Emulation Station style menu driver

Bounty Discussion
#1

I absolutely love Retroarch, but I personally feel the Emulation Station interface is better than any interface that Retroarch has. I was wondering if there was anyone else who felt the same and if there would likely be any support for creating a bounty to add an Emulation Station style menu driver?

#2

I think the 2 main questions I would ask are:

1.) how would it differ from XMB with dynamic backgrounds?

2.) what’s the benefit over just using EmulationStation to launch RetroArch?

#3

Good quesions.

  1. It separates the consoles from the games. So you scroll left and right for the consoles. Then you select a console and scroll up and down for the games once you are on that consoles page. This declutters both pages, so the console list is cleaner (It doesn’t always have that vertical column of games) And the list of games is cleaner and a better layout for the game cover art and text description since it doesn’t have a horizontal list of consoles going through it.

  2. This is a huge one, because it doubles the work load to setup both. If I want to setup both I first need to go into RetroArch, download cores, configure controllers, etc. Cool I normally have to do. Then, to get the ES interface, I need to setup ES, configure controllers,and either hand jam all of the games to point to RetroArch or download a third piece of software to help with setting up ES. If RetroArch had an ES menu driver, everything could be done from a single piece of software, (RetroArch)

I mean, RetroPie basically exist to put a skin on top of RetroArch. (I know, I’m oversimplifying) I honestly believe Lakka would gain a lot more users (me included) if it had a ES menu driver. The only reason I continue to use RetroPie is for the ES interface. As for my computer, I keep trying to make straight RetroArch work, but I end up spending all of the time to get that sweet ES setup because of how amazing it is.

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#4

I am actually in favor of this idea, for “visual consistency”. I use launchers like EmulationStation or Launchbox on several computers on top of Retroarch, and I love that, but I’m always bothered by the fact that once you launch a game and go to the Retroarch menu, well you get… the Retroarch menu, which looks different from ES or Launchbox / Big Box. It breaks consistency. I would love to have the same visual UI when I chose my game and when I am in it and press the menu key.

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#5

maybe you are referring to something like this:

https://ludo.libretro.com

#6

Close, but that is a completely separate spin off of retroarch and it still isn’t Emulation Station. Though I do think that interface is also better than any that RetroArch has, and if that interface came to RetroArch as a menu driver that would be a step in the right direction. We can spin off a discussion about Ludo later, I don’t want this thread to get sidetracked.

#7

I understand friend, then I do not know, I like much more " XMB " than Emulation Station, this same allows you to customize it and is better integrated with emulators. Question of tastes

example:

#8

Just because I don’t see it here, has anyone considered the Hand-held use-case? If your screen is only 2 inches, and 320px on the vertical, the RetroArch interface is eye-straining painful to use. Emulation-Station, with the graphics-over-text design approach really shines in this use-case.

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#9

How about the fact that you can’t even get emulatiostation for android. If retroarch had an emulation station theme it would be so much better.

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#10

Both of these are very valid points! By baking an emulation station style theme inside of RetroArch it would be able to run on the various handhelds that now exist as well.

#11

We have no plans for an emulationstation-style menu driver currently.

The RGUI menu is already very functional for low-res devices and CRTs.

#12

These two cool things should come together into one. Is it really that hard to do? The Simple ES theme looks very cool. It is very strange that no one has impoverished them yet. If they are combined it will be much more convenient than switching between two shells in mini consoles and it will also be better in terms of performance, stability and ease of making various assemblies like RetroPie.

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