Choose a PC

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Making a list of minimum requirements is really difficult for something like Batocera as it ultimately depends on how high a system you want to emulate. In a way, the minimum requirements are the minimum requires of the emulator you want to run. With that said, here are the bare minimum requirements needed to enjoy a smoothly scrolling menu and basic gameplay on desktop computers (in order of importance):

Note that for desktop PCs with genuinely close to 2GB of RAM, it's probably old enough that motherboard/CPU will likely only be capable of running older versions of Batocera. Benchmarks are available below.

Pretty much every “computer” after 2010. These may also be referred to as x86_64.

There are also a few handheld PCs on the market. Notable ones include the Aya Neo, the OneNetbook OneXPlayer and the Valve SteamDeck. Some of these devices might need specific setups to run Batocera. You'll find more information on this page.

The component that will usually make or break these systems is its graphics card. In case your graphics card is not supported, the system will be very slow and unplayable. Most GPUs are supported - even integrated GPUs on modern Intel CPUs give decent results. Older integrated Intel and AMD graphics processors are more compatible, and don't need these specific drivers to function correctly (they'll usually not have a lot of performance compared to discrete GPUs though, but for retro-gaming this is a non-issue).

If you have to choose a new GPU, recent Nvidia GTX and AMD Radeon RX cards are supported well in the main Batocera image, and usually give very good results. A combination of an Intel i5 4xxx CPU + Nvidia GT1030 GPU will support all emulators up to the PS2 for a reasonable cost.

• A storage medium (hard-drive, SSD, USB, anything that the motherboard can boot from)
• Keyboard and mouse (for standalone emulator configuration/light gun games, most emulators can be configured with just a controller though)
• Display and speakers

The sky's the limit! Virtually no limitation

However, depending on your hardware (mostly CPU and GPU), the performance of the emulators can vary significantly. For some of them, if your hardware is powerful enough, you can even use upscaling to improve the rendering beyond what the original consoles were capable of. Having a powerful CPU/GPU helps for the more intensive emulators (PS2, PS3, Wii, WiiU, 3DS, etc.). Some comparative data can be found below.

Pretty old (pre-2010) computers, Batocera is all about giving new life to old technology! May also include some more recent “ultra thin/portable” netbooks (not likely, though). You can typically discover if your machine is 32 or 64-bit by researching the name of the CPU it uses. May also be referred to as x86 (without a 64 at the end). Being 32-bit, some of the newer 64-bit emulators will not work. If you have the option, try and get a 64-bit PC instead.

The component that will usually make or break these systems is its graphics card. In case your graphics card is not supported, the system will be very slow and unplayable. Most GPUs are supported - even integrated GPUs on modern Intel CPUs give decent results.

Exceptionally old Nvidia GPUs (such as ones you might find paired with a 32-bit CPU) may need to use an older version of Batocera. Batocera 5.26 (direct image link) was the last 32-bit version to feature the legacy Nvidia drivers, the more recent legacy build is 64-bit only. It's worth testing if your 32-bit computer can work with the latest 32-bit build of Batocera first, performance with the default open-source drivers may be perfectly acceptable. Support cannot be provided for older versions of Batocera, as it may have major bugs.

Older Intel and AMD integrated graphics cards are more compatible, and don't need these specific drivers to function correctly (they'll usually not have a lot of performance compared to discrete GPUs though, but for retro-gaming this is a non-issue).

If you have to choose a new GPU, recent Nvidia GTX and AMD Radeon RX cards are supported well in the main Batocera image, and usually give very good results. Just make sure your chosen GPU is compatible with your given motherboard (old ones may have a limited PCI slot length or require a “micro” form-factor GPU to fit in the case).

• A storage medium (hard-drive, SSD, USB, anything that the motherboard can boot from)
• Keyboard and mouse (for standalone emulator configuration/light gun games, most emulators can be configured with just a controller though)
• Display and speakers

Pretty variable, but by virtue of being 32-bit the hardware used will be a bit older and you will be locked out of the few 64-bit emulators (mainly 6th gen and above). Benchmarks below.

These tables give you an idea of the performance you can expect with several PC configurations, with the Batocera release they've been tested with.

In order to give more meaning to the table (as most x86 PCs can run most systems beyond full speed), we've appended additional information about the emulator's upscaling capabilities if it ran at full-speed. Here is the list of possible results:

• 0 = did not run full-speed
• #% = The average speed of emulation, where # is a number
• Full-speed = Full-speed for emulators that don't support upscaling
• x1 = Full-speed at native resolution
• x2 = Full-speed at x2 upscaled resolution
• x3 = Full-speed at x3 upscaled resolution and so on until…
• Max = The highest upscaling setting available to the emulator at the time
• N/A = Not applicable, the benchmark could not be completed for one reason or another (usually explained in a footnote)
• ? = The title was not tested

All systems that did not run at full speed will either have a 0 or the average FPS (if that data was available at the time).

If you'd like more information about the comparative performance of X CPU versus Y CPU, you can look up their benchmarking scores on websites such as Passmark, Geekbench and the CPU section on the community-driven comparison site Userbenchmark. You may need to switch between single CPU and multi CPU to find the model you're after! For GPUs, you can instead look up the 3DMark results, as that puts both the CPU and the GPU to the test, or the GPU section on the community-driven comparison site Userbenchmark for direct graphics cards comparisons. For really old cards, like back in the wild-west of graphics cards before everything got standardized, you can check out VGA Legacy MKIII, just note that Batocera does not support the majority of these cards.

If a particular CPU or graphics card is performing out of the ordinary for that card it will be noted with a footnote. This will pretty much only apply to laptops, which tend to have underclocked cycles or less execution units (both resulting in lower performance).

By default Batocera will use the open-source Nouvaeu drivers for Nvidia GPUs. While these are compatible with more Nvidia cards (especially older ones), they perform quite poorly compared to the official Nvidia drivers. To activate the official Nvidia drivers, enable them in the boot config.

Source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSdHiY7S_vsfAnxYBpzxYXy3Civ_eT19xXLsGAXC5r2nGIopE4imbYDPFCHyGStuW12Ktaxu5za4mii/pub

Source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTQ-_vBM4RwW4x6Ctj4dFZFAX45JoUqPs1AXG1yjiGPqOWm2vTB2BapeBjN5TyH2mMGf6xte0_y4ks2/pub

Source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQNX3998uWkXajZ-axD6dxhqcNAGu7WSshye04QASkiutt1LXIbwg9acAf7R7XiDItvr8vis7JqjZ1Y/pub

Source https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQKnVvgY9qUKveAU8JRQeJkl6NsLuTOT9JiX-MMfKhf1KyFV4GbhzQhteU2cIXy4aaUu3QjAwhKDRBt/pub