I just use OpenEmu (which supports tons of devices through open-source cores)
On amd64/PC I use my own graphical interface that I coded with haxe, to basically commandline MAME since all frontends suck one way or the other. I like to have all my shit in one giant list, regardless of machines/categories and shit. In fact it's not even a list, it's just the screeshot of the game in the background, full screen, the name of the game at the bottom of the screen overlaying the screeshot, index number of the game in the list/total number of games ( ex 15/955) on top right corner, and the machine name on top left, that's my UI. Up and down to scroll up and down in the list, press button to lauch and that's it. The list is generated on lauch it scans my folders. And I run everything with mame, it's not flawless of course but it's ok regarding the number of titles supported, from dos to playstation to saturn, 16 bit consoles, arcade of course etc, some amiga also such as moonstone, and it even runs gx4000 games. The downside is that you need power essentially, since it's mame and it focuses on emulation accuracy, but I have power so I don't give a shit
Reminds me that I have to try RetroPi on my Pi4
I don't like retropi much, it works great, but the logo sucks to begin with https://retropie.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/retropie-2016.png it's buttfuck ugly. And it's still the same problem, it's heavy to navigate from one list to the next, like for instance you want to play street fighter 2 arcade, and then you want to try the idk, megadrive version, well then you have to exit the arcade category, browse over all the categories in between, enter the megadrive category... And scroll down to sf2... Sucks
I prefer emulationstation over retropi personally, but you still end up with the same problem, the UI gets in the way essentially, it's a great UI technically speaking, but it sucks balls
All the things in one giant list that's it, that's the best IMO. And if you can get rid of the "list on the left screenshot on the right" stuff, that's even better, because it also sucks balls especially if you need to port it to a small screen device https://atariage.com/forums/uploads/monthly_09_2008/post-5887-1221241910.jpg
So in the end, you have current screenshot, full screen, minimalist, up/down it changes the screenshot/moves into the list, you keep pushing down it scrolls faster and faster, disk access on SSD to load a game screenshot, which are often 320/240 res, with limited color palette takes virtually no time, it goes super fast, and you don't have the pain in the ass list to update on the screen, idk if you see what I mean, but that's the most practical way to handle the shit, the massive shit. Of course games are by alphabetic order, you type a letter on keyboard it jumps straight to the first game name starting with that letter, stuffs like that. And no I don't use games real names, I use the file name on the screen, only mame arcades aren't explicit such as garou.zip or pang.zip but even then, who fucking cares you have the screenshot in the back and pang is pang
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