What front end do you recomend

[Ninjadog]

I'm running an old laptop as a retro gaming rig and looking for something that looks nice, is easy to set up, and won't bog down my computer. Seems like I usually get to pick 2 of those 3 options. MAME itself is easy to use and snappy AF, but looks like dog excrement.
Tried AttractMode and well I don't find it very easy to set up. Watched a ton of YouTube vids that never show Windows with MAME. It's always Windows with other emulators/systems, or if it is MAME it's a RPi install. So it never ends up looking or working quite right for me.

Installed Launch Box was super easy to setup. Launch an installer, make some paths and let it do the rest. Perhaps I shouldn't have tried installing a full ROM set of all the art works and such, but it runs so slow and takes about 7 seconds to launch a game. I've been curating a list of good games around 200 and growing in my main ROMS folder and maybe shouldn't have got so greedy to think I want like 8000 arcade games. So that's the one that bogs my computer down.

The specs on my laptop are i3 (2310M) 2.10GHz 4GB ram, it's from 2010 and was a entry level machine.

Guess my computer skills are more watch vids and copy paste, or navigate easy options. Typing out paths is not really my thing.
So yeah, got any recommendations for a FE or able to give tips on AM or LB for MAME and Win8? I would have loved that BigBox theme you see on their website video with those beautiful Galaga and Moon Patrol cab art foregrounds with the video snap playing behind it, but have thoughts my computer can't handle that. If you have no idea what I mean about the Galaga and Moon Patrol thing it's at approx the 29 and 43 seconds mark  in this vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=45&v=K_2_TecMUR0

[Mike A]

I've been curating a list of good games around 200 and growing in my main ROMS folder and maybe shouldn't have got so greedy to think I want like 8000 arcade games.

Kudos for figuring this out early. Too many people think more games equals a better experience.

[nipsmg]

I 100% agree.  What turned most people off to using my cabinet was that it took 500 years to navigate to a game they liked (unless they knew the controls for the front end, like left/right skip a page, etc.  but that is unintuitive and resulted in ‘can you help Johnny find this game?’ At every party..)

 I was using my cabinet as a historical archive, most people just want to play a game.  I’m planning on doing the same, and running multiple feuntends.  If I want to fish around my list of every game ever made I’ll run launchbox.. otherwise Attractmode it is for everyone else.


As far as front end setups.. it was easy for me for some reason, but I think I already had a hyper spin setup and pointed attract mode at it.

If you want something stupid easy to set up, get launchbox with BigBox.  It’s not free but not expensive, the launchbox  interface is really intuitive and easy, there are videos for setting up EVERY system, and the BigBox interface is just as good as any of the other major frontends, with tons of themes.

[Ginsonic]

Launch Box with Big Box! It combines all I ever wanted from a FrontEnd.

[keilmillerjr]

Attractmode, retrofe, bigbluefrontend, crtfrontend.

Check out the allkillernofiller list on this forum. I also converted it to attractmode tag list. Can find in link my signature.