Retroarch

RetroArch is a free and open-source, cross-platform frontend for emulators, game engines, video games, media players and other applications. It is the reference implementation of the libretro API, designed to be fast, lightweight, portable and without dependencies. It is licensed under the GNU GPLv3.

RetroArch runs programs converted into dynamic libraries called libretro cores, using several user interfaces such as command-line interface, a few graphical user interfaces (GUI) optimized for gamepads (the most famous one being called XMB, a clone of Sony’s XMB), several input, audio and video drivers, plus other sophisticated features like dynamic rate control, audio filters, multi-pass shaders, netplay, gameplay rewinding, cheats, etc.

RetroArch has been ported to many platforms. It can run on several PC operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux), home consoles (PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Wii U, PlayStation 2 etc.), handheld consoles (PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch, etc.), on smartphones (Android, iOS, etc.), single-board computers (Raspberry Pi, ODROID, etc.) and even on web browsers by using the Emscripten compiler.

MAME

MAME (formerly an acronym of Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is a free and open-source emulator designed to recreate the hardware of arcade game systems in software on modern personal computers and other platforms. Its intention is to preserve gaming history by preventing vintage games from being lost or forgotten. It does this by emulating the inner workings of the emulated arcade machines; the ability to actually play the games is considered “a nice side effect”. Joystiq has listed MAME as an application that every Windows and Mac gamer should have.

The first public MAME release was by Nicola Salmoria on 5 February 1997. It now supports over 7,000 unique games and 10,000 actual ROM image sets,[citation needed] though not all of the games are playable. MESS, an emulator for many video game consoles and computer systems, based on the MAME core, was integrated into MAME in 2015.

With OTVDM (WineVDM) a version of MAME is available to emulate 16-Bit DOS and Windows applications on x64 and AArch64 versions of Windows. The NTVDM from Microsoft is only supported for the 32-bit versions of Windows.