Emulator [Release] NostalgiaJS - The Simple, Unopinionated, Open Source Gaming Front-End

[wiired24]

Introducing NostalgiaJS

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So just what exactly is NostalgiaJS?
Put simply, NostalgiaJS is a free and open source launcher that is geared towards desktop users. It was created because of a desire I had to have a nice and easy to use front-end for Unix like systems such as Linux and MacOS. My core design philosophy I had in mind when creating NostalgiaJS was the it should really follow a few different goals.

1. Be very easy to use (Similar to if you've ever used launchbox on windows you know just how easy it is to start adding games)

2. While being 'easy to use' still be very customizeable and configurable. No diving into config files, messing with a bunch of settings just to get started.

3. Support a large amount of emulators by leveraging the ecosystem of libretro cores and also standalone emulators. And I wanted it to run my steam games too as a bonus

4. Have a retro aesthetic (Because 80's is cool again)


A brief list of features for NostalgiaJS
Currently NostalgiaJS offers the following features

* Speed - Because it leverages NodeJS and Libretro, cores launch usually within less than 1 second.

* Supports Box Art and Video Previews for games

* Includes a scraper by default to easily fetch metadata for your game collection.
It's easy easy as running the setup script then scrape.sh.

* Native support for launching Steam games

* Supports both Libretro Retroarch emulator cores & standalone emulators for high emulator compatibility.
For convenience libretro cores for some of the most popular emulators are built into Nostalgia by default

* Built in support for launching .exe emulator files (Just make sure you have Wine installed)

* Completely Open and customizeable - Because the source code is public you can customize Nostalgia to your hearts content.Don't like something in the official release? You can easily fork it and add your own changes. If you have a feature you'd like to see in a future release just submit a pull request and it will be reviewed. Anyone can become a contributor.

Did I mention custom backgrounds?

How to run NostalgiaJS?
Since NostalgiaJS is written with Javascript and uses NodeJS you need to make sure you have Node and NPM installed. Then It's as simple as cloning the repository to your machine and running

npm install
npm run start

If you wish to have an executable built you will just need to follow the instructions on the github page to make a release-build for your target platform. It's pretty straight-forward and easy to do.


That's pretty much it. If you have any questions about NostalgiaJS I'd be happy to answer them. Hope you enjoy it. Please note that it's still under active development so you can expect more features and bug fixes in the future.


https://github.com/wiired24/NostalgiaJS


P.S. this project is in no way affiliated with "Nostalgia" front-end for Android. This is an entirely different project by a different dev. There just happens to be too many devs that think of the same names for projects lol

 

[Pleng]

Pretty cool, but isn't there already an emulator front end with the same name? Or are they related?

 

[wiired24]

Thanks, yeah no not related whatsoever. I actually just updated the name to NJS or NostalgiaJS since the original name was appearntly used for a different front-end some years back.

 

[Gep_Etto]

Well, I just found out what I'll be tinkering with this weekend! Thanks a lot, @wiired24, I've missed LaunchBox dearly since nuking my Windows 10 partition.

 

[wiired24]

UPDATE: As of now support for the Windows Platform has been officially added to NostalgiaJS. Support for the windows platform is currently experimental as NostalgiaJS was built primarily for *nix systems. Expect some things to break at the moment. Standard Emulators should work fine, there are some issues I'm currently working on with respect to Retroarch cores loading properly on Windows. If you wish to make a release build for the Windows Platform just run npm run package-win

 

[wiired24]

UPDATE: Retroarch Cores are now working properly with NostalgiaJS on Windows. Just make sure that the directory containing the retroarch,exe file is added to your system path. If you're not sure how to do that see this article. https://www.architectryan.com/2018/03/17/add-to-the-path-on-windows-10/ Quick Note: When adding to path make sure you select the folder the .exe file is in, not the file itself.

I have also included retroarch DLL emulator cores for Windows since only the .SO (Linux/Mac) binaries were included previously. Just a heads up, Nostalgia may throw an error when launching a game that is running off of a retroarch core however it can be ignored as everything seems to be working fine. I will continue to update this thread as more progress is made. Stay tuned.

 

[Gep_Etto]

Awesomesauce.

 

[wiired24]

NostalgiaJS V1.2 has been released today. This new release features the following

-Improved support for the Windows 10 Operating System. (Support had been there for some time but hadn't yet been included in release.)

-Added Support for the Popular "DuckStation" PS1 Emulator Core to NostalgiaJS. Duckstation for those that aren't aware is hands down arguably the best PS1 emulator out there with support for playing PS1 games at 4K Resolution, Overclocking, Texture Filtering etc. And now it's included as a core by default.

Update: I've added both the libretro core as well as the standalone DuckStation emulator for NostalgiaJS. If you run into any issues at all using the libretro core, give the standalone a try. You will need to supply your own PS1 Bios File.

More improvements will be featured in the following release. Hope you enjoy!
https://github.com/wiired24/NostalgiaJS/releases/tag/v1.2

 

[wiired24]

Support for Original Xbox Emulation via xemu has been added to NostalgiaJS. This required making some small changes in the loadconfig function. This has only been tested on Ubuntu Linux although it should work just fine on Windows 10/11. If you like NostalgiaJS and you like emulating OG Xbox Games well today is your lucky day

As always you can grab the latest source here -> https://github.com/wiired24/NostalgiaJS

 

[Gep_Etto]

So, this project is dead, right? Because if it's not, I have a big list of feature requests.

 

[Luke94]

Is Front-End the same as digital game launcher storefront?

 

[wiired24]

So, this project is dead, right? Because if it's not, I have a big list of feature requests.

You’re more than welcome to submit a pull request on GitHub with your changes/feature adds.

 

[Luke94]

Could Epic Games Launcher become at least open-source without any unofficial fanmade replica? Or not? Is it impossible?