ES-DE/USERGUIDE.md

EmulationStation Desktop Edition - User Guide

Note: This document is intended as a quick start guide, for more in-depth information and details on how to compile EmulationStation and perform more advanced configuration, please refer to the INSTALL.md document.

Note: Currently under construction!

[[TOC]]

Getting started

Getting started with EmulationStation is very easy, just make sure to install the software properly, either manually as built from source code or using one of the supplied packages. On Windows you'll use the installer instead of a package.

The installation procedure will not be covered here as it differs between operating system, so please refer to your operating system documentation for information regarding this topic. EmulationStation Desktop Edition is currently supplied as .deb and .rpm packages for Linux and as a standard NSIS installer for Windows.

The following operating systems have been tested:

• Kubuntu 20.04
• Windows 10 (x86)
• Windows 8.1 (x86)

Upon first startup, ES will create its home directory, by default the location is ~/.emulationstation.

On Unix this defaults to /home//.emulationstation/ and on Windows it defaults to C:\Users<username>.emulationstation\

A settings file, es_settings.cfg will be generated with all the default settings, and a es_systems.cfg file will also be copied from the program resource folder. This file contains the game ROM and emulator settings and can be modified if needed. For information on how to do this, refer to the INSTALL.md document.

There's a log file in the home directory as well named es_log.txt, please refer to this in case of any errors as it should provide information on what went wrong.

Upon startup with the default settings, ES is set to the gamelist view style AUTOMATIC. In this mode the application will look for any game media files (videos and images) and set the view style accordingly. If at least one image is found for any game for a certain system, the view style DETAILED will be shown, and if at least one video file is found, the view style VIDEO will be selected. The gamelist view styles are described in more detail later in this document.

Main screen

When starting EmulationStation with the default settings, you will see the main screen first. From here you can navigate your game systems and enter their respective gamelists. If there are no game systems installed, you will not see this screen but rather an error message will be displayed, informing you that no games could be found.

Depending on the theme, the system navigation carousel can be horizontal or vertical. The default theme rbsimple-DE provides horizontal navigation, i.e. you browse your systems be scrolling left or right.

Help system and general navigation

There is a help system available throughout the application that provides an overview of the possible actions and buttons that can be used. It's possible to disable the help system, but it's enabled by default.

Gamelist view

The gamelist is where you browse and start the games, and it's where you will spend most of your time when using ES.

Main menu

This menu can be accessed from both the main screen and from the gamelist views. It contains the scraper, the quit menu as well as the application settings.

For a breakdown of all the settings in the main menu, see the reference section lower in this document.

Game options menu

This menu is opened from the gamelists, and can't be accessed directly from the main screen. The menu changes slightly depending on the context, namely whether a game file or a folder is selected, and whether the current system is a collection or a normal game platform.

You open this menu by pressing the Select key.

Here's a summary of the menu entries:

JUMP TO..

This provides the ability to quick jump to a certain letter. If the setting to sort favorite games above non-favorites has been selected (it is enabled by default), then it's also possible to jump to the favorites games by choosing the star symbol.

SORT GAMES BY

This is the sort order for the gamelist. There's is a global sort order setting that can be changed in the main menu, and it's this sort order that is also shown here unless it's been modified during the program sessions. The sort order is persistent per game system throughout the program session.

FILTER GAMELIST

Choosing this entry opens a separate screen where it's possible to apply a filter for the gamelists, which is persistent throughout the program session, or until the filter is reset. The option to reset the filter is also shown on the separate screen.

EDIT THIS GAME'S METADATA / EDIT THIS FOLDER'S METADATA

This opens the metadata editor, which will be described in detail below.

ADD/REMOVE GAMES TO THIS GAME COLLECTION

This is only shown if the system is a collection. This will also be described in more detail below.

Metadata editor

In the metadata editor, you can modify the metadata for a game, scrape for game info and media files and delete media files or the entire game.

The following entries can be modified:

NAME

This is the game that will be shown when browsing the gamelist. If no sortname has been defined, the games are sorted using this field.

SORTNAME

This entry makes it possible to change the sorting of a game without having to change its name. For instance it can be used to sort Mille Miglia as 1000 Miglia or The Punisher as Punisher, The.

DESCRIPTION

Usually provided by the scraper although it's possible to update this manually or write your own game description.

RATING

Ratings in half-star increments. Can be set as such manually or be scraped, if the scraper service provides ratings (currently only ScreenScraper does).

RELEASE DATE

Release date in ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DD).

DEVELOPER

Developer of the game.

PUBLISHER

Publisher of the game.

GENRE

One or multiple genres for the game.

PLAYERS

The amount of players the game supports.

FAVORITE

A flag to indicate whether this is a favorite. Can also be set directly from the gamelist by using the Y key.

COMPLETED

A flag to indicate whether you have completed this game.

BROKEN/NOT WORKING

A flag to indicate whether the game is broken. Useful for MAME games for instance where future releases may make the game functional.

HIDDEN

A flag to indicate the game is hidden. If the corresponding option has been set on the main menu, the game will not be shown. Useful for examle for DOS games to hide batch scripts, configuration tools etc.

KIDGAME

A flag to mark whether the game is suitable for children. This will be applied as a filter when starting ES in 'Kid mode'.

COUNT AS GAME

A flag to indicate whether the game should be counted. It's only used for the game system counter on the main screen, but is quite useful for multi-file games such multi-disk Amiga or Commodore 64 games, or for DOS games configuration executables that you want to keep in ES and therefore can't hide.

LAUNCH COMMAND

Here you can override the launch command for the game, for example to use a different emulator than the default for the game system. Very useful for MAME/arcade games.

PLAY COUNT

A statistics counter that counts how many times you're played the game. You normally don't need to touch this, but if you want to, the possibility is there.

Scraper

The scraper supports downloading of game metadata and media files from the Internet. Currently two scraper services are supported, ScreenScraper.fr and TheGamesDB.net.

Getting your games into EmulationStation

For most systems, this is very straightforward, just put your game files into the folder corresponding to the system name. These names can be found in the end of this document.

Reference information

Main menu entries

SCRAPER

SCRAPE FROM

FILTER

SYSTEMS

CONTENT SETTINGS

SCRAPE GAME NAMES

SCRAPE RATINGS

SCRAPE OTHER METADATA

SCRAPE SCREENSHOT IMAGES

SCRAPE BOX COVER IMAGES

SCRAPE MARQUEE (WHEEL) IMAGES

SCRAPE 3D BOX IMAGES

OTHER SETTINGS

REGION

LANGUAGE

OVERWRITE FILES AND DATA

INTERACTIVE MODE

AUTO-ACCEPT SINGLE GAME MATCHES

UI SETTINGS

GAMELIST TO SHOW ON STARTUP

GAMELIST VIEW STYLE

TRANSITION STYLE

THEME SET

UI MODE

DEFAULT SORT ORDER

SORT FOLDERS ON TOP OF GAMELISTS

SORT FAVORITE GAMES ABOVE NON-FAVORITES

GAMELIST FILTERS

QUICK SYSTEM SELECT

CAROUSEL TRANSITIONS

ON-SCREEN HELP

SHOW START MENU IN KID MODE

SCREENSAVER SETTINGS

SCREENSAVER AFTER

SCREENSAVER CONTROLS

SCREENSAVER BEHAVIOR

VIDEO SCRENSAVER SETTINGS

SWAP VIDEOS AFTER (SECS)

STRETCH VIDEOS TO SCREEN RESOLUTION

PLAY AUDIO FOR SCREENSAVER VIDEO FILES

SLIDESHOW SCREENSAVER SETTINGS

SWAP IMAGES AFTER (SECS)

STRETCH IMAGES TO SCREEN RESOLUTION

BACKGROUND AUDIO

USE CUSTOM IMAGES

CUSTOM IMAGE DIR

CUSTOM IMAGE DIR RECURSIVE

CUSTOM IMAGE FILTER

SOUND SETTINGS

SYSTEM VOLUME

PLAY AUDIO FOR VIDEO FILES IN GAMELIST VIEWS

NAVIGATION SOUNDS

GAME COLLECTION SETTINGS

AUTOMATIC GAME COLLECTIONS

CUSTOM GAME COLLECTIONS

CREATE NEW CUSTOM COLLECTION FROM THEME

CREATE NEW CUSTOM COLLECTION

SORT FAVORITES ON TOP FOR CUSTOM COLLECTIONS

GROUP UNTHEMED CUSTOM COLLECTIONS

SHOW SYSTEM NAMES IN COLLECTIONS

OTHER SETTINGS

VRAM LIMIT

FULLSCREEN MODE (REQUIRES RESTART)

POWER SAVER MODES

WHEN TO SAVE METADATA

GAME MEDIA DIRECTORY

PER GAME LAUNCH COMMAND OVERRIDE

SHOW HIDDEN FILES AND FOLDERS (REQUIRES RESTART)

SHOW HIDDEN GAMES (REQUIRES RESTART)

CUSTOM EVENT SCRIPTS

ONLY SHOW ROMS FROM GAMELIST.XML FILES

DISPLAY GAME ART FROM ROM DIRECTORIES

SHOW FRAMERATE

SHOW "REBOOT SYSTEM" MENU ENTRY

SHOW "POWER OFF SYSTEM" MENU ENTRY

CONFIGURE INPUT

QUIT

QUIT EMULATIONSTATION

REBOOT SYSTEM

POWER OFF SYSTEM

Supported game systems

Here is the list of supported game systems:

Platform Name	Full Name	Recommmended game setup
3do	3DO
ags	Adventure Game Studio
amiga	Amiga	.hdf WHDLoad harddisk images or .adf disk images
amiga600	Amiga 600	.hdf WHDLoad harddisk images or .adf disk images
amiga1200	Amiga 1200
amstradcpc	Amstrad CPC
apple2	Apple II
arcade	Arcade
astrocade	Bally Astrocade
atari2600	Atari 2600
atari5200	Atari 5200
atari7800	Atari 7800 ProSystem
atari800	Atari 800
atarijaguar	Atari Jaguar
atarijaguarcd	Atari Jaguar CD
atarilynx	Atari Lynx
atarist	Atari ST
atarixe	Atari XE

bbcmicro BBC Micro c64 Commodore 64 cavestory Cave Story (NXEngine) channelf Fairchild Channel F coco Tandy Color Computer coleco ColecoVision daphne Daphne Arcade Laserdisc Emulator doom Doom dos DOS (PC) dragon32 Dragon 32 dreamcast Sega Dreamcast famicom Nintendo Family Computer fba Final Burn Alpha fbneo FinalBurn Neo fds Famicom Disk System gameandwatch Nintendo Game and Watch gamegear Sega Gamegear gamecube Nintendo GameCube gb Game Boy gba Game Boy Advance gbc Game Boy Color genesis Sega Genesis intellivision Mattel Electronics Intellivision chailove ChaiLove game engine lutro Lutro game engine macintosh Apple Macintosh mame Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator mame-advmame AdvanceMAME mame-libretro Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator mame-mame4all MAME4ALL mastersystem Sega Master System megadrive Sega Mega Drive mess Multi Emulator Super System moonlight Moonlight game streaming msx MSX msx1 MSX1 msx2 MSX2 n64 Nintendo 64 nds Nintendo DS neogeo Neo Geo nes Nintendo Entertainment System ngp Neo Geo Pocket ngpc Neo Geo Pocket Color odyssey2 Magnavox Odyssey2 openbor OpenBOR game engine oric Tangerine Computer Systems Oric pc IBM PC pcengine NEC PC Engine pcenginecd NEC PC Engine CD pcfx NEC PC-FX ports Ports ps2 Sony PlayStation 2 psp PlayStation Portable psvita PlayStation Vita psx Sony PlayStation 1 residualvm ResidualVM game engine samcoupe SAM Coupé saturn Sega Saturn scummvm ScummVM game engine sega32x Sega 32X segacd Sega Mega-CD sg-1000 Sega SG-1000 snes Super Nintendo solarus Solarus game engine stratagus Stratagus game engine supergrafx NEC SuperGrafx tg16 NEC TurboGrafx-16 tg-cd NEC TurboGrafx-CD ti99 Texas Instruments TI-99 trs-80 Tandy TRS-80 vectrex Vectrex videopac Philips Videopac G7000 (Magnavox Odyssey2) virtualboy Nintendo Virtual Boy wii Nintendo Wii wiiu Nintendo Wii U wonderswan Bandai WonderSwan wonderswancolor Bandai WonderSwan Color x68000 Sharp X68000 xbox Microsoft Xbox xbox360 Microsoft Xbox 360 zmachine Infocom Z-machine zx81 Sinclair ZX81 zxspectrum Sinclair ZX Spectrum