Whats a good Rom manager + Emulator player all in one kind of thing for Windows?
from sopularity_fax@sopuli.xyz to nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca on 23 Nov 2025 20:10
https://sopuli.xyz/post/37153517

I remember on Mac I had this one woth a red and black single joystick icon but I have no idea what to do for Windows…

Do i need a seperate emu for every distinct console or is there a more all in one kind of thing available?

#nostupidquestions

threaded - newest

Kernal64@sh.itjust.works on 23 Nov 2025 20:29 next collapse

Check out Retroarch for an all in one solution. It’s free and available on its own, on Steam, and on Itch.io. I used it on Windows before switching to Linux (I use Arch, BTW 😂) and it runs on Linux as well, which is nice if you ever switch in the future. I haven’t had any problems with it in my time using it.

retroarch.com

sopularity_fax@sopuli.xyz on 23 Nov 2025 20:31 collapse

How do i add a game to it? I was unduccessful

TachyonTele@piefed.social on 23 Nov 2025 20:29 next collapse

I just have seperate emus for each system (except gamecube and wii. Dolphin emulator does both)

Then i add each one to Steam so they’re all in one place. And use steamgrid-db for the artwork.

Ive had problems with retroarch not seeing hacks, so I don’t bother with it.

otp@sh.itjust.works on 23 Nov 2025 21:08 next collapse

My favourite is LaunchBox. It’s a frontend that generally manages the emulators for you. Pulls metadata like boxart and release dates from a database. Free, but with a premium upgrade.

It handles everything for you, but you can also customize it to your liking!

It downloads emulators like RetroArch, Dolphin, PCSX2, etc. so you don’t have to even worry about finding each one. But if you find a different emulator you’d rather use for something, you tell LaunchBox to use that. Super flexible!

The premium upgrade (which isn’t necessary to make use of any of these features) goes on sale exactly once per year: Black Friday, which is coming soon. So if anyone else wants to support the project, now’s the time. But even if you don’t have money to spare, I highly recommend checking it out!

sopularity_fax@sopuli.xyz on 23 Nov 2025 21:23 collapse

K i will try later thanks!

Davel23@fedia.io on 23 Nov 2025 21:11 next collapse

I've heard good things about Retrobat. I've been meaning to try it out but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Mongostein@lemmy.ca on 23 Nov 2025 21:40 next collapse

You’re probably thinking of OpenEmu, which I believe is available for windows and Linux as well

sopularity_fax@sopuli.xyz on 23 Nov 2025 23:52 collapse

THANKS! Thats the one!,

Safly not available for Windows at least

joshg253@piefed.zip on 23 Nov 2025 21:51 collapse

https://playnite.link/

“Playnite is an open source video game library manager with one simple goal: To provide a unified interface for all of your games.”