Heronite adds your ROMs to the library with their art: it detects installed emulators and scans your ROM folders. Install the emulators first, from your distribution, Flathub, or their websites. Heronite finds them on PATH, as Flatpaks, and as RetroArch cores.
Supported emulators
| Emulator | Systems |
|---|---|
| RetroArch | Many, through cores (see below) |
| Dolphin | GameCube, Wii |
| PCSX2 | PlayStation 2 |
| DuckStation | PlayStation |
| PPSSPP | PSP |
| RPCS3 | PlayStation 3 |
| shadPS4 | PlayStation 4 |
| Vita3K | PlayStation Vita |
| Cemu | Wii U |
| Ryujinx | Switch |
| Azahar (or Citra) | 3DS |
| melonDS | Nintendo DS |
| mGBA | Game Boy, Game Boy Advance |
| Xemu | Xbox |
| Flycast | Dreamcast |
| MAME | Arcade |
| ScummVM | Adventure games |
| Custom | Any other emulator: give the program and its arguments |
RetroArch cores
Heronite uses these cores by default when RetroArch runs a system.
| System | Core |
|---|---|
| NES | nestopia |
| SNES | snes9x |
| Game Boy | gambatte |
| Game Boy Advance | mgba |
| Nintendo 64 | mupen64plus_next |
| Nintendo DS | melonds |
| Mega Drive, Master System, Game Gear | genesis_plus_gx |
| Saturn | mednafen_saturn |
| Dreamcast | flycast |
| PlayStation | pcsx_rearmed |
| PSP | ppsspp |
| PC Engine | mednafen_pce_fast |
| Neo Geo Pocket | mednafen_ngp |
| WonderSwan | mednafen_wswan |
| Lynx | mednafen_lynx |
| Atari 2600 | stella |
| Arcade | fbneo |
| MAME | mame |
Install cores from RetroArch’s Online Updater. Heronite looks in RetroArch’s cores folder (~/.config/retroarch/cores or %APPDATA%\RetroArch\cores), the Flatpak, and the system libretro folders.
ROM folders
Keep one subfolder per system, for example:
ROMs/
├── snes/
├── psx/
└── gba/On the first start, Heronite scans these folders if they exist:
- Linux (in your home folder):
ROMs,Roms,roms,Emulation/roms,Games/ROMs,Games/Emulation/roms,retrodeck/roms,RetroDECK/roms; andEmulation/roms,roms,retrodeck/romson other disks. - Windows:
ROMs,Emulation\roms,Games\ROMs,Documents\ROMsin your user folder; andEmulation\roms,ROMs,Games\ROMs,RetroArch-Win64\romsat the top of each drive.
Add more folders on the Emulators page (Ctrl 5). Scans skip bios, firmware, saves, states, cheats, system, media, and manuals folders. Heronite reads multi-disc games from .m3u, .cue, and .gdi files, so each one shows up once.
Continue a game from a save state
- Press Play on the game.
- In How do you want to play?, choose a save state.
- Choose Continue.
Heronite asks only when the emulator has save states for the game. To boot normally, choose Start from the beginning; in-game saves on memory cards are kept.
Show RetroAchievements for emulated games
Connect your RetroAchievements account in Settings → Achievements to see your achievements for emulated games.