ES-DE 3.0.1-19 is now available for download
Hi everyone!
I'm happy to announce that ES-DE 3.0.1-19 for Android is now available for download!
This release adds support for Android 10, removes support for the Yuzu emulator and includes a number of additional minor improvements and bug fixes.
Although we understand that some of you will not be happy with Yuzu getting removed it simply isn't feasible to keep supporting this emulator. That project simply went too far, there is really no other way to put it. We have decided to not remove support for Citra though as we don't see any issues with how that part of the project was managed. As ES-DE is completely configurable it's obviously possible for you to manually add back Yuzu support, but we will not provide any specific instructions or support for this emulator. There is however general documentation in the user guide on how to customize systems and add your own emulators.
We also want to clarify how future updates will be provided. For the moment we will post here on Patreon when a new release is made available and you should get an email from Patreon about the post (unless you have disabled email notifications). In addition to that we will enable in-app update notifications so when you start ES-DE you will be notified if there is a new release. If you pay once on Patreon and cancel your subscription you'll still get one month of membership so you will see these release messages for that time period. As one month has not yet passed since we started to self-publish on Patreon it means everyone that has paid once will be able to read this very message. In the future we will also send out emails with download links outside of Patreon whenever there has been a release, and this will be sent to you regardless of whether you paid once or decided to continue to support us here. A solution for this has already been put in place, but due to restrictions with our current hosting partner it would literally take days to send out all the emails. We are currently in discussions with a new hosting partner which should resolve this issue so that we can quickly deliver emails to everyone. This is only a technical question, we are committed to honoring our promise of future updates to anyone that has ever supported ES-DE via Patreon.
As for the update, just install the new APK on top of the old one, your settings will be retained and you will not lose any data.
Thank you for your continued support and enjoy the new release!
Download link:
ES-DE_3.0.1-19.apk
This is the MD5 hash in case you want to verify the file integrity:
17ec6e1b05c597216652ee10db26f720
See the changelog for all details for this release:
https://gitlab.com/es-de/emulationstation-de/-/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md
If you run into any issues I recommend joining our Discord server to get support:
https://discord.gg/EVVX4DqWAP
Comments (108)
I'm getting a message "app not installed as package appears to be invalid". I have emulation station already installed it won't let me update it from its recent release
Since you're commenting on a very old release post, are you perhaps trying to downgrade ES-DE? Because Android does not allow that, if you want to install an old version you need to first uninstall the newer release. Another possibility is that you don't have the complete APK file, make sure to check the MD5 checksum against your downloaded file. If you need further support I recommend joining our Discord server: https://discord.gg/42jqqNcHf9
Hitting X to activate the video screensaver results in a 100% hang for me on my Lenovo y700. Curiously if I let the device sit for long enough to activate the screensaver it works perfectly.
It will start eventually, but I have drastically improved the startup time for the screensaver which will be part of the 3.1.0 release.
Is there a way to record gameplay? I know one version of emulationstation i have on arkos lets me choose mednafen to auto record gameplay. Is there a way to select that as an alternative emulator?
I have no idea actually, that would be an emulator question and not something that ES-DE would do.
Hello, I just purchased this and I am not able to get my games launching from ES-DE. I realized after looking into it, I am using RetroArch Plus. I can't find anything in the documentation about this. Is this not compatible with it?
No the Play store releases of RetroArch are very old and are not working with ES-DE. It's documented here: https://gitlab.com/es-de/emulationstation-de/-/blob/master/FAQ-ANDROID.md?ref_type=heads https://gitlab.com/es-de/emulationstation-de/-/blob/master/ANDROID.md?ref_type=heads If you need support please join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/EVVX4DqWAP
Hello, I really love the app and it seems to get better by every version for Android. Unfortunately, I am having trouble to get stand-alone emulators running. For example, I purchased PPSSPP Gold and launching games works flawlessly through the App but also in Daijsho. If I try to start a game through ES-DE, I just get a black screen. The app seems to launch, as I can see it running when looking at all apps, but after that nothing happens. Same with M64Plus FZ Pro Emulator, there the app even opens, but no game launches. I just get the home screen from the M64Plus. Is there anything I can do to fix this? I obviously already enabled the standalone emulators in the settings. Thanks a lot!
Please join our Discord server if you need support: https://discord.gg/EVVX4DqWAP
is this ES-DE frontend compatible with GPD XD? I'm running GPD XD with Android 9 and having problem to install this package with message There was a problem parsing the package. Is it possible to release package compatible with Android 9?
I'm sorry, 64-bit Android 10 or later is required and it's not possible to make it work on older Android releases due to some required libraries not working on Android 9 or earlier. If you want a refund then please send me a DM.
So i just found out about this scraper daily quota anyone has any clue on how to get more scrapes on android
Make sure to register a free account on screenscraper.fr to increase your daily quota, and if you want to get additional daily API calls then you can pay them for it. Note that ScreenScraper is a completely separate project from ES-DE and we do not get any parts of those subscription fees.
I hope the next update will bring back Yuzu :) and Also Add Lime3DS as well
Thanks for making a great frontend! Just want to mention a possible bug- After setting the Saturn.emu as the default standalone emulator for Sega Saturn, it will always change back to Beetle Saturn (Default) after closing ES-DE. Changing other emulators to use standalone apps work fine but can’t get that one to stay. I’m using AYN Odin 2 with up to date software.
Thanks for the info, not sure what could cause such behavior though! Please join our Discord server if you need additional help: https://discord.gg/EVVX4DqWAP
I added some games to my switch list but they are not updating on esde
Please join our Discord server if you need support: https://discord.gg/EVVX4DqWAP
New to ES-DE and I've got a weird problem with this release on my Odin 2. When I go to settings, scrolling up and down with either the analog stick or d-pad changes the settings, as if it's also being pressed left or right at the same time. I can scroll through settings and each one changes as I go over it. My stick/d-pad work fine in every other software on my Odin 2, any ideas?
Rebooted and it's working fine now - No idea what the problem was. I'll do a clean install before I carry on as I've no idea what settings got changed!
Hello👋🏽 you are doing a great job. A dream comes true. Thank you for that. I wanted to ask if there will be support for "sneshacks" at some point. Or the "hack" systems in general. And a other question is there a plan to set ES-DE as Homelauncher
Hi! I'm happy to hear that you appreciate ES-DE! There are no plans to support hack systems, starting to add those would lead to a long list of additional systems, all of which would need to be supported by the theme developers. The best approach is normally to add hacks into their own subdirectories, for example ROMs/snes/MSU-1 and similar. You could also combine this with making custom collections for such games. Setting ES-DE as the home app is however planned for a future release!
Hi, any news on the emails with download links outside of Patreon? I will end my membership on Patreon after next months, but would still like receiving those updates that you promised. Thanks.
I have setup a listmonk server to distribute these emails and I've run some test transfers. Next time I make a new release I will distribute emails to everyone, including previous paying members that have decided to no longer continue their subscription.
Hi. I have just installed ES-DE on my Retroid Pocket 4 Pro, but I can not complete the setup. It gets stuck on the first screen "Welcome to ES-DE, Begin Setup", and does not respond to any touch or button input. Any idea what could be wrong? Thanks.
Hi, this device is common and used by a lot of ES-DE users, but I do recall hearing one person had the exact same problem on this device. The solution was to do a factory reset, but this is a "nuclear" option of course and you shouldn't need to do that. Still it indicates that there must be some setting or app on this device that interferes with the ES-DE configurator somehow. So maybe a good starting point would be looking into any Retroid-specific settings and such. Unfortunately I don't own this device so I can't help you more than this. If you do figure it out then please let me know as it would be very interesting to know why only you and one other person had issues with this device and why a factory reset resolved the problem for him.
Could you please add support for the Philips/Magnavox CDi console? It is fully supported in Android using RetroArch - https://www.reddit.com/r/EmulationOnAndroid/comments/980mar/tutorial_phillips_cdi_on_android/
The CD-i is supported, you can find the list of supported systems and emulators here: https://gitlab.com/es-de/emulationstation-de/-/blob/master/ANDROID.md?ref_type=heads#supported-game-systems
bought scraper service on screen scraper. Some roms expecially the DS category does not seems to get recognize because of the roms name. Some of them i have to manually make the name shorter to get it recognize by screenscraper. Any chance to improve this feature ?
Other than that, everything is perfect !
Quick question.. i am using ES-DE on my Retroid Pocket 3 (installed on my external sd card) and I would like to add a couple of my own system categories (for example the SNES MSU-1), but i can't seem to locate the es_systems.cfg file. I've been able to do this on linux versions, but no luck on this one. Where should I be looking? thanks!
Hi, you can find them on the GitLab repository, the links and Android-specific documentation can be found here: https://gitlab.com/es-de/emulationstation-de/-/blob/master/INSTALL.md?ref_type=heads#es_find_rulesxml-and-es_systemsxml-on-android
Please add android game compatibility for ES-DE!
It's planned!
Just started subscribing. I was trying to get this working on my Fire TV and it won't get past the installer.
I think most of the Fire devices are running a 32-bit version of Android, which is unfortunately not supported by ES-DE. I will investigate possible 32-bit support but this could be problematic to get working so I'm not sure how big the chances are for that succeeding.
ES-DE Team, getting a lot of trouble downloading the ES-DE_3.0.1-19.apk. Getting lot of connection lost. (Had to retry like 28 times)
I'm really sorry about this, there are problems with the web server. I'm currently working on setting up a new server which should resolve these issues.
How do i hide games? and why is it that HIDDEN in meta data for a game not hiding it from the games list?
This is by design, you can read about it here: https://gitlab.com/es-de/emulationstation-de/-/blob/master/FAQ.md?ref_type=heads#when-i-hide-a-game-using-the-metadata-editor-its-not-really-getting-hidden-is-this-a-bug
All my games are running consistently 60fps on my 2s. But the games are running terribly slow with choppy audio. Why is this happening?
No idea what could cause this behavior, but if you mean the actual games then it would be an emulator question rather than related to ES-DE.
Ciao sarebbe possibile implementare lo zoom delle copertine dei giochi? Su retroid pocket 4 pro devi usare la lente d'indgrandimento!
Sorry I don't understand?
Hey I have roms stored on network storage but it seems that when ES scans for roms it only picks up like 4 out of 20 systems. The roms are seperated into folders by system. Any help would be appreciated. BTW this is on my shield tv
Hi, you need to follow the ES-DE naming conventions for your game system folders, maybe that's the problem? You can find the expected folder names here: https://gitlab.com/es-de/emulationstation-de/-/blob/master/ANDROID.md#supported-game-systems If that doesn't work I recommend joining our Discord server where it's much easier to troubleshoot: https://discord.gg/EVVX4DqWAP
I'm loving this on my RG405M, great first versions! I might've missed it, as there's no easy way to search the comments here - do you plan on allowing ES-DE to be used as a Home app on Android? I currently use a workaround with a 3rd party app, and would love for this to be native to your app. In addition, +1 on adding Android apps and games as a platform. Again, there's a workaround, but I'd love to avoid those.
Thanks! Yes both of these features are planned, but of the two running native Android apps is the highest priority which I'll start looking into soon.
Hi. Is Yaba Sanshiro 2 external likely to be added for Saturn emulation pls? Can't seem to get Saturn working
I have added it already and it will be part of the next release. It still has a bug so that it can't run .bin/.cue files from ES-DE, but .chd files work fine for example.
Wonderful front end and im loving every moment of it! I was wondering if this update or any future update will eventually fix "Error -1" when trying to use Redream as a standalone emulator on certain android devices?
Thanks, I'm very happy to hear that you appreciate ES-DE! If you are using an Odin 2 then this will require a firmware update from Ayn to be resolved. I did report the issue to them a couple of weeks ago and I think they have fixed it and will roll it out in the next update, but I would have to test it first of course to confirm it. If you are not using an Odin 2 then you could perhaps try to follow these instructions and see if it helps: https://gitlab.com/es-de/emulationstation-de/-/blob/master/FAQ-ANDROID.md?ref_type=heads#when-i-launch-a-game-using-a-standalone-emulator-why-does-it-say-the-game-file-could-not-be-opened https://gitlab.com/es-de/emulationstation-de/-/blob/master/FAQ-ANDROID.md?ref_type=heads#why-do-some-standalone-emulators-fail-to-launch-with-error-code-1-or-just-display-a-black-screen
Hello would it be possible to add a flag to avoid ES to update the romlist on every changes made, and make the possibility to update them on command/button?
If you mean applying gamelist.xml changes then yes there is an option for this in the Other settings menu named "When to save game metadata". But that only affects saving of data to the actual XML files, changes are still applied internally in memory, as otherwise the application simply wouldn't work correctly.
H
ES-DE is now failing to launch arcade games into retroarch whereas retroarch and other launchers (i.e. daijisho), work it's any Mame.I tested with Retroid pocket 2S, 3+ , Flip and 4 Pro
Not sure what's going on there, arcade games work in general so it must be something specific that is wrong. Please join our Discord server where it's much easier to troubleshoot. Btw, just make sure that you use the latest 64-bit release of RetroArch from their website, the Play store version does not work correctly as it's very old.
Thanks for the update! Quick question... Is there any plans to add Lemuroid support (as in being able to choose it as an alternate emulator for lower end systems)? I've recently discovered Lemuroid and for phones, it's quite good as a quick play option.
I think it's impossible, I couldn't find any way to launch games from ES-DE or from the command line using the "am" command with Lemuroid, and it seems like this project is dead with no further development.
There's one major issue I'm having, had it twice. I scraped all my boxart, everything looks great, I go to cleanup and it cleans up EVERYTHING, all my boxart is put into the cleanup folder. And when I go into that folder to restore it, the first characters of each platform is missing. Help!? I don't want to do this over and over again. I'm using an Odin and my installation and roms are on external SD card. Over 30 gigs of boxart etc, gone. Edit: I also rescanned the rom directory prior to doing this to make sure.
Sorry about that, I have fixed it now. Turned out Android 10 adds another directory separator character into the path that is not done on Android 11 and later and I had to add a workaround for that. So please avoid using the Orphaned data cleanup tool until the next release if you are using an Android 10 device.
Hi! After the update i am not able anymore to load ps1 and ps2 games. From the standalone apps (duckstation and aethersx2 it works) but from es-de it does not. Any suggestion?
I don't think there were any changes related to these systems specifically in the last release, so not sure what is going on. But maybe these instructions could help you resolve the problem? https://gitlab.com/es-de/emulationstation-de/-/blob/master/FAQ-ANDROID.md?ref_type=heads#when-i-launch-a-game-using-a-standalone-emulator-why-does-it-say-the-game-file-could-not-be-opened https://gitlab.com/es-de/emulationstation-de/-/blob/master/FAQ-ANDROID.md?ref_type=heads#why-do-some-standalone-emulators-fail-to-launch-with-error-code-1-or-just-display-a-black-screen If you can't make it work I recommend joining our Discord server as it's much easier to troubleshoot there.
Thanks for adding support for Android 10. Is there any chance you could back port this one version further to support Android 9? I have an Android handheld that I absolutely love but it maxxes out at Android 9 and I would LOVE to have this on that device.
Unfortunately not, it's not possible to make all the C and C++ libraries that ES-DE depend on work on Android 9 and earlier. Even Android 10 was pushing it a bit.
thanks so much for making an android 10 version. Just had one question. PS1 and 3DS arent showing up in my list of systems. I have them on my system and alot of games.
You're welcome! The directories for these systems have to be named psx and n3ds, you can find the list of supported systems (and emulators) here: https://gitlab.com/es-de/emulationstation-de/-/blob/master/ANDROID.md#supported-game-systems
Parabéns pelo excelente trabalho! Peço que, em atualizações futuras, verifiquem a possibilidade de conceder acesso a mais de um diretório de roms (eu, por exemplo, possuo arquivos tanto no armazenamento interno quanto no SD e só posso utilizar um dos locais. Isso é frustrante).
You can split the game system directories across different storage devices if you want to, but it's not recommended. You can find the instructions here: https://gitlab.com/es-de/emulationstation-de/-/blob/master/ANDROID.md#splitting-system-directories-across-multiple-storage-devices
Fico triste pela ausência de suporte a emulação de switch, espero que a situação se resolva logo.
thanks for update .. looking forward to to see you on the plat store
Maybe some day ES-DE will come to the Play store, but it's also possible that it won't. ES-DE needs certain permissions in the operating system that Google has been unwilling to grant us.
Thanks for the updates !! Do you guys plan to add Android App support as a "system" for better access within ES ? that would be awesome
Yes that is planned for a future release.
Yes, veeery long startup time on my retroid pocket 4 pro with big collection
Unfortunately there are a number of bottlenecks and overhead in Android that makes ES-DE run slower than on other platforms. I will try to improve things in future releases by looking into additional caching and multi-threading, but there are limitations inherent to the OS design that means it will never be a high-performance operating system. Google has prioritized convenience (like using FAT-based filesystems for removal storage), security (by introducing storage abstraction layers for example), and focusing on power savings rather than raw performance. Maybe those were the right decisions for a mobile device OS (or maybe not) but it makes something like ES-DE suffer a bit from it unfortunately.
I'm new to the app but have found something frustrating. I have 116000 roms on My s23 ultra. When downloading a theme and after it has downloaded I click back and takes 10 mins to return to the ui menu. Another 10 mins to get to the main menu. Then if change a theme my system is locked/frozen again for roughly another 10 mins. When if finally allowed me back in I selected a system, scrolled through a few games and on 1 gane I press x to view media. Yup, it's now locked/frozen again for another 10 mins so I thought I'd write this message. On my tabs9 with only 20 roms installed everything above happens in seconds. Surely im not the only one with a big rom collection and this issue? Also.. when I close the app and re open it takes ages searching for games/loading systems. It REALLY doesn't like big rom collections :( Cheers for reading
I'm sorry to hear that you have issues, in general ES-DE works fine with game collections that are large with around 100,000 games or so. But on Android specifically this is problematic as there are many performance bottlenecks in the operating system itself such as use of FAT/exFAT/NTFS filesystems that are very slow, various security mechanisms in the filesystem storage layer, the need to do a lot of data conversions when communicating via JNI from the native C++ code to the Java VM and so on. Adding to this is the fact that Android will stop processes that are not focused to reclaim memory, that's why you see ES-DE reloading. Unfortunately I think these issues are insurmountable as it's down to the operating system design. Google has made various decisions to sacrifice performance in order to improve security. Whether increased security is actually achieved is open for debate. It sounds like on your device you are memory-constrained. You could try a more lightweight theme to see whether that works better but I think ultimately having more than 100,000 games on a mobile phone in ES-DE is unlikely to ever work well.
Will you be supporting suyu?
Maybe, but things definitely need to settle a bit first as it's very unclear what the legal status is for Switch emulation.
Just got the v3.0.1 but sad that Yuzu not support now
Yes that was a painful decision that we didn't want to take but that we felt was necessary to take.
Brilliant work, keep it up. Finally makes android devices a more viable option as a daily driver.
Thank you!
good
Can I get my money back?
Yes, send me a DM here on Patreon with your email address and I will refund you.
Hi guys, for massive mail sending DON'T use hosting provider SMTP, often this service isn't intended for massive mail sending. Instead, use a service like Mailchimp (or other newsletter service) that exist exactly for this purpose.
Yes, although we are using listmonk and will probably set up our own infrastructure to send out emails. But different options are currently being investigated!
Hay. There is a video on YouTube to add Yuzu back. I don't know the policy here to post links but search for "KsAmJ" youtube channel.
I think there are multiple videos coming.
Completely removed from alternate emulator list. Defaults to skyline, but I should at least be able to see switch in alternate emulator list.
You will not see an entry there for any system that only has a single emulator, as there are then no alternatives available. If you add more emulators using a custom system configuration entry then they will show up there.
Very much appreciated Thanks!!!!!
Thank you for the detailed update 👍 Only thing I'd like to see if possible would be a way to bring up the app list without using a work around. Keep it up.
If you mean support for native Android apps then that will definitely get implemented in a future release.
Call me stupid but even tho you removed Yuzu support, does that mean it will also be removed from the systems list when I update ES to the latest version?
No it still shows in systems list, but doesn’t in the alternate emulators setting. But it defaults to skyline. Hope they fix that part because I should at least be able to see switch in alternate emulators list.
Let's go! :)
Thank you for the amazing update! Android 10 support is HUGE and I'm sure it was no small task. And I know removing Yuzu support is going to annoy some people, but I totally get why you'd do that. There will be a zillion forks and messy compatibility with Switch emulation for a while until the community settles on a new best way to emulate switch, and you'll save yourself a lot of headaches by just letting people add their own switch emulator themselves for now. Like you say it's easy enough to do and you've provided documentation.
Thank you for your understanding regarding Yuzu, this was a painful decision. And I'm happy to hear that you appreciate the Android 10 support, this will open up ES-DE for a lot of additional devices!
Bummer about removing yuzu support... It's not like it's an emulator.
Yes it's very unfortunate and we hate this situation too but we just can't continue to support Yuzu as things stand now. And ES-DE is not the only project that has dropped support for them. We have to see long term what happens, I think for all of us it's very unclear right now.
For the updates you can easily make a new invite only discord server and send the updates there and add the people who join. No need to get the old ways of distribute things on emails. Now we can reach you here, but once the Month finish, we will be in limbo to communicate or get support with you ever rather than sending messages on open discord server.
Problem is many people don't use Discord, so that can never be a reliable way of providing updates. Even if you're no longer a paying member on Patreon you can for sure reach us via Discord, we're in our server every day.
1st EmuDeck now ES. Yes. It is disappointing to see the drop of support but EmuDeck still keeping the support for future updates if you already had it before. Dropping the support without clear instructions on how to add it back is not good thing. You are a front end and Big N can not do anything to you if you still supporting the project. (or maybe they can). So I am assuming if any Switch related emus coming out, you already made you own decisions to not support them.
Multiple projects are dropping support for Yuzu, not only ES-DE. I don't know about other Switch emulators long term, at the moment Skyline and Ryujinx (on Linux, macOS and Windows) are still supported by ES-DE. The issue we see is specifically with Yuzu but if it's made clear that Switch emulation can't be done legally then we will remove support for all Switch emulators. You have to remember that ES-DE was already removed from the Amazon Appstore. Even if that was a completely incorrectly informed decision by them it's very hard or impossible for a project like us to fight with them and win.