However, for the emulation use cases it has some downsides, such as: there is no bulk import for ROMs. Lutris A great general gaming frontend for GNU/Linux with support for running Windows games with Wine and Proton. For something similar on Linux, check out Lutris. For emulation it's not yet at the same level as LaunchBox. Playnite A great general gaming frontend for Windows. SkeletonKeY is free, open source and very ugly. SkeletonKeY integrates and supports the installation of hundreds of emulators. A dynamic GUI provides granular options for MAME, snes9x, mednafen, emulationStation, retroFE, PegasusFE and a very comprehensive interface for retroArch (including netplay). skeletonKeY According to the author, skeletonKeY is a unified interface for ROMs emulators and frontends. Compared to LaunchBox it has less eye-candy but it requires a lot less system resources, it's blazing-fast and slowdown free. It has a WIMP style interface and is Windows only. QuickPlay An excellent FOSS alternative to LaunchBox. Attract-Mode is open source and runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows. 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 A graphical frontend for command line emulators with a completely customizable appearance. Launchbox can also be launched natively from Kodi. Premium also includes Big Box, which is an HTPC version of the frontend. It comes with an integrated metadata scraper, and the interface is highly customizable, likely the most customizable alongside HyperSpin, but only with a license for the premium version. Was originally built as an attractive front-end for DOSBox but has since expanded to support both modern PC games and emulated console platforms. These frontends can be used with almost any emulator of your choosing, as long as they support command-line arguments. They're generally very adaptive and can support different arguments between emulators to ease integration. These 'Launchers' or 'Executors' use their own graphical interface to start emulators. This is mostly found in Android frontends intended for smartphones and tablet computers. Touch A touch interface is often similar to a HTPC interface, the difference is that they are intended for touch screens. RetroArch, HyperSpin and MAME's integrated frontend MEWUI are examples of this interface.

Normally the navigation is optimized for joysticks or gamepads, although they often work with keyboard controls as well.

HTPC This type of interface is often intended for viewing on a big screen, such as a TV or arcade monitor. Examples of this type of interface are LaunchBox and OpenEmu. This is a GUI based on one or several window(s) and it's normally controlled by a mouse. WIMP WIMP stands for 'Windows, Icons, Menus and a Pointer'. Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) įrontends have different types of GUIs, here we have categorized them as follows:

Emulator frontend mac