Lumen

Every game on your handheld, in one console-like screen.

A gamepad-first, fullscreen emulation frontend for Windows handhelds like the ASUS ROG Ally. Lumen installs and tunes the emulators itself, finds your games and starts them fullscreen, so you never open an emulator window.

Product page · Download a test build · Features · Themes

Status: early development. Builds run on Windows 11; the ROG Ally family is the target device.

Features

One setup, every system	Pick a game folder; Lumen creates the system folders, downloads emulators from their official releases and writes their configs.
Tuned for the Ally	Detects Z1 / Z1 Extreme / Z2 A / Z2 Extreme and applies per-emulator presets: Vulkan, internal resolution per GPU tier, async shaders, borderless fullscreen, controller mapping, no first-run wizards.
Quick menu	Tap Select + Start in any game: the game pauses and Lumen comes up. Hold it to save and quit. Sleep also pauses the game. Emulators that can't pause on their own are frozen while the menu is open.
Continue where you left off	Resume states for RetroArch, DuckStation and PCSX2, with a Start over option.
PC games too	Installed Steam, Epic Games and Xbox app (Game Pass) titles sit in the same library.
RetroAchievements	Sign in once; achievements work in RetroArch, DuckStation, PCSX2, PPSSPP and Dolphin.
Save backups	Saves and save states are mirrored after every session, to OneDrive by default.
Free games	130+ homebrew games for NES, SNES, N64, Game Boy, GBA, DS, Master System, Mega Drive and Dreamcast whose licenses allow it, plus arcade classics their rights holders made free (non-commercial, via mamedev.org). One press to install.
Import your dumps	Pick a folder (USB stick, Downloads): each game's system is detected from its file header and it is copied or moved into the right folder, cue tracks and multi-disc sets included. A built-in guide shows how to dump your own cartridges and discs.
Power modes	Switches the ASUS Silent / Performance / Turbo mode per system, restored afterwards.
Console mode	Starts with Windows, fullscreen, controller only.
Uninstall from the couch	Remove any game from its details screen: emulated games go to the Recycle Bin (saves stay), Steam opens its uninstall dialog, Xbox app games are removed by Windows.

Themes

Seven themes, each with its own layout, type and navigation, not just colors (Menu → Theme):

Also Işık (the default cover grid), Raf (a shelf per system) and Kâğıt (a monochrome zine).

Supported systems

Maker	Systems	Emulator
Nintendo	NES, SNES, N64, Game Boy / Color / Advance	RetroArch
	DS · 3DS	melonDS · Azahar
	GameCube, Wii · Wii U	Dolphin · Cemu
Sega	Master System, Mega Drive, Saturn, Dreamcast	RetroArch
Sony	PlayStation · PS2 · PSP	DuckStation · PCSX2 · PPSSPP
	PS3 · PS4 (experimental) · PS Vita	RPCS3 · shadPS4 · Vita3K
	PS5 (experimental)	SharpEmu
Microsoft	Xbox · Xbox 360	xemu · Xenia Canary
NEC · SNK · Bandai	PC Engine, Neo Geo Pocket / Color, WonderSwan / Color	RetroArch
Atari	2600, 7800	RetroArch
Arcade	FinalBurn Neo	RetroArch
PC	Steam, Epic Games, Xbox app, GOG, itch.io	their own launchers (GOG and itch.io games start directly)
	Owned Steam games not yet installed (with your Steam Web API key)	install through Steam

PS5 runs on SharpEmu, which is in early development: expect most games not to boot yet. PS4 and PS5 games are installed folders (the one that holds sce_sys/ and eboot.bin).

Games and BIOS files

Lumen never downloads commercial games or copyrighted BIOS files; use dumps of games and hardware you own. The only games it fetches are the free ones above, straight from their authors or rights holders. What it provides on its own:

System	Without your BIOS
PS1, Saturn	Run on open-source HLE BIOS (PCSX ReARMed, Yabause); adding a BIOS switches to DuckStation / Beetle Saturn
PS3, PS Vita	System software (and the Vita font package) is fetched from Sony's official update servers
Xbox	xemu's blank HDD image is fetched; the MCPX and flash BIOS are still required
GBA, DS, Dreamcast, 3DS	Built-in BIOS replacements
PS2	A BIOS dump is required

<game folder>/
├─ snes/  ps2/  ps5/ ...  ← games, one folder per system
└─ bios/
   └─ ps1/  ps2/  ps3/  ps4/  xbox/  dc/

Install

Every push to develop builds Windows installers. Open the latest Windows build run, download the lumen-windows-… artifact and run the .exe installer. Builds aren't code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen asks for confirmation (More info → Run anyway).

How it works

• Tauri 2: a Rust core (downloads, emulator configs, process control, XInput, ASUS ACPI) under a React + TypeScript interface.
• Emulator presets are re-applied before every launch. Emulators keep their own state in their config files, so Lumen only sets the keys it owns (read–merge–write for INI, TOML, YAML and JSON); Xenia and SharpEmu get their settings as command-line flags. Every key was checked against the emulator's source.
• Downloads come from official releases only; a weekly CI job checks every source still resolves.

Development

Requirements: Node 20+ and Rust.

npm install
npm run dev          # UI in the browser with a simulated backend (?demo for sample games)
npm run tauri dev    # the real app (emulators install and launch on Windows only)

• src/: interface · src-tauri/src/: Rust core · src-tauri/emulators.json: systems and emulators
• scripts/homebrew-catalog.mjs regenerates the free games catalog (Homebrew Hub plus the hand-checked scripts/homebrew-extra.json, where every entry cites its permission)
• Branches: main for releases, develop for integration, feature/* for each piece of work

Releasing

1. Bump version in package.json, src-tauri/Cargo.toml and src-tauri/tauri.conf.json.
2. Merge develop into main and push a tag vX.Y.Z.
3. The workflow drafts a release with the installers and the signed latest.json; publishing it rolls the update out to Lumen's built-in updater (needs the TAURI_SIGNING_PRIVATE_KEY secret).

License

GPL-3.0. Lumen is not affiliated with ASUS, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sega, Sony or any emulator project; emulators are downloaded from their own releases under their own licenses.