Free Android emulator · v1.01
DroidGameBox is a free game library for Android with the emulators built in. It plays 42 retro systems itself, with nothing else to install, and shows your games as one shelf with box art, descriptions and favourites. It has touch controls for a phone and uses a handheld's own buttons when it has them.
Press start
The system screen, then a few of the systems it plays, filmed from the app itself. The music is made for the reel.
Filmed from the app itself, running on an Android emulator.
Power-ups
It started as a front end for a handheld and grew into something that works as well on a phone: the same shelves, the same emulators, whichever way up you hold it.
42 systems play inside the app, on the emulators the retro community trusts: FCEUmm, Snes9x, mGBA, Genesis Plus GX, PCSX ReARMed, PPSSPP, Flycast, Mupen64Plus-Next and more. There are no cores to download and nothing else to set up.
With no controller, each system gets on-screen controls shaped for it: a D-pad and the right buttons, a stick for the Nintendo 64, a rolling ball for the arcade games that had a trackball. Connect a controller and they step away; a touch brings them back.
Hold the phone upright and the whole app turns with it, whether or not Android's own rotation is locked: the picture goes across the top, the controls sit underneath. A handheld's own buttons work as they are.
Box art, 3D boxes or screenshots; year, players, developer, genre and a description, fetched from ScreenScraper and the libretro thumbnails. Favourites, playlists of your own and a Last Played shelf put you back in the game.
The game menu (Back, or Select and Start held together) saves a checkpoint with a picture of the moment and loads it later. Where a system's state is quick enough to save between two frames it also rewinds: a moment is kept every 15 seconds, for the last 15 minutes.
A start-up wizard asks where your games, pictures, saves and library live. Put all four on one SD card and the card carries your favourites and playlists to another phone or handheld that uses it.
A shelf for the games already installed on the phone, with their own icons, updated as you install and remove them, so the shelf is the one place to start from.
Each system, or each game, can use RetroArch's cores or hand the game to an emulator app you already have: PPSSPP, DuckStation, ePSXe, Yaba Sanshiro 2, Reicast, redream or, for the GameCube, Dolphin.
Sign in to retroachievements.org in Settings and the achievements for supported games appear in the game as cards. They count as softcore.
Screens
All taken from the app itself, on a phone-shaped screen held upright.
Built in
Each plays in the app itself. Your games go in a folder per system, named as ES-DE names them, and a system with no games doesn't appear. The GameCube is played by the Dolphin app, if you have it.
DroidGameBox contains no games and no BIOS files, apart from the few their owners allow to be passed on (Amstrad's ZX Spectrum and CPC ROMs, and the Commodore 64's). Systems that need a BIOS use files you supply. System names and logos are trademarks of their respective owners.
How to start
It isn't on Google Play, which restricts the file access it needs, so you install the APK yourself. That takes a minute and leaves nothing behind.
Save DroidGameBox-1.01.apk (76 MB) to your phone, or save it on a computer and copy it across.
Open the file. Android asks whether to let the app you opened it from (your browser or your file manager) install apps: allow it for this install. Android may also offer to scan the app first; that is fine.
On first start DroidGameBox asks for All files access, which is how it reads a ROM folder on the phone or an SD card directly. Its first screen opens the setting: switch it on, then come back.
The wizard asks four things: where the games are, and where to keep pictures, saves and the library. If you have an SD card it suggests a GameBox folder on the card, so everything travels with it.
Copy your games into a folder for each system (nes, snes, psx and so on) and the library finds them. A few systems, such as the Saturn and the Neo Geo, need BIOS files from the real machine: put them in a folder called BIOS in or beside your ROM folder (RetroArch's system folder is found too), or choose a folder in Settings. The BIOS Files page says what is missing.
Download the newer APK and install it over this one: your folders, favourites and playlists stay.
Does it run on mine?
Each Android version on an emulator, and a real phone: the app installed, set up, scanned and played, a game of each kind of emulator.
| Android | Device | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Android 11 API 30 | Android Emulator on a Mac (arm64) | ✓ All 37 checks passed 21 games, one or more of each kind of emulator |
| Android 12 API 31 | Android Emulator on a Mac (arm64) | ✓ All 37 checks passed 21 games, one or more of each kind of emulator |
| Android 13 API 33 | Android Emulator on a Mac (arm64) | ✓ All 37 checks passed 21 games, one or more of each kind of emulator |
| Android 14 API 34 | Android Emulator on a Mac (arm64) | ✓ All 37 checks passed 21 games, one or more of each kind of emulator |
| Android 15 API 35 | Samsung Galaxy A05s 5.6 GB | ✓ All 27 checks passed 21 games, one or more of each kind of emulator |
| Android 16 API 36 | Android Emulator on a Mac (arm64) | ✓ All 39 checks passed 21 games, one or more of each kind of emulator |
| Android 16 API 36, 16 KB pages | Android Emulator on a Mac (arm64) | ✓ All 39 checks passed 21 games, one or more of each kind of emulator |
On each emulator: a fresh install of this APK, its first-run screens and the start-up wizard, a scan of a small library, then 21 games chosen so that each kind of emulator ran (the interpreters and recompilers, the 3D consoles, the home computers, the arcade boards), the game menu, a turn to landscape and back, Home and back, Settings and the Android Games shelf. The games were started by a build of the same code with a few test hooks, installed over the APK.
The Samsung Galaxy A05s is a real phone (Android 15, a Snapdragon 680): the same code, updated in place on a phone that was already set up, with its own library on an SD card. Speed depends on the device. The emulator rows say that the app installs, starts and plays on that version of Android, not how fast: an emulator on a Mac is faster or slower than any phone.
Questions
No. DroidGameBox is a library and a player: it finds, shows and plays games you already have. It contains no ROMs or disc images and links to none. Some systems need BIOS files from the real machine, which you supply.
Yes: free, with no account, no ads and no paid tier, and it stays that way. Several of the emulators inside it are licensed for free, non-commercial use only, which is one reason it is never sold.
For one thing, it reads your game folders directly, which Android calls "All files access", and Google Play restricts that permission to a few kinds of app, such as file managers and backup tools. So you download the APK here and install it yourself. It is signed with its own key, and a newer APK signed with the same key installs over it.
Anything running Android 11 or later on a 64-bit ARM processor. The table above lists the Android versions it was tried on, and a real phone, Samsung Galaxy A05s; it was made on a Retroid Pocket 3, an Android 11 handheld. How fast a system runs depends on the device: see the next question.
The PlayStation 2. It is built in, but on a Samsung Galaxy A05s (a budget phone with a Snapdragon 680) it draws correctly at about 15 frames a second, and on a Retroid Pocket 3 its pictures come out scrambled, so treat it as a feature for a stronger phone. Everything else tried on those two, the PlayStation, the PSP, the Nintendo 64 and the Dreamcast among it, ran at the speed of the real machine, bar one Saturn game on the Retroid Pocket 3 that runs a little slow.
The GameCube isn't emulated inside DroidGameBox. If you have the Dolphin app installed, the GameCube shelf hands your games to it. Dolphin needs a fast device.
No: the emulators are inside the app. If you do have RetroArch you can choose its cores for any system, in Settings ▸ Emulators, or for a single game from its Options.
Yes: that is what the start-up wizard is for. Put the games, the pictures, the saves and the GameBox data folder on the card. The data folder keeps a copy of your library, with favourites, playlists and what you played last, which another device using the same card picks up. Your logins are never written to the card.
There is no analytics, no advertising and no tracking. It reaches the internet only to fetch pictures and details for your games (libretro's thumbnail server and ScreenScraper) and, if you sign in, to RetroAchievements. The privacy page lists them.
The emulators inside it are other people's projects, each under its own licence, which the list below gives with where to find its source; the licence texts are also in the app, under Settings ▸ Credits. Several of those licences allow free, non-commercial use only, which is why DroidGameBox is never sold.
Compare its SHA-256 checksum with the one beside the download button. On Android, a file manager or a checksum app can show it.
DroidGameBox v1.01 for Android. Free, and staying that way.
Built on others' work · licences
Every emulator in DroidGameBox is somebody else's project. Each is used under its own licence, and where that licence asks for it, its source is available from the address shown. The licence texts are in the app, under Settings ▸ Credits.
| Part | What it does here | Made by | Licence | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stella | The Atari 2600 | Bradford W. Mott, Stephen Anthony and the Stella Team | GPL 2 | github.com/stella-emu/stella |
| FCEUmm | The NES | The FCE Ultra and FCEUmm authors, and libretro | GPL 2 | github.com/libretro/libretro-fceumm |
| Snes9x 1.63 | The Super Nintendo | Gary Henderson, Jerremy Koot and the Snes9x team | Snes9x licence, not for sale | github.com/snes9xgit/snes9x |
| Mupen64Plus-Next | The Nintendo 64, drawn by GLideN64 with OpenGL ES 3 | The Mupen64Plus and GLideN64 authors, and libretro | GPL 2 | github.com/libretro/mupen64plus-libretro-nx |
| Genesis Plus GX | The Mega Drive, the Mega-CD and the Master System | Charles MacDonald and Eke-Eke | Genesis Plus GX licence, not for sale | github.com/ekeeke/Genesis-Plus-GX |
| Gambatte | The Game Boy Color | Sindre Aamås, and libretro | GPL 2 | github.com/libretro/gambatte-libretro |
| mGBA | The Game Boy (a Super Game Boy game in its own colours and border, the Game Boy Color's palettes for the rest) and the Game Boy Advance | Vicki Pfau and the mGBA contributors | Mozilla Public License 2.0 | mgba.io |
| FinalBurn Neo | The Neo Geo and Capcom's CPS-1, CPS-2 and CPS-3 | The FinalBurn Neo team, after Final Burn and MAME | FB Neo licence, not for sale | github.com/finalburnneo/FBNeo |
| Beetle WonderSwan | The WonderSwan and the WonderSwan Color | The Mednafen authors (after Cygne by Dox), and libretro | GPL 2 | github.com/libretro/beetle-wswan-libretro |
| VICE | The Commodore 64 (with its ROMs, as VICE has them) | The VICE Team, and libretro | GPL 2 | github.com/libretro/vice-libretro |
| Play! | The PlayStation 2, its processors recompiled for the device's own (with its fixes for particular games) | Jean-Philip Desjardins and the Play! team | BSD 2-Clause | purei.org |
| PPSSPP | The PSP, its processor recompiled for the device's own (with its fonts and game fixes, and FFmpeg for its video and sound) | Henrik Rydgård and the PPSSPP team | GPL 2 or later; FFmpeg LGPL 2.1 | ppsspp.org |
| PCSX ReARMed | The PlayStation, its processor recompiled for the device's own | notaz, Exophase and the PCSX ReARMed team, after PCSX-Reloaded | GPL 2 | github.com/libretro/pcsx_rearmed |
| Flycast | The Sega Dreamcast, its SH-4 recompiled for the device's own processor | flyinghead and the Flycast team, after Reicast and nullDC | GPL 2 | github.com/flyinghead/flycast |
| YabaSanshiro | The Sega Saturn, its SH-2s recompiled for the device's own processor | devMiyax (Yaba Sanshiro), the Yabause team, and libretro | GPL 2 | github.com/libretro/yabause |
| Caprice32 | The Amstrad CPC (with its ROMs, which Amstrad lets emulators carry) | Ulrich Doewich and the Caprice32 team, David Colmenero (its libretro port) | GPL 2; the port not for sale | github.com/libretro/libretro-cap32 |
| PUAE | The Amiga 500, Amiga 1200 and CD32 (with WHDLoad by Bert Jahn, as PUAE has it) | The UAE and WinUAE authors (Toni Wilen), the PUAE team, and libretro | GPL 2 | github.com/libretro/libretro-uae |
| Fuse | The ZX Spectrum 48K and 128K (with their ROMs, which Amstrad lets emulators carry); its keyboard by touch | Philip Kendall and the Fuse contributors, and libretro | GPL 3 | github.com/libretro/fuse-libretro |
| ScummVM | The point-and-click adventures (its libretro core, the lite engines: SCUMM, AGI, SCI, Sky, Tinsel, Broken Sword, Kyrandia and the rest), played by touch | The ScummVM Team | GPL 3 | scummvm.org |
| PX68k | The Sharp X68000 | Kenjo (Keropi), hissorii, and libretro | GPL 2 | github.com/libretro/px68k-libretro |
| PicoDrive | The Sega 32X, its two SH-2s recompiled for the device's own processor | notaz, irixxxx and the PicoDrive contributors | PicoDrive licence, not for sale | github.com/libretro/picodrive |
| Beetle VB | The Virtual Boy | The Mednafen authors, and libretro | GPL 2 | github.com/libretro/beetle-vb-libretro |
| Beetle SuperGrafx | The SuperGrafx | The Mednafen authors, and libretro | GPL 2 | github.com/libretro/beetle-supergrafx-libretro |
| Beetle NeoPop | The Neo Geo Pocket and Neo Geo Pocket Color | The Mednafen authors (after NeoPop by neopop_uk), and libretro | GPL 2 | github.com/libretro/beetle-ngp-libretro |
| Handy | The Atari Lynx | K. Wilkins, and libretro | zlib licence | github.com/libretro/libretro-handy |
| ProSystem | The Atari 7800 | Greg Stanton, and libretro | GPL 2 | github.com/libretro/prosystem-libretro |
| a5200 | The Atari 5200, with Altirra's 5200 OS where there is no BIOS | The Atari800 and a5200 authors, and libretro | GPL 2 | github.com/libretro/a5200 |
| Gearcoleco | The ColecoVision | Ignacio Sanchez (drhelius) | GPL 3 | github.com/drhelius/Gearcoleco |
| MAME 2003-Plus | Arcade games (MAME 0.78 and what was added to it since) | Nicola Salmoria and the MAME Team, the libretro MAME 2003 and MAME 2003-Plus teams | MAME non-commercial licence | github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro |
| gw-libretro | The Game & Watch and the other LCD handhelds (MADrigal's simulators, converted to Lua); its buttons found on the picture as Mac GameBox finds them | Andre Leiradella, with Lua (Lua.org, PUC-Rio) and bzip2 (Julian Seward) | zlib licence; Lua MIT; bzip2's own | github.com/libretro/gw-libretro |
| FreeIntv | The Intellivision | David Richardson, and libretro | GPL 2 | github.com/libretro/FreeIntv |
| vecx | The Vectrex, drawn with OpenGL ES | Valavan Manohararajah, and libretro | GPL 3 | github.com/libretro/libretro-vecx |
| zepto8 and z8lua | PICO-8, as Mac GameBox plays it (its fixes and its host, behind libretro here) | Sam Hocevar; Lua by Lua.org, PUC-Rio; eris by Florian Nuecke | WTFPL; Lua and eris MIT | github.com/samhocevar/zepto8 |
| rcheevos 12.5 | RetroAchievements: finds a game's achievements and checks them as you play | RetroAchievements.org | MIT | github.com/RetroAchievements/rcheevos |
| libretro | How DroidGameBox talks to the emulators (libretro.h) | The RetroArch team | MIT | libretro.com |
| Jetpack Compose, AndroidX and Kotlin | The app's screens | Google and JetBrains | Apache 2.0 | developer.android.com/jetpack kotlinlang.org |
| No-Intro and Redump, through libretro-database | The games' names, found by each game's checksum or file name (the Neo Geo's and Capcom's come from FinalBurn Neo, the arcade's from MAME 2003-Plus's database) | No-Intro, Redump and libretro | Their terms | github.com/libretro/libretro-database |
| libretro thumbnails | Box art, title screens and screenshots | The libretro thumbnails contributors | Their terms | thumbnails.libretro.com |
| ScreenScraper | Descriptions, ratings, dates, developers, publishers, genres, players, 3D boxes and the systems' backgrounds | ScreenScraper and its contributors | Their terms | screenscraper.fr |
| RetroAchievements | The achievements and their badges | RetroAchievements.org and its developers | Their terms | retroachievements.org |
| GameBox | The system logos, the period looks and the achievement sounds | Mac GameBox | — | macgamebox.com |
Some of these were changed to fit DroidGameBox. For the source of any of them as it is built into this APK, changes included, write to bhprojects.help@gmail.com: it will be sent, for at least three years from the date of the version, to anyone who asks.
DroidGameBox