Frontends/Archive 1

From Emulation General Wiki
Revision as of 11:50, 24 August 2018 by LilShootDawg (talk | contribs) (grammar)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Frontends are programs that allow a user to execute an emulator program, usually a command-line one, using a graphical interface. Examples of such are shown below.

Note: "Frontend" can be a somewhat confusing term since it is sometimes used to refer to an emulator's internal frontend that handles video, audio, and input interaction with the user and OS, while this page refers to the "Launcher" or "Executor" kind of "frontend".

Attract-Mode

Attract-Mode is a graphical frontend for command line emulators such as MAME, MESS, and Nestopia. It hides the underlying operating system and is intended to be controlled with a joystick, gamepad or spin dial, making it ideal for use in arcade cabinets. Attract-Mode is open source and runs on Linux, OS X, and Windows. [Link]

Emulation Station

Main article: EmulationStation

A graphical and themeable emulator front-end that allows access to games in one place, even without a keyboard. It can import custom themes to use, but it doesn't have a large community so there is not an abundance of these. This is the one emulator on here that is made for the Raspberry Pi and is bundled with Retro Pie. Comes with a metadata scraper. It is a great front end, and thanks to some users on the RetroPie Forum, development has been picked up. Some new additions include support for video playback as well as custom carousels. Official Web Site ; Fork on GitHub.

GameEx

GameEx is a front end that does a lot. It is also used for commercial applications. It has a powerful in-program editor that allows you to customize the front-end's visuals to all lengths. It also has a built-in media player. It has a free version and a registered version. It is a powerful front end. [Link]

Games (Gnome)

Games is a GNOME application to browse your video games library and to easily pick and play a game from it. Link.

HyperSpin

Main article: Hyperspin

Hyper Spin is a front end aimed primarily for arcade cabinets. Next, to LaunchBox, it is the most personalizable front end on the list. The community for Hyper Spin is gigantic! There is a huge fan-base for Hyper Spin that is constantly coming out with new creations and programs that make it better. If you are looking for a front end for your arcade cabinet, I would recommend this one for sure. [Link]

Ice

Ice isn't really a front end, but it's more of a way to add you're old retro and arcade games as executable files that steam can run as it would a regular steam game. It lets you add your ROMs as steam games basically. [Link]

Launch Box

LaunchBox was originally built as an attractive front-end to DOSBox but has since expanded to support both modern PC games and emulated console platforms. LaunchBox aims to be the one-stop shop for gaming on your computer, for both modern and historical games. Probably the most customizable emulator on here, alongside HyperSpin, if you buy a license. You can customize the interface to however you like and the metadata of each game and comes with a metadata scraper. Has integrated support for launching from Kodi (XBMC). There is one version free, but also has a premium version that gives you access to Big Box which is an HTPC version of Launch Box along with some other features. [Link].

MaLa

An arcade emulator that seems to be good for cocktail arcade cabinets. It has on-the-fly screen orientation and great support for hotkeys. Has lots of great plugins available. [Link]

Metropolis Launcher

Metropolis Launcher has been created to be a great old-school launcher, emulation front-end and an extensive offline database of video game metadata thanks to MobyGames and their strong user base. Over 50 fields of metadata are supported by Metropolis Launcher's Main Screen. You can search-as-you-type, filter, group, and sort by any combination of them. Metropolis Launcher already ships with MobyGames based metadata, no web-scraping for this data is needed. [Link]

mGalaxy

mGalaxy is a minimalistic front end aimed at arcade cabinets. It does, however, have some really good features such as picking a random game out of your library, background music, favorites, top ten most played and more.[Link]

Pegasus

A cross-platform, customizable graphical frontend for launching emulators and managing your game collection. Runs on Linux, Windows, Mac, all Raspberries, Odroids. GitHub.

NOTE: Pegasus DOES NOT run on Mac.

RetroFe

Main article: RetroFE

A good frontend, open source and available for Windows and Linux : RetroFE.

skeletonKey

Main article: skeletonKey

skeletonKey is an open-source ROM-Library management tool which functions as both a Launcher and as a deployment backend. [Link] [mirror]

EmuCon

EmuCon is a GUI (Graphical User Interface) for many emulators systems: consoles, handhelds, and computers. [Link]