[Beta] ROMote – play your retro game collection in the browser (NES → PlayStation)

2026-07-19T02:36:38Z

ROMote turns your Emby server into a retro game library you can play right in the browser —
no external emulator, no client install. Point it at your game backups and Emby shows them
with box art; click a game and it boots in a WebAssembly emulator in the same tab. Saves live
on the server, per user, so you can stop on your PC and pick up on your phone.

I'm looking for beta testers before the 1.0 release. It's free to test during the beta.

── Supported systems ──
NES, SNES, N64, Game Boy / Color / Advance, DS, Virtual Boy, Sega Genesis/Mega Drive,
Master System, Game Gear, PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16, WonderSwan, Neo Geo Pocket,
Atari 2600 / 7800, Lynx, ColecoVision, and PlayStation.

── What it does ──
• Play in the browser (desktop + mobile) via EmulatorJS — nothing to install on the client.
• Per-user cloud saves AND save states, synced to the server so you can resume on any device.
• Controls: on-screen touch pad with per-console button layouts, keyboard, and USB/Bluetooth
gamepads. On phones it launches fullscreen with a landscape mode (controls split left/right,
game in the middle).
• PlayStation multi-disc support with in-game disc switching.
• Metadata + box art from ScreenScraper (with libretro thumbnails as a fallback).
• Library tools in the plugin settings:
– Organize: sorts loose ROMs into per-system folders; disc games get their own folder with
a generated .m3u for multi-disc sets. Preview first; nothing is deleted.
– Remove duplicates: keeps one copy per game (prefers USA/English, then Japan), drops
beta/proto/demo and bad dumps, keeps sequels separate (Zelda vs Zelda II), and handles
PlayStation too. Preview first; removed files go to a quarantine folder, not deleted.

── Requirements ──
• A reasonably recent Emby Server (built against 4.9.1.90 — if it won't load on your version,
reply with your Server version).
• An Emby library with the content type set to "Games".
• A modern browser with WebAssembly; the client needs internet access (EmulatorJS loads from
its CDN).
• Optional: a free ScreenScraper.fr account (added in ROMote settings) raises the metadata
scrape rate limit for large libraries.
• Optional: a PlayStation BIOS if you want it — without one, PS1 uses the core's built-in HLE
BIOS.

── Install (manual, beta) ──
1. Stop Emby Server.
2. Unzip the attached file and copy ROMote.dll into your Emby "plugins" folder:
Windows: C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\programdata\plugins
Linux: /var/lib/emby/plugins
Synology: /volume1/@appdata/EmbyServer/plugins (DSM 7)
Docker: the /config (programdata) mount → /plugins
(Updating from an earlier beta? Rename the old ROMote.dll to ROMote.dll.old first.
On Linux/NAS, match the file's owner/permissions to the other plugin DLLs.)
3. Start Emby Server. ROMote appears under Plugins, with a "ROMote Settings" page.
4. Add a library (or edit one) with content type "Games" pointing at your ROMs, then scan.
Tip: name your system folders clearly (e.g. "SNES", "PlayStation") and use the Organize
tool to tidy everything into place.

── Please test / feedback welcome ──
• Do your systems get detected and show box art?
• How do the controls feel — touch, keyboard, and gamepad?
• Do saves and save states carry across devices?
• Any system/game that won't boot, and on what browser + device?
If something breaks, the most useful things to include are: your Emby Server version, the
system + game, and any errors from the browser console (F12 → Console).

── Notes ──
• This is a time-limited beta build — it stops running after August 29, 2026. I'll post fresh
builds as testing continues.
• The finished plugin will be a paid plugin in the Emby catalog; the beta is free to try.
• Bring your own games: ROMote does not include any ROMs or BIOS files. Only use game backups
you are legally entitled to.

Thanks for testing — I'll be watching this thread.

── How to launch a game (there is no built-in Play button) ──
Emby's Games library is built for cataloging, not playback. The native Emby apps don't know
how to run a ROM, and a plugin can't add a real Play button to the standard game screen. So
ROMote puts the launcher on each game's page as a link. Here's exactly where to find it:
1. Click a game to open its detail page.
2. Look for the link labeled "Play Game" (it has a small game-controller icon next to it Look at the screenshots included for a red circle of where to click). It
sits with the game's external links, the same spot where Emby shows database links like
IMDb:
Emby web app: a button/pill below the game's overview and genres.
Emby mobile and TV apps: in the "Links" section of the detail page.
3. Click Play Game. The emulator opens and the game boots.
Each game's description also opens with a one-line reminder to use the Play Game link, in case
you scroll past it.
Two extra conveniences:
- On the Emby web app, ROMote also adds a Play button to the game page when it can, which
opens the player right inside the app. If your server runs in Docker or the web-client files
are read-only it can't add that button. That's expected, and the Play Game link always works.
- There's also a "Play Games" page in the Emby menu that lists your games and opens them
straight in the player.
If the link works on your home network but not from outside it, set your External Domain under
Emby's Network settings (ROMote builds the link from that, so it follows your reverse proxy or
HTTPS domain), or set a base-URL override in ROMote Settings.