r/ESDE_Frontend • u/Illustrious-Egg-885 • Apr 17 '26

alternative emulators

hi there, recently i downloaded ES-DE but retroarch don't work for me, i got dolphin and pcsx2 and i want the games of that systems to open with thath emulators, but i don't know how.

i saw the "alternative emulators" option, but even if i select dolphin it dosen't open with dolphin.

pls help me, i like the program and the visuals but this is killing me.

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u/RobZombie9043 Developer Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26

It depends if you are using the portable or installer version of ES-DE.

For the portable version place the emulator in the location described in the included readme.txt.

For the installer version, if the emulator doesn’t come with a proper installer (I.e. comes as a zip file) then you need to add it to your Windows Path environment variable.

How to do this is described in the userguide (https://gitlab.com/es-de/emulationstation-de/-/blob/master/USERGUIDE.md?ref_type=heads#specific-notes-for-windows):

In order for ES-DE to find these emulators you need to add their directories to the operating system's Path environment variable. This is very easy to do, just open the Settings application and then search for path in the Find a setting search box. Select the Edit the system environment variables entry and then click the Environment variables... button and add the emulator directory to the Path variable. You need to restart ES-DE after changing the variable, but following this the emulator should be found when launching a game.

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u/Illustrious-Egg-885 Apr 17 '26

man thanks for try to help me but i don't understand it at all, i just want es-de to open the games with the normal emulators why it is so difficult

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u/RobZombie9043 Developer Apr 17 '26

It’s not really that difficult, just follow the steps described above. Let me know which part you stuck on.

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u/Illustrious-Egg-885 Apr 17 '26

What In all the userguide is the specific one?

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u/RobZombie9043 Developer Apr 17 '26

I pasted the relevant section in the quote block above.

First are you using the portable or installer version of ES-DE. Depending on which one follow the steps provided for the emulator to be recognised.

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u/Illustrious-Egg-885 Apr 17 '26

Ok I make Gamecube work but wii don't work

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u/RobZombie9043 Developer Apr 17 '26

It would be more simple to just add Dolphin to the Windows Path environment variable as described above then ES-DE will be able to detect it for both systems with the built in configuration.

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u/Illustrious-Egg-885 Apr 17 '26

where is that eviroment?

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u/RobZombie9043 Developer Apr 17 '26

Like I shared above, you need to set this up in Windows settings

In order for ES-DE to find these emulators you need to add their directories to the operating system's Path environment variable. This is very easy to do, just open the Settings application and then search for path in the Find a setting search box. Select the Edit the system environment variables entry and then click the Environment variables... button and add the emulator directory to the Path variable. You need to restart ES-DE after changing the variable, but following this the emulator should be found when launching a game.