BizHawk is a free and open-source multi-system universal emulator written in C#. Its goal is to eventually simulate all game consoles, and already supports FC, MD, GBA, SFC, SMS, NES, SNES, N64, PC Engine, SS, PS, PSP, and so on more than 10 game consoles. It comes with the professional TAS functions while taking the ease of use into account. That said, BizHawk not only can be used for game clearance video production with TAS, but also is friendly for casual gaming.

As an emulator focusing on core accuracy and power user tools, BizHawk provides nice features for casual gamers, such as full screen, joypad support, full rerecording and debugging tools for all system cores, Lua scripting support. As a Libretro frontend primarily designed for Tool-Assisted Speedruns (TAS), BizHawk also has recording/playback and debugging tools, making it the first choice for TASers (Tool-Assisted Speedrunners).

Similar to RetroArch and Mednafen, BizHawk is compatible, fully functional, can emulate most consoles, has its own features, can dynamically changes resolution, supports multiple languages, and is suitable for most emulator players. Of course, a very obvious common failure of this kind of universal emulators is that the hardware requirements are relatively high, and memory and CPU usage is much larger than the specific emulators. As a result, if you want the very best emulator for a particular game console, BizHawk might not be the best choice, unless you're more interested in TAS.

Key Features

  • Full screen support
  • Controller and hotkey mapping
  • Joypad support (for both controller and hotkeys)
  • Auto/rapid fire controls
  • Basic re-recording and rerecording
  • "Bullet-proof" rerecording
  • Frame/lag/re-recording counters
  • Input display
  • Auto-hold
  • Alpha version of "TAStudio"
  • RAM watching/poking tools
  • RAM searching
  • Lua scripting
  • Rewind
  • Libretro support (1.11.4 onwards)

Supported Consoles/Computers

  • Apple II
  • Atari
    • Video Computer System / 2600
    • 7800
    • Lynx
  • Bandai WonderSwan + Color
  • CBM Commodore 64
  • Coleco Industries ColecoVision
  • GCE Vectrex
  • Magnavox Odyssey² / Videopac G7000
  • Mattel Intellivision
  • NEC
    • PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 + SuperGrafx + CD
    • PC-FX
  • Neo Geo Pocket + Color
  • Nintendo
    • Famicom / Nintendo Entertainment System + FDS
    • Game Boy + Color
    • Game Boy Advance
    • Nintendo 64
    • Super Famicom / Super Nintendo Entertainment System
    • Virtual Boy
  • Sega
    • Game Gear
    • Genesis + 32X + CD
    • Master System
    • Saturn
    • SG-1000
  • Sinclair ZX Spectrum
  • Sony Playstation (PSX)
  • Texas Instruments TI-83
  • Uzebox
  • more coming soon...

System Requirements

  • Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 (for v1.x)
  • Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6.1 (for v2.x)
  • Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Packages

Related Links

Download URLs

License Version Download Size
Freeware Latest n/a
(Homepage | GitHub)