EmuMovies Front End Poll '16

[crmlabs]

Used Gamex long time ago. After Launchbox I didn't used it any more.

[Seymour]

Im happy to see Launchbox at the top! It really deserves it.

[Coleman]

I collect real hardware, but just started to look into emulation when I stumbled across launchbox.  Looks like it's the best front end so there is no need to research any others, but is there anything that I can do with hyperspin that does not function in LB?

[R3615]

On 24/12/2016 at 0:52 PM, Styphelus said:

That's what Rocketlauncher and Xpadder are for. All my emulators exit the same way - combo key press and hold on the controller.

Thanks.

I was a bit busy and couldn't come back but I'll try Xpadder to get some combo keys.

[Azgorath]

My current setup is Controller Companion steam software to control my entire pc with my controller, kodi for media center usage with bigbox addon for retro gaming and steam addon for PC Gaming and RetroArch as my emulator frontend. I've tried most other available frontends and launchbox/bigbox is the winner for me. hyperspin is too complex to setup, Both retro fe and emulationstation havn't been updated since 2015 and the bitdefender trafficlight extension shows a malware warning message when i go onto retro fe website which i no is a false positive but still bad, rom collection browser and attractmode are a little bit tricky to setup but not near as much as hyperspin, gameEX crashes when I'm configuring settings and some of the themes take over a minute to load and u need the premium version to import ur steam games whereas launchbox does it on its non-premium version and mgalaxy doesn't have as many options and features as launchbox/bigbox and doesn't have a kodi addon but IMO is actually quite a decent alternative if u want a free frontend with a GUI for HTPCs (bigbox costs $20 for 1 year license and $50 for lifetime license but IMO its definitely worth it) and if u don't want to manually configure text files like hyperspin and emulationstation requires u to (mgalaxy's Runway setup has a windowed GUI to use ur mouse and keyboard to select and modify settings).

[Coleman]

Is RL just a competitive platform/back end to retroarch?

Is there a reason to use RL and retroarch?

I am using LB as my FE

[tjwoosta]

3 hours ago, Azgorath said:

My current setup is Controller Companion steam software to control my entire pc with my controller, kodi for media center usage with bigbox addon for retro gaming and steam addon for PC Gaming and RetroArch as my emulator frontend. I've tried most other available frontends and launchbox/bigbox is the winner for me. hyperspin is too complex to setup, Both retro fe and emulationstation havn't been updated since 2015 and the bitdefender trafficlight extension shows a malware warning message when i go onto retro fe website which i no is a false positive but still bad, rom collection browser and attractmode are a little bit tricky to setup but not near as much as hyperspin, gameEX crashes when I'm configuring settings and some of the themes take over a minute to load and u need the premium version to import ur steam games whereas launchbox does it on its non-premium version and mgalaxy doesn't have as many options and features as launchbox/bigbox and doesn't have a kodi addon but IMO is actually quite a decent alternative if u want a free frontend with a GUI for HTPCs (bigbox costs $20 for 1 year license and $50 for lifetime license but IMO its definitely worth it) and if u don't want to manually configure text files like hyperspin and emulationstation requires u to (mgalaxy's Runway setup has a windowed GUI to use ur mouse and keyboard to select and modify settings).

RetroFe has actually been updated as recently as today.

https://bitbucket.org/phulshof/retrofe/commits/

I don't use bitdefender trafficlight so I'm not sure which website is giving you problems but they did recently move to a new website when a new dev took lead, its now located at http://retrofe.nl/

[Azgorath]

7 hours ago, tjwoosta said:

RetroFe has actually been updated as recently as today.

https://bitbucket.org/phulshof/retrofe/commits/

I don't use bitdefender trafficlight so I'm not sure which website is giving you problems but they did recently move to a new website when a new dev took lead, its now located at http://retrofe.nl/

o ok thanks. their old site said last updated 2015 and didnt no they moved. i'll give it a shot today and c wat its like.

[Azgorath]

10 hours ago, Azgorath said:

o ok thanks. their old site said last updated 2015 and didnt no they moved. i'll give it a shot today and c wat its like.

I tried it out and it looks good but it requires manual editing of text files like hyperspin and emulationstation to fully setup which i hate doing so thats a no no for me.

 

22 hours ago, Coleman said:

Is RL just a competitive platform/back end to retroarch?

Is there a reason to use RL and retroarch?

I am using LB as my FE

I downloaded RL to see wat its like. Number 1:  Why on earth would the developer put a password on the archive download of his program which is free for the public to download??? Anyways, found the password and wen I try to start RL it gives some error message and nothing starts or appears. WTF??? Needless to say it took a one way trip to the recycle bin and beyond. stick with LB IMO

[Coleman]

It is a little fiddley to get working, but if you google Launch box Rocket launcher you will find setup videos.  I think simply Austin has a good tutorial...

I still have not figured out the advantage of RL》RetroArch》LaunchBox... but the hyper pause function looks like it may be interesting.

It also seems that you can setup multiple FE's w/RL but at the moment I'm not sure that appeals to me :/  

Anything I'm missing here?

[tjwoosta]

RL is like a middleman between your front end and your emulators. It basically unifies everything. Only downside is that it can take a lot of effort to get everything set up the way you like.

Some examples of its usefulness

* It can extract archived roms to a temp folder before launching the emulator, then delete those temp files after you close the emulator (this saves lots of space to have all of your roms archived, especially collections of larger stuff like disc images)

* It can do things like hide your desktop, and/or show customizable loading screens when extracting files or launching roms in any emulator (keeps things looking clean, so you dont see flashes of your desktop after launching the emulator from your front end before the game actually starts playing)

* It has customizable unified hotkey functions for things like closing emulators. For example you can set it so holding the select button (or any combination of buttons) on your gamepad for X amount of seconds exits the emulator, which will work across any emulator (even those that don't have a native exit hotkey) launched through rocket launcher. This way you can have different emulators for different systems and they all have a unified control scheme.

* It can automatically launch programs like xpadder or joytokey and/or switch between profiles in those programs when launching different emulators and/or exiting back to your front end.

* It can have individual game overrides for which emulator is used, or which config is loaded, etc.. (so for example if most games for a system work in one emulator, but there is a specific game that runs better in another emulator or with different settings you can have it automatically do that)

* It can bring up a disc swap dialogue with gamepad controls to swap discs when playing multi-disc games in most applicable emulators.

* It has a pause feature, which is like a unified pause screen that works across any emulator and can display things like instruction manuals, maps, magazines, etc.. that are relevant to the game your playing.

* It can do things like bezels for just about any emulator (mostly useful for emulators that don't have a native bezel feature)

[Coleman]

Thanks very much for the reply!

Hmm... so I can store all of my roms/isos on a network drive, access them through LB on a client pc, configure RL to copy from network drive to temp directory on local client hard drive (potentially running the same rim file on multiple pc's and removing in game network lag)?

Can I do this with media like mp3/mkv/mp4 etc as well?

Can you point me to a tutorial?

 

[tjwoosta]

6 minutes ago, Coleman said:

Thanks very much for the reply!

Hmm... so I can store all of my roms/isos on a network drive, access them through LB on a client pc, configure RL to copy from network drive to temp directory on local client hard drive (potentially running the same rim file on multiple pc's and removing in game network lag)?

Can I do this with media like mp3/mkv/mp4 etc as well?

Can you point me to a tutorial?

 

Yes, I believe you could have rocket launcher extract archived roms from a network drive to a local temp folder. I have not tried it, but I don't see why that wouldn't work.

Not sure about the videos and music. I think it would be possible with custom modules, but I have not heard of anyone doing it. The only modules included by default are for emulators, nothing for media players. Maybe try asking about it on the rocket launcher forums.

The only tutorials Ive ever followed were Simply Austin's hyperspin setup videos, which do cover lots of rocket launcher stuff, but they can be quite long winded and slow paced especially if your only interested in the rocket launcher stuff. Im not aware of any others. Id probably start with just watching the first couple videos of his hyperspin setup playlist to get an understanding for how rocket launcher works then just play around with it.

The settings for archive extraction in rocket laucher are listed under the 7z section

[Coleman]

Since we are on the topic of Rocket Launcher, is there a good source for learning how to use the software?  The forum does not seem very responsive, and the only real videos I have found are from Simply Austin... they are good at showing a process flow for a specific setup (in addition to the ocasional waffle), but there are a lot of things I don't understand and I'm not sure how to Taylor the setup as I would like.  Since I am using LaunchBox, the videos from Jason and Brad are great, but again they don't alays apply to my scenario - especially when it comes to Rocket Launcher.

Any suggestions?

[Don]

7 hours ago, Coleman said:

Since we are on the topic of Rocket Launcher, is there a good source for learning how to use the software?  The forum does not seem very responsive, and the only real videos I have found are from Simply Austin... they are good at showing a process flow for a specific setup (in addition to the ocasional waffle), but there are a lot of things I don't understand and I'm not sure how to Taylor the setup as I would like.  Since I am using LaunchBox, the videos from Jason and Brad are great, but again they don't alays apply to my scenario - especially when it comes to Rocket Launcher.

Any suggestions?

You're probably right about the only the real good source for getting Rocket Launcher set up properly is with Simply Austin's youtube videos. Unfortunately their forums have been a bit unresponsive as of lately, although I'm sure you can find someone there who's willing to help out if you have any specific issues to inquire about. Most of what I learned with Rocket Launcher was by trial and error. However, that can (literally) take hours and hours of time trying to get things set up properly. Also, I would suggest some of the other forums including here, Hyperspin, and a few other places around the internet. In the end, it's very much worth it as tjwoosta pointed out many of the advantages of using rocket launcher in combination with a frontend-program like launchbox, hyperspin or any other one for that matter :)

[gmambrose]

I have a hyperspin setup and I love the look, but it's far too complicated to maintain. Going to be switching to BigBox mode from launchbox very soon. It looks amazing and I love that they are continually developing it and updating nearly every week.

[tjwoosta]

Hyperspin would be great if they would just update it. Its so disappointing that its 2017 and Hyperspin still doesn't properly support HD, or even 16:9 aspect ratios. Especially with all of the people supporting them with premium memberships.

I can handle all of the manual configuration and everything.. but stretching 1024x768.. what is this 1998?

[TragicallyGeek]

Surprised this poll is still going.  HyperSpin here :)

[TragicallyGeek]

On 2/8/2017 at 1:43 PM, tjwoosta said:

Hyperspin would be great if they would just update it. Its so disappointing that its 2017 and Hyperspin still doesn't properly support HD, or even 16:9 aspect ratios. Especially with all of the people supporting them with premium memberships.

I can handle all of the manual configuration and everything.. but stretching 1024x768.. what is this 1998?

That is one of the few things I have never been a fan of.  Although there is additional art to make up for the 16:9 format.

[VitaminYesSupplements]

MGalaxy is a very underrated front-end. It's like Launch Box, but with more free content.

[Ted777]

Just picked up LaunchBox based on it's reputation, but gotta give a shout out to RetroFE, I'm loving their themes.  Wish there was a way to get the best of both worlds!

[phulshof]

Just picked up LaunchBox based on it's reputation, but gotta give a shout out to RetroFE, I'm loving their themes.  Wish there was a way to get the best of both worlds!

Well, I'm open to suggestions. [emoji3] What are you missing in RetroFE that you find in LaunchBox?

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[Ted777]

Honestly, I'm brand new to Front Ends, didn't realize you were affiliated with RetroFE haha.  To be honest, I'll give it a try because I love the theme so much.  I chose LaunchBox because of the press it receives, as well as the content I could find on it.  When searching for a FE, I was looking at the availability of information, ease of setup, and the website.  When looking at RetroFE, it was a little difficult to traverse through the information on the website, as well as seeing exactly how it works.  

I also liked the simple organisation view that LaunchBox gave me, as I'm more familiar with using UI's on the computer.  RetroFE looked like I had to configure a lot more without an easy to use UI.  I may be completely off on this judgement, as I only spent a bit of time scouring for information.  As RetroFE is of interest to me as well, if you could link me some direction, I would absolutely try it out!

Kudos for reaching out, this is the type of activity and support I'm looking for in a FE for sure!

[phulshof]

14 minutes ago, Ted777 said:

Honestly, I'm brand new to Front Ends, didn't realize you were affiliated with RetroFE haha.  To be honest, I'll give it a try because I love the theme so much.  I chose LaunchBox because of the press it receives, as well as the content I could find on it.  When searching for a FE, I was looking at the availability of information, ease of setup, and the website.  When looking at RetroFE, it was a little difficult to traverse through the information on the website, as well as seeing exactly how it works.  

I also liked the simple organisation view that LaunchBox gave me, as I'm more familiar with using UI's on the computer.  RetroFE looked like I had to configure a lot more without an easy to use UI.  I may be completely off on this judgement, as I only spent a bit of time scouring for information.  As RetroFE is of interest to me as well, if you could link me some direction, I would absolutely try it out!

Kudos for reaching out, this is the type of activity and support I'm looking for in a FE for sure!

 

RetroFE was developed by Emb, but he recently transferred control over to me. :) It's currently being hosted at http://www.retrofe.nl while we figure out how best to transfer the old .com domain over to me. The old web site is horribly out of date, though the new one could certainly use a touch by someone who knows more about web design than I do.

I'll be honest: LaunchBox/BigBox is great. It's (almost?) full time developed, but as a result it requires payment for the BigBox version. RetroFE is F/OSS and multi platform, so you can play around with it as you see fit or even add new features if you're able. :) Recently I've been getting some help from several programmers, which should certainly help in the development of new RetroFE features in the future. As it is though, RetroFE requires quite a bit of text file editing to get it configured the way you want it to (assuming the default doesn't agree with you). To help people out I've uploaded a new modular system in the Upload section of the EmuMovies FTP site to get people started.

[Coleman]

I love how active the community(s) are.  The fact that a user and developer connect on a 3rd party forum is pretty awesome!

Since you asked for suggestions...

It does seem like there is a lot of overlapping development which I think slows down overall user experience progresion...

I kind of like the idea of adding to the overall experience instead of recreating what's already there.

Seems like rocket launcher is the choice for optimized launch control.  Hyper pause does its thing.  Xmapper for managing inputs.  Retroarch handles cores and netplay etc. Launchbox/hypersonic for gui FE.

Couldn't themes/bezzles/shaders all be managed with a single source api that plugs in to the system also?

Then front end development  could focus more on including additional media and creating customized features for UI.

Then the community could focus more on creating new features instead of repackaing the new same features that every system needs.

Lot of work still could be done as far as things like high score's, in game achievements, compatibility issues, improving HID for classic console/arcade experience.  

VR seems to be knocking on the door and unless I am missing something there is a ton of potential not really explored where playing retro games in a VR environment could be game changing.

Don't get me wrong, if creating a FE is what your passionate about then you should.  I just can't help but feel that there is more to gain cooperating with what's already there then competing with it and building something new from the ground up.