Fast PlayStation 1 emulator for x86-64/AArch32/AArch64
DuckStation is a high-performance PlayStation 1 emulator designed to deliver accurate and fluid gameplay experiences across modern hardware architectures, including x86-64, AArch32/AArch64, and RISC-V/RV64. Built with a focus on playability and long-term maintainability, DuckStation prioritizes compatibility and performance for both casual users and retro gaming enthusiasts.
Key Features:
Advanced CPU Recompiler: Utilizes JIT compilation for optimized performance across supported architectures.
Versatile Hardware Renderer: Supports multiple APIs including D3D11, D3D12, OpenGL, Vulkan, and Metal for high-quality graphics rendering.
Customizable UI Options: Offers a fully-featured desktop interface built with Qt, as well as a fullscreen/TV mode based on Dear ImGui for immersive gaming experiences.
Enhanced Visual Effects: Includes features like upscaling, texture filtering, true color support, and post-processing shader chains for improved visual fidelity.
Controller Support: Enables the use of digital, analog, and specialized controllers such as GunCon, Justifier lightguns, and NeGcon devices.
Save State Management: Provides runahead and rewind functionality to enhance gameplay flexibility.
Audience & Benefit:
Ideal for retro gaming enthusiasts and PlayStation 1 game collectors seeking an accurate and efficient emulator. DuckStation allows users to relive classic titles with improved visual and performance enhancements while maintaining compatibility across a wide range of hardware configurations. Its support for multiple platforms, including Windows, Linux, and macOS, makes it accessible to a broad audience.
The software is designed to meet the needs of both casual players and advanced users, offering extensive customization options and robust system requirements that ensure smooth operation on modern computing devices.
DuckStation is an simulator/emulator of the Sony PlayStation(TM) console, focusing on playability, speed, and long-term maintainability. The goal is to be as accurate as possible while maintaining performance suitable for low-end devices. "Hack" options are discouraged, the default configuration should support all playable games with only some of the enhancements having compatibility issues.
A PS1 or PS2 "BIOS" ROM image is required to to start the emulator and to play games. You can use an image from any hardware version or region, although mismatching game regions and BIOS regions may have compatibility issues. A ROM image is not provided with the emulator for legal reasons, you should dump this from your own console using Caetla or other means.
Features
DuckStation features a fully-featured frontend built using Qt, as well as a fullscreen/TV UI based on Dear ImGui.
Other features include:
CPU Recompiler/JIT (x86-64, armv7/AArch32, AArch64, RISC-V/RV64).
Hardware renderer supporting D3D11, D3D12, OpenGL, Vulkan and Metal APIs.
Upscaling, texture filtering, and true colour (24-bit) in hardware renderers.
PGXP for geometry precision, texture correction, and depth buffer emulation.
Accurate blending via Rasterizer Order Views/Fragment Shader Interlock.
Screen rotation for vertical or "TATE" shmup games.
Post processing shader chains (GLSL and Reshade FX).
Border overlays/bezels displayed around game content.
"Fast boot" for skipping BIOS splash/intro.
Save state support, with runahead and rewind.
Windows, Linux, macOS support.
Supports reading directly from CD, bin/cue images, raw bin/img files, MAME CHD, single-track ECM, MDS/MDF, and unencrypted PBP formats.
Preloading of disc images to RAM to avoid disk sleeping hitches.
Merging of multi-disc games in game list/grid with memory cards shared between discs.
Automatic loading/applying of PPF patches.
Direct booting of homebrew executables.
Direct loading of Portable Sound Format (psf) files.
Time stretched audio when running outside of 100% speed.
Digital and analog controllers for input (rumble is forwarded to host).
GunCon and Justifier lightgun support (simulated with mouse).
NeGcon support.
Controller presets and per-game configuration.
Qt and "Big Picture" UI.
Automatic updates with preview and latest channels.
Automatic content scanning - game titles/hashes are provided by redump.org.
Optional automatic switching of memory cards for each game.
Supports loading cheats from existing lists.
Memory card editor and save importer.
Emulated CPU overclocking.
Integrated and remote debugging.
Multitap controllers (up to 8 devices).
RetroAchievements.
Discord Rich Presence.
Video capture with Media Foundation (Windows) and FFmpeg (All Platforms) backends.
Free camera function.
Parallel port cartridge emulation.
System Requirements
A CPU faster than a potato. But it needs to be x86_64, AArch32/armv7, AArch64/ARMv8, or RISC-V/RV64.
For the hardware renderers, a GPU capable of OpenGL 3.1/OpenGL ES 3.1/Direct3D 11 Feature Level 10.0 (or Vulkan 1.0) and above. So, basically anything made in the last 10 years or so.
SDL, XInput or DInput compatible game controller (e.g. XB360/XBOne/XBSeries). DualShock 3 users on Windows will need to install the official DualShock 3 drivers included as part of PlayStation Now.
Downloading and running
Binaries of DuckStation for Windows x64/ARM64, Linux x86_64/ARM32/ARM64 (in AppImage format), and macOS Universal Binaries are available via GitHub Releases and are automatically built with every commit/push.
As per the terms of CC-BY-NC-ND, redistribution of unmodified releases and code is permitted. However, we would prefer if you linked to https://www.duckstation.org/ instead. Please note that pre-configured settings and packages are considered modifications.
For x86 machines (most systems), you will need a CPU that supports the SSE4.1 instruction set for the "normal" build. This includes all Intel CPUs manufactured after 2007, and AMD CPUs manufactured after 2011. If you have a CPU that is older, you will need to download the "SSE2" build from the releases page, which has lower performance but still supports these CPUs.
DuckStation requires Windows 10/11, specifically version 1809 or newer. If you are still using Windows 7/8/8.1, DuckStation will not run on your operating system. Running these operating systems in 2023 should be considered a security risk, and I would recommend updating to something which receives vendor support.
If you must use an older operating system, v0.1-5624 is the last version which will run. But do not expect to recieve any assistance, these builds are no longer supported.
To download:
Go to https://github.com/stenzek/duckstation/releases/tag/latest, and download the Windows x64 build. This is a zip archive containing the prebuilt binary. If you have an ARM64 Windows machine such as Snapdragon, download the Windows ARM64 build.
Extract the archive to a subdirectory. The archive has no root subdirectory, so extracting to the current directory will drop a bunch of files in your download directory if you do not extract to a subdirectory.
Once downloaded and extracted, you can launch the emulator with duckstation-qt-x64-ReleaseLTCG.exe. Follow the Setup Wizard to get started.
Run chmod a+x on the downloaded AppImage -- following this step, the AppImage can be run like a typical executable.
Flatpak
Due to various Flatpak limitations and Flathub randomly breaking regularly, the Flatpak package is not recommended. We recommend that you use the AppImage instead.
Use flatpak run org.duckstation.DuckStation to start, or select DuckStation in the launcher of your desktop environment. Follow the Setup Wizard to get started.
As of 2025/07/26, with the aforementioned issues and a lack of interest from users, the Flatpak package is deprecated. Future updates are not guaranteed.
To migrate your data from the Flatpak package to the AppImage, you can run the following command:
Open DuckStation.app, optionally moving it to your desired location first.
Depending on GateKeeper configuration, you may need to right click -> Open the first time you run it, as code signing certificates are out of the question for a project which brings in zero revenue.
Android
You will need a device with armv7 (32-bit ARM), AArch64 (64-bit ARM), or x86_64 (64-bit x86). 64-bit is preferred, the requirements are higher for 32-bit, you'll probably want at least a 1.5GHz CPU.
No support is provided for the Android app, it is free and your expectations should be in line with that. Please do not email me about issues about it, or ask for help, you will be ignored.
To use:
Install and run the app for the first time.
Follow the setup wizard.
If you have an external controller, you will need to map the buttons and sticks in settings.
LibCrypt protection and SBI files
A number of PAL region games use LibCrypt protection, requiring additional CD subchannel information to run properly. libcrypt not functioning usually manifests as hanging or crashing, but can sometimes affect gameplay too, depending on how the game implemented it.
For these games, make sure that the CD image and its corresponding SBI (.sbi) file have the same name and are placed in the same directory. DuckStation will automatically load the SBI file when it is found next to the CD image.
For example, if your disc image was named Spyro3.cue, you would place the SBI file in the same directory, and name it Spyro3.sbi.
CHD images with built-in subchannel information are also supported.
If you are playing directly from a disc and your CD/DVD drive does not support subchannel reading, or has a skew with the returned SubQ, you can place the SBI file in the subchannel directory under the user directory, with the serial or title of the game.
Cheats and patch database
DuckStation ships with a built-in cheat and patch database, both provided by the community. Contributions to these are welcome at https://github.com/duckstation/chtdb.
Each release includes the latest version of the database, however you are free to manually update to the latest version as well.
Building
Windows
Requirements:
Visual Studio 2022
Clone the respository: git clone https://github.com/stenzek/duckstation.git.
Clone the repository: git clone https://github.com/stenzek/duckstation.git, cd duckstation.
Build dependencies. You can save these outside of the tree if you like. This will take a while. scripts/deps/build-dependencies-linux.sh deps.
Run CMake to configure the build system. Assuming a build subdirectory of build-release, run cmake -B build-release -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++ -DCMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS_INIT="-fuse-ld=lld" -DCMAKE_MODULE_LINKER_FLAGS_INIT="-fuse-ld=lld" -DCMAKE_SHARED_LINKER_FLAGS_INIT="-fuse-ld=lld" -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="$PWD/deps" -G Ninja. If you want a release (optimized) build, include -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INTERPROCEDURAL_OPTIMIZATION=ON.
Compile the source code. For the example above, run ninja -C build-release
Run the binary, located in the build directory under ./build-release/bin/duckstation-qt.
macOS
Requirements:
CMake
Xcode
Clone the repository: git clone https://github.com/stenzek/duckstation.git.
Build the dependencies. This will take a while. scripts/deps/build-dependencies-mac.sh deps.
Run CMake to configure the build system: cmake -Bbuild-release -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INTERPROCEDURAL_OPTIMIZATION=ON -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="$PWD/deps".
Compile the source code: cmake --build build-release --parallel.
Run the binary, located in the build directory under bin/DuckStation.app.
User Directories
The "User Directory" is where you should place your BIOS images, where settings are saved to, and memory cards/save states are saved by default.
An optional SDL game controller database file can be also placed here.
This is located in the following places depending on the platform you're using:
Windows: My Documents\DuckStation
Linux: $XDG_DATA_HOME/duckstation, or ~/.local/share/duckstation.
macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/DuckStation.
So, if you were using Linux, you would place your BIOS images in ~/.local/share/duckstation/bios. This directory will be created upon running DuckStation for the first time.
If you wish to use a "portable" build, where the user directory is the same as where the executable is located, create an empty file named portable.txt in the same directory as the DuckStation executable.
Bindings for Qt frontend
Your keyboard or game controller can be used to simulate a variety of PlayStation controllers. Controller input is supported through DInput, XInput, and SDL backends and can be changed through Settings -> Controllers.
To bind your input device, go to Settings -> Controllers, and select the virtual controller you want to map. Automatic mapping handles the majority of controllers. However, if you need to manually bind a controller, click the box below the button/axis name, and press the key or button on your input device that you wish to bind to.
SDL Game Controller Database
DuckStation releases ship with a database of game controller mappings for the SDL controller backend, courtesy of https://github.com/mdqinc/SDL_GameControllerDB. The included gamecontrollerdb.txt file can be found in the resources subdirectory of the DuckStation program directory.
If you are experiencing issues binding your controller with the SDL controller backend, you may need to add a custom mapping to the database file. Make a copy of gamecontrollerdb.txt and place it in your user directory (or directly in the program directory, if running in portable mode) and then follow the instructions in the SDL_GameControllerDB repository for creating a new mapping. Add this mapping to the new copy of gamecontrollerdb.txt and your controller should then be recognized properly.
Default bindings
Bindings for controllers and hotkeys can be changed in Settings -> Controllers.
"PlayStation" and "PSX" are registered trademarks of Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe Limited. This project is not affiliated in any way with Sony Interactive Entertainment.
