Emumerate me completely: the state of emulation of game consoles in 2025

The concept of emulation is far from new in the gaming industry. The first programs appeared in the early nineties, but the main problem in those days was that the widespread use of home PCs was far away, and those that were did not differ in special performance, and even more so could not compete with arcade cabinets. However, for several decades, the various projects have stepped so far ahead that some of them can easily be called a digital replacement of old consoles, with support for ultra -high resolutions and an increased frequency of frames directly from the box.

However, this was not always the case. For a rather long time, many emulators relied on the concept of plugins, which helped improve the compatibility or functionality of subsystems without changing the core of the program. For example, in EPSXE plugins are still used for everything: graphic and sound chip, gamepads, CD drive (in old versions for connecting .iso it was necessary to make a separate virtual drive through Daemon Tools) and the rest.

The game with Jet Lee is hard to call good role. Nevertheless, she was fun. And, of course, I didn’t get anywhere with PS2

The advantage of this approach was that independent developers could write and produce small additions for the emulator, and users could find and download them. A fat minus is that each game most often worked only with a certain set of plugins and internal core settings. When switching with the conventional Metal Gear Solid on Syphon Filter, it was necessary to look for optimal configurations on special sites – or spend time testing hundreds of possible settings on your own – reconfiguring everything to the desired project almost from zero. The experience, of course, is interesting, if you love to delve into all this, but the quality of emulation left much to be desired, and newcomers from the abundance of information had to be hard.

Relatively recently, I decided to rebuild my emulators park after a long pause and add some new archaeological projects related to games to them. And he was pleasantly surprised at how much more comfortable everything became. Programs are now in the most part monolol – all the necessary settings are already sewn inside. Moreover, the community of lovers of old projects is actively developing the RetroachieVements resource.

Taking into account unofficial status, display and tracking of aces on the portal is fine. And inside the emulator itself, a notification pops up upon receipt of any prize

You can make an account there, connect it to the emulator and receive achievements as you pass. Of course, not all games already have them, but the fact that people are bothering in their free time, inventing sets of trophies, making icons to each prize, and then still go the full path from testing to full release – deserves praise and a couple of beer boxes. And in general, modern emulators for the most part successfully combine the convenience of the present day and the concept of the old consoles “turned on – and immediately play”.

True, with some restrictions, because legally emulation is in the gray zone. Some programs require the BIOS console dumps, but you will not find them on any official website of the projects, since this is just what can bring developers to court and other potential troubles with the law. On such resources, files are laid out for which lawyers will not be able to catch on – like an empty image of an HDD first Xbox. In addition, in the official Discord channels of projects, you can quickly grab the ban for mentioning piracy and even more so for placing links to illegal resources with images.

It is assumed that you will remove the dumps from your own device, and the images of disks and cartridges – from honestly acquired physical copies. In general, digitize your collection of anything – the idea is excellent (do not forget about backups). On the other hand, everything understands everything, and the necessary files and .iso are quite simple.

However, the “grayness” of emulators does not interfere with telling about them. Despite serious progress as programs, the emulation of consoles, especially new ones, is very dependent on the power of a particular PC. The programs have official system requirements, I will mention them, but in my opinion, they do not show them a real picture. At least because some games relied more on the console processor, others on a graphic subsystem, and others – both for that and that. And this behavior is also a plus minus is imitated on personal computers. Since at least some reference point is still needed, I propose to take my laptop with Windows 11, Intel Core i5-11400h (2.7 Hz), 16 GB RAM and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3700 (8 GB).

The mentioned performance is relevant for 1080p and 60 frames/s, where it is possible, since I see no reason to crawl into ultra -high resolutions, especially to the detriment of the personnel frequency. All modern emulators are able to work with 4K and higher, but consider that when the quality improves the difference in the graph, you can not really notice, but the program will begin to consume more system resources.

And another remark is not a comprehensive top of the “best of the best”. I use the programs mentioned below either because there is simply nothing better, or because they seemed to me the most convenient. If you like alternatives more, something works better or more actively developing, then I will be glad to read about your experience in the comments. And, of course, it is impossible to tell about all emulators of all the consoles in one article, so there will be only those that seemed to me the most interesting personally.

⇡#DuckStation (PlayStation 1)

For a long time I used EpsXe to emulate games with the beautiful PS1, but over time the project was subsided and morally outdated (continues to use plugins), so after the market research I had to move to Duckstation. Behind the funny name and an equally funny logo with a square duck, a powerful program is hidden, capable of perfectly working with almost all Sony’s first projects. Moreover, not only emitting, but also programmatically improve permission, add smoothing and increase the frame rate.

Duckstation offers a giant number of graphic options, including supporting third -party modified textures, which allows the old games to look great without really consuming PC resources. Neither the emulator from Sonya itself on the PS5, nor the barely working miracle that Konami used in the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol.1 collection, do not compare with the “duck”. Gamers, who have at least once tried normal emulation, are not just scolding attempts to sell raw releases of old projects – most often the implementation from the craftsmen is much better than the one that the rich companies give out.

In addition, tuning Duckstation really does not need to – just download the program itself. And, of course, somewhere to find the BIOS console. However, the rest, including the choice of the Render method (there is support for Opengl, Vulcan and Direct X11/12) and even the purpose of the Joypad layout, is automatically done. You need to delve into configurations only if you want to put something for yourself.

The game on the “Spiggan” was released only in Japan and officially translating or porting it unlikely to anyone will be

At the same time, the emulator carefully warns if any option is included that potentially breaks rendering-MSAA sins this, for example. Therefore, by chance, something bad will not work out. As for the quality of the emulation itself, I have no questions. Of all the games you have passed, the problems were only with Dino Crisis 2, which sometimes did not want to load some locations. This was repaired by an increase in the Duckstation Audivofer to the maximum. Welcome to emulation – here problems can be solved or added by completely random actions.

However, exactly I had the same on EpsXe, so here, most likely, the peculiarity of a particular project. Otherwise, Duckstation combines friendliness, a pleasant interface and support for almost everything that is on PS1. And at the same time, the simplicity of settings for those who do not want to bother, and a giant number of options for those who want to delve inside.

⇡#PCSX2 (PlayStation 2)

PCSX2 still at the far in 2002 was an excellent program, however, after the recent update 2.0, which corrected hundreds of problems with compatibility and rendering in the heap of games, it actually became a digital analogue of PlayStation 2. Now in all Burnout there is a normal sky, not a void clinging above your head , ui-and-and-and! The emulator supports almost the entire endless PS2 library, and there is no much sense to start that it still does not work with the program. It is unlikely that you will want to play in addition to Final Fantasy XI on PS2, when there is an official and still working PC version.

I think that according to the screenshots you have already noticed that in terms of the Duckstation and PCSX2 interface, they do not really differ from each other. They are really twin brothers-the settings of two emulators are almost identical, so I do not see much sense to repeat. Everything is as simple as in the case of PlayStation 1. Unless the twisting of the resolution can affect weak processors.

To be honest, there’s nothing to complain about here – if at the beginning of the development the program had problems, now they have been corrected. Like all emulators, in some places small rendering artifacts may occasionally arise or sound is incorrectly played, but this does not affect the playfulness and opportunities to go to the end. PCSX2 is a great way to preserve the bottomless and largely unique PS2 library, the overwhelming part of which remained on the console.

⇡#Dolphin (Gamecube/Wii)

The Battle of Nintendo with the creators of emulators seems to be endless – recently “Big N” was killed by one of the Switch emulators, which was also hooked by the development of the 3DS digital analogue. They also tried to roll on Dolphin “Nina” when the developers wanted to add an emulator directly to Steam. This, unfortunately, did not happen, but the program itself is still alive and is actively developing.

Although it seems that there is already nowhere to develop to her. Dolphin opens the world of games for both GameCube and Wii. And she works like a clock, with that with another console. Gamecube is much more interesting to me, so I tested more compatibility with it. In the case of WII, you will have to tinker with the configuration of stupid WIIMOTE and hang an emulation of the movement of pades, for example, to the mouse. Here you have to correctly calibrate the input, which depends on the size of the program window. Apparently, it was precisely this calibration that Garrus was engaged in the whole Mass Effect 2.

Except that Dolphin does not configure the gamepad connected to the PC independently, the rest of the settings are quite flexible, but you can not get too deep. Like PCSX2, Dolphin is an almost ready virtual console. The program immediately after launch is ready for use and does not require too many resources from the PC.

⇡#Redream (Dreamcast)

Due to DreamCast, the Sega flew out of the console race, but people still love the last console of the company, despite the fact that there are not so many games there. As in the case of the systems already mentioned above, DreamCast emulation is now almost at the level of a full digital copy of this device – the vast majority of games work.

In fact, choosing between Redream and FlyCast is quite difficult. The first does not require any configurations and sets up everything itself. However, if you want advanced graphic options, you will have to pay a few dollars to the developers. The second is slightly less convenient, but supports a couple of percent more games. In both cases, the quality of emulation will be excellent-it is difficult to find fault with anything.

⇡#Xemu (Xbox)

Xbox has become a breakdown of a console pen for Microsoft. And although several loud projects (like two Halo and the cool Dead or Alive 3) came out on the device, she could not compete with PS2 or even GameCube. Yes, and Dreamcast, as for me, the library deserves more attention.

At the moment, the most popular digital analogues of the “boxes” are XEMU and CXBX-RELOADED. The second is much easier to configure, and it does not require BIOS, the very first supports much more projects (if compared on official sites). Since the list of compatibility in CXBX-RLOODED is updated, it seems that once to eternity, I tried several unsupported games from there on the last version of the program just for the test.

And they still do not load further than the main menu. True, here, apparently, everything is somewhat more cunning. Judging by the discussions on GitHub and other resources, some old versions of the emulator still launched more games, while more new versions of the program broke.

Therefore, I stopped at Xemu, which reminded me of the old days. Find one BIOS, find the other BIOS, the dump of the original HDD Xbox (is on the official emulator website) download, do not forget to connect all this correctly. Do you think you are ready to play? No-neither XEMU nor CXBX-ROLOADED do not know how to work with standard .iso, so they need to be unpacked and repaired with special utilities, which adds another layer of long-forgotten fuss, from which other emulators got rid of. The project, despite the pleasant interface, is still felt raw and, in terms of convenience, the generation is behind its colleagues.

Dino Crisis 3 was Dead Space long before Dead Space was born

Exactly the same can be said about the quality of emulation. Xemu works plus minus well in certain games, but with reservations. Say, the last boss in Dead or Alive 3 in the arena with a bunch of effects seriously failed the frequency of personnel in any settings, while in other situations there are no problems. While in Dino Crisis 3 (I seem to be very “lucky” with this series) from time to time fly out with C ++ errors, sometimes killing all the conservations. Although here it was possible to find a bypass – if during the passage not to open the card, then it seems that there will not be departures. IT MAGIA!

Moreover, XEMU is the only emulators of the sixth generation consoles, which, if desired, can load the processor well. No other program above I occupied so many resources. Therefore, with the settings of graphics, you need to be careful – it may be better to leave everything by default, and not twist the maximum.

⇡#Xenia (Xbox 360)

But with the Xbox 360, which has become a triumph in the seventh console generation for Microsoft, the situation is at the same time better and worse. Better because Xenia works much, much more stable Xemu. Worse, due to the fact that the list of supported projects leaves much to be desired – judging by the official GitHub, out of about 1700 tested projects, in the playable (read, you can go from and to) there is only a little more than three hundred. And even in them you can find a variety of problems, from crooked rendering to a delay in sound.

The emulator has two branches: Master (main) and Canary (Fork, which can be considered experimental). In fact, many of the programs mentioned above use this approach, but there are already mainly point changes, since the vast majority of games are supported. In the case of Xenia, both branches have its own compatibility lists-something works better on experimental, something on the main one. Canary also “eats” less. In general, the issue of seventh -generation emulation is still very complicated – programs require many resources, a variety of body kites do not work, which is expected, and network functions after some dances with tambourines can both correctly function and add problems.

In terms of settings, Xenia has an impressive arsenal, so you can adjust them to its PC and get more or less sane performance. Or not bother too much, choose .iso – and you are already in the game.

If you still want to delve into, then there are two options. Either rule the configuration file in any text editor (Linuxoids will definitely be happy), or to put an additional graphic shell of Xenia Master, which is more or less similar to the interface of other emulators. To rule the file is definitely not faster, but all the parameters there are documented in detail. This allows you to more consciously approach the question than just poke something there in UI.

Marcus from GEars of War 2 lost textures somewhere. This does not particularly affect the gameplay, but it interferes with the screensaver

In general, Xenia is an interesting thing, but the list of playable projects is still very modest, and systemic requirements, especially for high resolutions and personnel frequencies, will require a rather “fat” PC. Perhaps here are the owners of the Xbox Series S | X are in a winning position, since the “T-shirts” have established a chic reverse compatibility with the consoles of previous generations-now play the Gears of War 2-3 or the normal Itagaki version of Ninja Gaiden 2, and not all sorts of Revolving, it is better all the same on the actual “box”, and not through the PC emulators.

⇡#RPCS3 (Playstation 3)

While the T -shirts were lit with the Xbox 360, Sony desperately tried to save the PS3, which was seriously inferior to the console of the competitor in terms of price and in quality of multi -platform. At the end of the life cycle, the sale was leveled, but a bunch of interesting projects remained in captivity of the third “curling iron”. This is the Killzone, Resistance, Motorstorm, and Metal Gear Solid 4 series, and so on an entertaining like Folklore.

How “heart” PS3, Cell processor, was more complicated than the Xbox 360 chip, the same RPCS3 differs from the launch of Xenia. Here it is necessary to put the official (hehe) console firmware directly into the emulator, and the usual .iso program does not recognize. Depending on the source of the image, just pulling out the files from it may not work – the emulator will complain about the inability to read them. Therefore, it will be necessary to produce several manipulations with files using different utilities. Or look for alternative, already repaped images.

Otherwise, the RPCS3 jumped forward very seriously over the past few years, has a large number of settings and even the opportunity to assign its configuration for each game. However, despite the rather impressive list of projects, the emulator, as for me, is still very far from his counterparts for PS1 and PS2. Even fully supported games can fly out from time to time, and projects for different regions have their own individual branches with patches. For example, the American version will work well, and the European version does not work at all, which complicates not only the search for images, but also the search for solving potential problems on the network. I think that they want to see what Sony did during the PS3, this is unlikely to stop, but in the event of errors (during the setting I collected, it seems, everything) be ready to google diligently.

***

The point of emulating the eighth console generation, I think, is not particularly. Everything that went out on the Xbox One (sorry, Halo 5, you have forgotten), you can safely buy on a PC, or even other platforms. The emulators of the PS4, in fact, turned into programs for launching a single game and the best creation of FROM Software-BloodBorne. Which is already completely held on a PC with excellent graphics thanks to modifications – see this analysis from Digital Foundry. I have some doubts that the official remaster, if he ever comes out, will be able to compete in quality with what the community has done. System requirements are perhaps less.

However, despite the fact that more and more console exclusives reaches a PC, where a generational change is not so scary, emulation is unlikely to ever die. If only because the craftsmen were always interested to understand exactly how different devices work. In addition, the issue of conservation of games is now more acute, which I talked about a couple of years ago. Yes, and all three console giants are developing their solutions – there is official emulation both on Xbox, and Switch, and on the PlayStation 5. Let it most often do not get worse and does not reach the “folk” programs, and the number of old projects available for buying is simply ridiculous, But this is definitely better than nothing at all.

Nevertheless, it is unofficial emulation that is the only way to save a giant number of games that are already anywhere and not to buy. The method of albeit ambiguous in legal terms, but, as usual, it happens, where corporations do not want to bother with the return of projects to stores at least in some form, a community of gamers and enthusiasts can offer their decision. Many programs can now replace old consoles, and Xenia and RPCS3 still have where to grow-it is very interesting to see if they can ever compare with Dolphin or PCSX2 in terms of emulation quality. I propose to return to this issue in five years, friends, but for now, write in the comments about your experience of interacting with emulators.