Water
The best emulator for PC
The best emulator for PC depends on the console: PCSX2 for the PS2, DuckStation for the PS1, RPCS3 for the PS3, mGBA for the Game Boy Advance and Dolphin for the GameCube and Wii. They are the ones Water picks. Water, a game launcher for Windows, downloads them and sets them up for you. The tables below give a reason for each, from its makers’ own pages or RetroArch’s guide to its core.
The best PlayStation emulators
These are the emulators Water uses for each PlayStation. A console’s name opens Water’s page for it.
- PS1
- DuckStation. Free. Its makers aim for it to be as accurate as possible while staying fast enough for low-end devices.
- PS2
- PCSX2. Free and open source. Its makers say a significant majority of the PS2’s games are playable.
- PS3
- RPCS3. Free and open source. In September 2026 its compatibility list rated 2,809 of the 3,563 games on it Playable.
- PSP
- PPSSPP. Free and open source. It plays PSP games in full HD or higher.
- PS Vita
- Vita3K. Free and open source; its makers call it the world’s first functional, experimental PlayStation Vita emulator. It plays part of the Vita’s library: Water lists only the games its compatibility list rates Playable, or Ingame+ (far into the game, but with glitches or too slow to play).
Each is made by its own team, and Water isn’t affiliated with any of them.
The best Nintendo and Xbox emulators
Seven of these consoles play in RetroArch, a free, open-source multi-console frontend that runs other teams’ emulators, called cores, with one set of settings for all of them. Water installs it with the core named below for each of those seven.
- NES
- Mesen, in RetroArch. Open source and made for high accuracy. RetroArch’s guide to the core says it supports over 220 cartridge types and every licensed game.
- SNES
- RetroArch’s Super Nintendo core. It emulates the extra chips some cartridges carry, such as the Super FX and the SA-1, in its own code.
- N64
- Mupen64Plus-Next, in RetroArch. Open source: Mupen64Plus kept up to date, with the latest accuracy improvements from Mupen64Plus itself and the GLideN64 renderer.
- Game Boy, Game Boy Color
- Gambatte, in RetroArch. Open source and accuracy-focused, built on hundreds of tests of the real hardware.
- Game Boy Advance
- mGBA, in RetroArch. Open source. Its makers aim for it to be faster and more accurate than many GBA emulators, and it runs full speed even on low-end hardware.
- DS
- melonDS DS, in RetroArch. Open source, a remake of melonDS’s RetroArch core; melonDS aims at fast, accurate DS emulation.
- GameCube, Wii
- Dolphin. Open source since 2008. Its compatibility list rates two in three of its games Perfect and nearly all the rest Playable.
- Xbox
- xemu. Free and open source. It emulates the original Xbox’s hardware itself, which its makers say gives better compatibility.
RetroArch and every core above are made by their own teams, as are Dolphin and xemu; Water isn’t affiliated with any of them.
One app that sets them all up
Each of these is a program of its own, with its own settings, saves folder and controller setup. The first time you install a game for a console, Water downloads its emulator and sets it up:
- The official release, downloaded from its makers and checked before Water uses it.
- Fullscreen, straight into the game, with no setup wizard, welcome screen or update prompt.
- The picture set once, 3D games drawn at a higher resolution than the console’s; after that, every setting is yours to change.
- Saves for each profile, so nobody plays over someone else’s game.
- Your controller mapped: DualShock 4, DualSense or Xbox, with no driver to install. A second controller is player two, except on the handhelds.
What your PC needs
Most of these consoles play on any PC Water runs on: Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. The PS3 asks the most: RPCS3’s makers recommend 6 cores and 12 threads with AVX2, and 16 GB of memory. Water draws PS2, GameCube, Wii and Xbox games at three times their size, which graphics built into the processor may not keep up with.
On an older or weaker PC, see emulators for a low-end PC. Settings › PC Specs in Water compares your PC with each console and says which it plays well.
Try it with one game
Water is a game launcher for Windows that plays these consoles with the emulators above. Your first install is free: Water installs any one game, PC or console, and it stays installed. Press Install: the emulator, the game and your controller are set up by the time you press Play.
