EmulationStation is a cross-platform graphical front-end for emulators with controller navigation.

EmulationStation uses some C++11 code, which means you'll need to use at least g++-4.7 on Linux, or Visual Studio 2015 on Windows, to compile.

EmulationStation has a few dependencies. For building, you'll need CMake, SDL2, FreeImage, FreeType, cURL, RapidJSON, LibVLC, SDLMixer. You also should probably install the fonts-droid package which contains fallback fonts for Chinese/Japanese/Korean characters, but ES will still work fine without it (this package is only used at run-time).

On Debian/Ubuntu: All of this be easily installed with apt-get:

sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev libsdl2-mixer-dev libfreeimage-dev libfreetype6-dev \
  libcurl4-openssl-dev rapidjson-dev libasound2-dev libgl1-mesa-dev build-essential \
  libboost-all-dev cmake fonts-droid-fallback libvlc-dev libvlccore-dev vlc-bin

On Fedora: All of this be easily installed with dnf (with rpmfusion activated) :

sudo dnf install SDL2-devel freeimage-devel freetype-devel curl-devel \
  alsa-lib-devel mesa-libGL-devel cmake \
  vlc-devel rapidjson-devel 

Note this Repository uses a git submodule - to checkout the source and all submodules, use

git clone --recursive https://github.com/batocera-linux/batocera-emulationstation.git

or

git clone https://github.com/batocera-linux/batocera-emulationstation.git
cd EmulationStation
git submodule update --init

Then, generate and build the Makefile with CMake:

cd YourEmulationStationDirectory
cmake .
make

On the Raspberry Pi:

Complete Raspberry Pi build instructions at emulationstation.org. You'll still have to run the instructions for Debian/Ubuntu as mentioned above first.

If the Pi uses the legacy/Broadcom driver, install the libraspberry-dev package before running cmake to configure the build.

On the Pi 4 specifically, since the legacy GL drivers are not supported anymore, you must use the following command in place of the cmake command:

cmake -DUSE_MESA_GLES=On .

On Windows:

FreeImage

FreeType2 (you'll need to compile)

SDL2

cURL (you'll need to compile or get the pre-compiled DLL version)

RapisJSON (you'll need the include/rapidsjon added to the include path)

SDL Mixer

LibVlc (x86 sdk files are present in .7z files)

CMake (this is used for generating the Visual Studio project)

set ES_LIB_DIR=c:\src\lib

mkdir c:\src\batocera-emulationstation\build
cd c:\src\batocera-emulationstation\build /D

cmake -g "Visual Studio 14 2015 x86" .. -DEIGEN3_INCLUDE_DIR=%ES_LIB_DIR%\eigen -DRAPIDJSON_INCLUDE_DIRS=%ES_LIB_DIR%\rapidjson\include -DFREETYPE_INCLUDE_DIRS=%ES_LIB_DIR%\freetype-2.7\include -DFREETYPE_LIBRARY=%ES_LIB_DIR%\freetype-2.7\objs\vc2010\Win32\freetype27.lib -DFreeImage_INCLUDE_DIR=%ES_LIB_DIR%\FreeImage\Source -DFreeImage_LIBRARY=%ES_LIB_DIR%\FreeImage\Dist\x32\FreeImage.lib -DSDL2_INCLUDE_DIR=%ES_LIB_DIR%\SDL2-2.0.9\include -DSDL2_LIBRARY=%ES_LIB_DIR%\SDL2-2.0.9\build\Release\SDL2.lib;%ES_LIB_DIR%\SDL2-2.0.9\build\Release\SDL2main.lib;Imm32.lib;version.lib -DBOOST_ROOT=%ES_LIB_DIR%\boost_1_61_0 -DBoost_LIBRARY_DIR=%ES_LIB_DIR%\boost_1_61_0\lib32-msvc-14.0 -DCURL_INCLUDE_DIR=%ES_LIB_DIR%\curl-7.50.3\include -DCURL_LIBRARY=%ES_LIB_DIR%\curl-7.50.3\builds\libcurl-vc14-x86-release-dll-ipv6-sspi-winssl\lib\libcurl.lib -DVLC_INCLUDE_DIR=%ES_LIB_DIR%\libvlc-2.2.2\include -DVLC_LIBRARIES=%ES_LIB_DIR%\libvlc-2.2.2\lib\msvc\libvlc.lib;%ES_LIB_DIR%\libvlc-2.2.2\lib\msvc\libvlccore.lib -DVLC_VERSION=1.0.0 -DSDLMIXER_INCLUDE_DIR=%ES_LIB_DIR%\SDL2_mixer-2.0.4\include -DSDLMIXER_LIBRARY=%ES_LIB_DIR%\SDL2_mixer-2.0.4\lib\x86\SDL2_mixer.lib

~/.emulationstation/es_systems.cfg: When first run, an example systems configuration file will be created at ~/.emulationstation/es_systems.cfg. ~ is $HOME on Linux, and %HOMEPATH% on Windows. This example has some comments explaining how to write the configuration file. See the "Writing an es_systems.cfg" section for more information.

Keep in mind you'll have to set up your emulator separately from EmulationStation!

~/.emulationstation/es_input.cfg: When you first start EmulationStation, you will be prompted to configure an input device. The process is thus:

1. Hold a button on the device you want to configure. This includes the keyboard.

2. Press the buttons as they appear in the list. Some inputs can be skipped by holding any button down for a few seconds (e.g. page up/page down).

3. You can review your mappings by pressing up and down, making any changes by pressing A.

4. Choose "SAVE" to save this device and close the input configuration screen.

The new configuration will be added to the ~/.emulationstation/es_input.cfg file.

Both new and old devices can be (re)configured at any time by pressing the Start button and choosing "CONFIGURE INPUT". From here, you may unplug the device you used to open the menu and plug in a new one, if necessary. New devices will be appended to the existing input configuration file, so your old devices will remain configured.

If your controller stops working, you can delete the ~/.emulationstation/es_input.cfg file to make the input configuration screen re-appear on next run.

You can use --help or -h to view a list of command-line options. Briefly outlined here:

--resolution [width] [height]   try and force a particular resolution
--gamelist-only                 skip automatic game search, only read from gamelist.xml
--ignore-gamelist               ignore the gamelist (useful for troubleshooting)
--draw-framerate                display the framerate
--no-exit                       don't show the exit option in the menu
--no-splash                     don't show the splash screen
--debug                         more logging, show console on Windows
--scrape                        scrape using command line interface
--windowed                      not fullscreen, should be used with --resolution
--fullscreen-borderless			fullscreen, non exclusive.
--vsync [1/on or 0/off]         turn vsync on or off (default is on)
--max-vram [size]               Max VRAM to use in Mb before swapping. 0 for unlimited
--force-kid             		Force the UI mode to be Kid
--force-kiosk           		Force the UI mode to be Kiosk
--force-disable-filters         Force the UI to ignore applied filters in gamelist
--home							Force the .emulationstation folder (windows)
--help, -h                      summon a sentient, angry tuba

As long as ES hasn't frozen, you can always press F4 to close the application.

Complete configuration instructions at emulationstation.org.

The es_systems.cfg file contains the system configuration data for EmulationStation, written in XML. This tells EmulationStation what systems you have, what platform they correspond to (for scraping), and where the games are located.

ES will check two places for an es_systems.cfg file, in the following order, stopping after it finds one that works:

• ~/.emulationstation/es_systems.cfg
• /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg

The order EmulationStation displays systems reflects the order you define them in.

NOTE: A system must have at least one game present in its "path" directory, or ES will ignore it! If no valid systems are found, ES will report an error and quit!

See SYSTEMS.md for some live examples in EmulationStation.

The following "tags" are replaced by ES in launch commands:

%ROM% - Replaced with absolute path to the selected ROM, with most Bash special characters escaped with a backslash.

%BASENAME% - Replaced with the "base" name of the path to the selected ROM. For example, a path of "/foo/bar.rom", this tag would be "bar". This tag is useful for setting up AdvanceMAME.

%ROM_RAW% - Replaced with the unescaped, absolute path to the selected ROM. If your emulator is picky about paths, you might want to use this instead of %ROM%, but enclosed in quotes.

%HOME% - Replaced with the home folder.

%SYSTEM% - Replaced with the current selected system name.

%EMULATOR% - Replaced with the current selected emulator.

%CORE% - Replaced with the current selected core.

The gamelist.xml file for a system defines metadata for games, such as a name, image (like a screenshot or box art), description, release date, and rating.

If at least one game in a system has an image specified, ES will use the detailed view for that system (which displays metadata alongside the game list).

You can use ES's scraping tools to avoid creating a gamelist.xml by hand. There are two ways to run the scraper:

• If you want to scrape multiple games: press start to open the menu and choose the "SCRAPER" option. Adjust your settings and press "SCRAPE NOW".
• If you just want to scrape one game: find the game on the game list in ES and press select. Choose "EDIT THIS GAME'S METADATA" and then press the "SCRAPE" button at the bottom of the metadata editor.

You can also edit metadata within ES by using the metadata editor - just find the game you wish to edit on the gamelist, press Select, and choose "EDIT THIS GAME'S METADATA."

A command-line version of the scraper is also provided - just run emulationstation with --scrape (currently broken).

The switch --ignore-gamelist can be used to ignore the gamelist and force ES to use the non-detailed view.

If you're writing a tool to generate or parse gamelist.xml files, you should check out GAMELISTS.md for more detailed documentation.

By default, EmulationStation looks pretty ugly. You can fix that. If you want to know more about making your own themes (or editing existing ones), read THEMES.md!