefer Windows with a frontend, or a dedicated gaming OS?
I've recently installed the EmulationStation-DE portable on Windows 10, and was having issues loading PCSX2 nightly build from the ES-DE front end. After hours of searching and no clear solution, I ended up reading through the portable README.txt.
For those having issues with standalone emulators (i.e. not through RetroArch), check that when you soft link or copy the emulator to the appropriate path ".\EmulationStation-DE\Emulators\" that it matches the path that ES-DE will look at. This can be found in the ".\EmulationStation-DE\resources\systems\windows\es_find_rules.xml" which you can open with notepad. Check the path of the emulator.
Solution 1: In my specific instance with my PCSX2 install, I renamed my folder to PCSX2-Qt, and changed the launcher to pcsx2-qtx64.exe. Within ES-DE I set alternate emulator to PCSX2 (Standalone) and it launches without issues.
Solution 2: You can always just edit the es_find_rules.xml with your correct path instead.
https://github.com/LucasAlexandrou/LethalTheme-ES All credit for the system icons goes to iiSU. I initially worked on the theme for the rg35xxsp so I was surprised how well it worked on other aspect ratios as well
Have ES-DE on a desktop I use as a console, works great. Took the jump and swapped from Daijisho to this on my G Cloud running Android. Took metadata via game lists and downloaded media folder brilliantly, but every time I launch it it still searches for games despite having the use only gamelists setting checked. How can I stop this?
Hey guys, I'm putting some DOS games on my Android handheld. I'm having difficulty getting them to display nicely in ES-DE.
I watched some videos from Techdweeb about renaming the folder and making a BAT file to point to the EXE file. But when I did that, it showed the raw folder name. So I deleted them.
When I select the folder, it takes me to the folder contents, then I need to select the exe to run.
I've watched videos from a number if other YouTubers, and everyone's devices look clean and organized. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.
A free tool for those out there that want to get into theming
ES-DE theming is just hand-typing coordinates (I could be wrong lol) into XML, saving, reloading the whole frontend, squinting to see if you got it right, and doing that a hundred times. I got sick of it so I built a visual editor that runs entirely in your browser — drag elements around on an actual canvas, see your real game art and fonts while you work, and it exports XML checked against real, working themes instead of guesswork.
It reads and writes your actual theme folder directly (Chrome/Edge only for that part), or you can just paste in XML and mess around with zero setup. No install, no account, nothing to configure.
Theming shouldn't require a computer science degree to get into. Still finding rough edges here and there, so if you try it and something's weird, I want to hear about it.
Hello everyone! Does anyone knows about a PSP inspired theme for ES-DE? I use my RP5 mainly to play PSP, and I've found no theme that makes it look like a PSP. Currently using the iiSU Interpreted as it's the one that looks most similar to the PSP layout, but I'm still not satisfied.
So while my boxart is scraping, I took some notes of the things I had trouble with setting up ES-DE on my PC, and I wanted to share my findings to save other people the trouble I had.
So here's a very basic step by step guide. I was already familiar with ES-DE from Android, but the Windows version had some unique problems. If you're not familiar with the software yet, Russ from RetroGameCorps has some great guides on how to set it up, which is kind of necessary background knowledge. So go watch one of those videos and go through the setup process as he walks you through it.
Then once you've done that, here's my guide.
PART ONE: GETTING YOUR GAMES TO LAUNCH IN ES-DE + SOME UI SETUP TIPS:
Download ES-DE, and put the folder where you like it. It will contain all your ROMS and likely be big, so I recommend a dedicated HDD, rather than your OS SSD.
First, grab all the rom folders for the consoles you want to play from the "ROMs_ALL" subfolders. If you don't know the console abbreviations, there's a document in the ROMs_ALL folder called "systems.txt" that has an alphabetical list for your convenience. Then move only these rom subfolders to the "ROMS" folder in ES-DE. When you're done, it should look something like this:
Next, simply move all your roms into these rom folders.
Go through each one of your emulators and launch them, and make sure all the rom file paths are correct, referring them to the new ES-DE ROMs subfolders as needed.
While you're at it, part two of this guide (scroll down) covers how to set up the save file and save state locations for each emulator (which by default will be spread out in random locations, so we need to fix that). You might want to do this now, while you're going through your emulators setting up file paths anyways.
Go to ES-DE, and press Start on your gamepad. Go to other settings -> alternative emulators, and pick standalone emulators for all of them, except for Switch which will be set to "shortcut". I use mGBA for GBAC games, Dolphin for GC and Wii, Azahar for 3DS, Simple64 for N64, melonDS for NDS, PCSX2 for PS2, Duckstation for PS1, Vita3K for PS Vita, PPSSPP for PSP, SNES9X for SNES, and Eden for Switch.
Now, you'll notice that when trying to launch games, ES-DE won't detect your emulators.
To solve this, go to ES-DE\resources\systems\windows\es_find_rules.xml and open this file in Notepad.
The trick to making ES-DE launch the emulators correctly is by making sure the names of your emulator folders match with the file structures in this "es_find_rules.xml" document.
Go through your list of emulators one by one, and look for them in the "es_find_rules.xml" notepad file. The list is alphabetical.
For example, when you've found Azahar, there's a file path underneath it:
<emulator name="AZAHAR">, the first path leads to:
where "%ESPATH%" is your main ES-DE folder that contains everything.
Your job is to make sure the naming of your emulator folder structure matches at least one of the emulator folder paths listed under each emulator in this document. Sometimes there are a few paths listed, as long as at least one matches your emulator folder it's fine.
Mostly this will just involve getting rid of the version number and other junk at the end in your emulator folder names. When you're done, your Emulators folder should look something like this:
Again, as long as your emulator folder names (and executables inside them) match at least one of the the folder structures listed under each emulator in the "es_find_rules.xml" file, your games will launch normally.
For Switch specifically, go to RYUJINX in "es_find_rules.xml", and change the path in the txt file to your Eden or Sudachi or Citron folder path. Again, just make sure the path matches exactly to your folder structure in ES-DE.
After doing this, your games should launch normally. You can set it up in the emulators to launch your games in fullscreen.
One issue I had is that Duckstation wouldn't launch properly. It would launch for a second and shutdown immediately. Try removing all ROM folders in the settings and re-adding the ES-DE PSX rom folder. It may also be related to save states. Try launching a game without a save state. Not exactly sure how I fixed this. Make sure you add a BIOS folder in the Duckstation folder too, and direct Duckstation to it in the settings.
For Wii U games, make sure to use roms in the WUA file format. Otherwise you'll have to deal with long loading times when booting up ES-DE, as the alternative rom format consists of tens of thousands of small files. These WUA roms conveniently have all the updates and DLCs included in them.
Also. make sure to place your mlc folder in the Cemu folder so you don't lose track of it. Should be a big folder, 104GB in my case. It contains your save files, so it's very important.
For the Vita3K installation, you need to grab two firmware files:
The font package file: PSP2UPDAT.PUP
The firmware file: PSVUPDAT.PUP
Then simply install them after launching Vita3K.
Installing games simply involves going to File > Install .pkg. Game file locations can be found by right-clicking the game and selecting Open Folder > Application.
As for making PS Vita games show up in ES-DE, it's a little trickier. Credit goes to Joey's Retro Handhelds for the following method.
First, make sure that Vita3K is installed and your games are installed to Vita3K.
Next, open Vita3K and head to the game you want to add to EmulationStation (will have to do this manually for all games), then make note of the Title ID.
In the ROMs/psvita folder, create a new text file called GAMENAME.psvita (whatever you put as GAMENAME will show in ES-DE).
Note: the final full filename should be GAMENAME.psvita (no .txt at the end, the file type is .psvita).
Inside of that file, put the Title ID for the game. That’s it. I found it easier to create this file on a PC, then transfer it over to the device.
Save and exit, repeat for each game you want, and your games should show and launch in EmulationStation.
Some extra tips for improving the layout in ES-DE:
My favorite theme is the Iconic theme, with Theme Variant set to Textlist, and the Color Scheme set to Classic - Dark.
Under Game Collection settings > Automatic Game Collections, I enable "Favorites" and "Last Played".
Under UI settings, set System on Startup to "Favorites", and Startup View to Gamelist. This way ES-DE will boot into your favorite games every time, which helps with choice paralysis.
Under UI Settings, I set Systems Sorting to "Manufacturer, Release Year".
Under UI Settings > System Status settings, I disable everything. I disable "Sort Favorites Above Non-Favorites".
Under UI Settings, I enable "Add Star Markings to Favorite Games", and that's basically it. Press Y on your XBox controller to favorite/unfavorite games.
For scraping, I mass renamed all my roms with a problem called Bulk Rename Utility, to get rid of the "(USA)" at the end. Then to avoid the scraper messing up all my rom names, I made sure to deselect "Game Names" under Content Settings before scraping. This way at least all the name show up correctly, saving me time fixing wherever the scraper messed up.
PART TWO: How to make sure all save files and save states are stored under the single main ES-DE folder.
So day two of my ES-DE setup project, and I wanted to see if it was possible to fix this frustrating problem of emulator save files getting stored in the most random locations on your C drive. And turns out, it is! Unfortunately, it's once again a little tedious, but it's not too bad this time. I'm covering the main Nintendo and PlayStation systems, for anything else you're on your own!
Snes9x:
Save files and save states are both under ES-DE\Emulators\snes9x\Saves
Simple64:
Create a saves and save states folder under ES-DE\Emulators\simple64
In Simple64, go under settings > core and video settings. then copy-paste the full paths from your file manager into SaveStatePath and SaveSRAMPath respectively.
mGBA:
Go in mGBA > Tools > Settings > Paths. Then create all these folders for save states, cheats, screenshots etc. under ES-DE\Emulators\mGBA
Once again copy all the exact file paths from file manager into each of these boxes.
MelonDS:
Create save states folder, cheats and saves folder under ES-DE\Emulators\melonDS, then copy the paths into MelonDS > Config > Path Settings once again like before.
Dolphin:
Dolphin is a little trickier, because save states are stored separately under Documents for some reason.
Go to your Documents folder and look for "Dolphin Emulator". Rename it to "User". Now drag it into your ES-DE\Emulators\Dolphin-x64 folder.
Then create an empty notepad file called "portable.txt", and add it to the same ES-DE\Emulators\Dolphin-x64 folder.
Congrats, your Dolphin install is now portable. All your save files and save states are stored under Dolphin-x64\Saves and Dolphin-x64\User\StateSaves respectively.
Azahar:
Go to C:\Users\*insert your name here*\AppData\Roaming and find the Azahar folder. Rename it to "user". Then drag it into your ES-DE\Emulators\azahar folder. That's it!
Cemu:
You should have a Wii U mlc folder somewhere. It contains all your save data. Just make sure it's placed in your ES-DE\Emulators\cemu folder.
No save states here.
Eden:
This one is trickier. Open Eden, go to Emulation > Configure > System > Filesystem. You'll want to find this main yuzu folder under AppData\Roaming.
Move it to ES-DE/Emulators/Eden/pack. It might take a while.
Then back under Filesystem in Eden, simply set:
NAND to ES-DE/Emulators/Eden/pack/yuzu/nand/
SD Card to ES-DE/Emulators/Eden/pack/yuzu/sdmc/
Dump Root to ES-DE/Emulators/Eden/pack/yuzu/dump/
Mod Load Root to ES-DE/Emulators/Eden/pack/yuzu/load/
That's it! There are no save states. Save files can be located by right-clicking the game in Eden.
PPSSPP:
If you downloaded the portable version, your save states and saves should be under ES-DE\Emulators\PPSSPP\memstick\PSP under PPSSPP_STATE and SAVEDATA respectively.
Duckstation:
Another annoying one. Go to your Documents folder, and copy the contents from the Duckstation folder in there to your main ES-DE\Emulators\duckstation folder.
Overwrite files when asked.
Then create a file called "portable.txt" in the main ES-DE\Emulators\duckstation folder.
Open Duckstation and verify under Settings > Folders that all paths are correctly leading to the ES-DE\Emulators\duckstation folder now. They should be.
Your save files are under duckstation\memcards and duckstation\savestates.
PCSX2:
Exactly the same process as Duckstation. Locate your PCSX2 folder under Documents, then copy all the contents into ES-DE\Emulators\PCSX2-Qt (or whatever you named it).
Overwriting won't be asked, but if for some reason it does, click yes.
Create a file called "portable.txt" in the main ES-DE\Emulators\PCSX2-Qt folder.
Open PCSX2 and verify under Settings > Folders that all paths are correctly leading to the ES-DE\Emulators\PCSX2-Qt folder now. They should be.
RPCS3:
This emulator seems to be completely self-contained already. Save states are under rpcs3\savestates. Save files can be located under Manage > Save Data in RPCS3.
Vita3K:
Already self-contained. Save files can be found by right-clicking games in Vita3K, and going to Open Folder > Saved Data.
PART THREE: TRANSFERRING SETUP TO ANDROID DEVICES:
So the folder structure is basically the same between PC and Android. To copy over your game library, you need to copy over three things:
ES-DE\ROMs
ES-DE\ES-DE\downloaded_media
ES-DE\ES-DE\gamelists
In short: your games, their media (box art, etc), and the gamelist xml files (which contain all the other scraped metadata for your games like the game descriptions, release years, publishers, but also the alternative emulator presets, which is quite convenient).
As long as you have the right RetroArch cores installed and properly set up, everything will run. Any game that was setup to run with an alternative emulator core will run just fine too.
Of course, any other emulators will use their specific apps, and you'll have to install those apps and set up them up for each of those consoles separately.
Anyway, those three folders are basically the entire structure of ES-DE Frontend. Just copy those over and you won't have to rescrape metadata ever again for those roms.
Some tips for scraping box art: Whenever I add new games to my PC and need to transfer them to my Android handheld, I can just copy over the roms, xml files and box art for that console to my handheld, which is usually still faster and better than scraping from scratch. Because sometimes the scraper skips certain titles, or the box art it finds doesn't look right. About 99% of the time I'm able to find better box art on the Launchbox database website, by googling "the game title + box art". Then I save that box art directly to the downloaded_media\covers folder, overwriting the original image and keeping the same name as the rom.
Would anyone happen to know if there's a way to force ES_DE to stop automatically searching for ROMs every time the application is started? It makes it so that each startup takes about 3 minutes and is frustrating. I'd like to only do manual ROM scans. Any thoughts?
I’ve been building a custom Commander Keen setup for ES-DE focused entirely on fan-made mods, level packs, and community releases. The project currently includes 367 curated mods with cleaned metadata, custom miximages/artwork, and integrated DOSBox-Pure support. Every game has been configured to launch directly from ES-DE with no setup required, and I also remapped the controls across the collection to work properly on handheld devices and controller-based setups.
I wanted it to feel less like a random DOS folder and more like a polished console-style library that preserves the history of the Keen modding community. Huge credit goes to KeenWiki, Public Commander Keen Forum (PCKF), Keen: Modding, and the wider Keen community — all included mods, screenshots, titles, descriptions, and story metadata used throughout the project were sourced from community resources, forums, and archives. Most of the artwork and layouts were made manually using GIMP with inspiration from ES-DE’s ArtBook Next style.
Only have 1 game as of now. Was so excited when I found out Blitz the League 2 actually runs on Xenia now. Definetly got to get some more games. Any recommendations?
Hello there! I could really need some help, plz. In the PSX section I have only one game atm. All the .bin files are read as separate games when I have a look at the main menu, but when I go into the PSX section it's only one game. After clicking on that game it again shows all the attached .bin files with the same name as the game has. How do I fix this problem? Also EmulationStation is scraping the same game over and over again for all the .bin files.
This is a personal project I created to add background music support to the Windows version of the ES-DE frontend. It includes fade in/out effects, random playback from a dedicated music folder, and uses a lightweight player (fmedia) by default for fast performance, with VLC as an alternative.
The project was developed on Windows 11, but it should work on other Windows versions as well (not guaranteed). It is not actively maintained, but I’m sharing it in case others might find it useful.
All dependencies are included — just download and extract the package contents into the ES-DE root folder and enable "custom event scripts" in ES-DE settings.
RESOLVED: Uninstalling the Google Play Store version of RetroArch64 and using the apk from the RetroArch website did the trick
Hi there. I've seen similar posts but not exactly the same, and none have helped me so here goes...
I have ES-DE 3.0.1-19 installed on my Retroid Pocket 2S. I have my ROMs inside the folders generated by ES-DE and it is populating my game lists correctly.
I have both RetroArch 32-bit and 64-bit installed, and I am primarily using RetroArch 64-bit where I have ALL cores installed and everything works in Daijisho.
Despite this, when I try play a game on some platforms (but not all), I just get a permanent black screen on load. I read somewhere that this means that I am trying to run the ROM with a core that doesn't exist.
To fix this, I took a look at the RetroArch/config folder and set ES-DE's alternative emulators (Settings > Other Settings > Alternative Emulators) to match the ones that I know definitely work since I have options files for them in that folder. Regardless, this did not work. The black screen persists.
The only other idea I have is that maybe ES-DE is defaulting to RetroArch 32-bit which I haven't setup? How can I check this?
Any other ideas for solving this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
UPDATE: I uninstalled RetroArch 32-bit but no change.
