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Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

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Re: Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

#91

Post by zahlman »

TOGoS wrote: post #89
gassi wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you mean by this, but in this context it's hosting and managing applications on your own servers instead of consuming from cloud/SaaS providers.

Back when I was a lad we called that "a computer program"

Back when I was a lad, we called that a "web site". And a "computer program" was something that just ran on your local device (which was almost certainly a desktop computer), using its CPU, and directly gave you what you wanted, no network required.

And if it used a GUI at all, it implemented its own GUI directly using the API provided by the OS (or some library built on that; originally quite obnoxiously thin ones, but nowadays you can get some very nice abstractions). It didn't delegate HTML or CSS rendering to a web rendering engine, because those basically didn't even exist outside an actual dedicated web browser. Nor did it express the GUI layout in those terms at any point; it was expressed in terms of widgets again defined by whatever SDK, specifically for the purpose of creating GUIs - not hacks on top of the hypertext model.

You know, much like what had to be done to make the ROMs in the first place (although using SDKs oriented around receiving input from a controller, rather than a mouse and keyboard; and around displaying things like scrolling tile grids rather than movable windows).

(And it turns out it's still completely possible to make things this way, and I still do.)

Re: Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

#92

Post by zahlman »

gassi wrote: post #75
zahlman wrote: post #73

My first thought was, what does it mean for a program like this to be "hosted" in the first place? My second thought was, for people who play a lot of ROMs, they're either doing it because they know more about those games than typical online metadata sources do; and/or a big chunk of them are modded or even completely homebrew.

Hosted as in self-hosted, as in run on a server with Docker/Proxmox/Unraid and accessible via a web browser, as opposed to running locally on a single device. The solution isn't ideal for those who hoard entire romsets, but it's great for those of us who curate their collections down to a more manageable size. That can be anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple thousand games, and the metadata sources are fairly r…

I guess the subtext was lost. I was stunned by the idea that anyone would want such a thing to be "accessible via a web browser" at all. Self-hosting is the improvement you implement over letting someone else host it, but hosting it at all was an idea that would never have crossed my mind had it not been brought up. And it creates the impression that such hosting is somehow necessary to use the software.

It's a sort of complexity that seems, to me, completely beyond what the target audience - people who collect ROMs - would be interested in. After all, they're explicitly preserving software that itself works in a far more primitive way, because they have a personal interest in software that works in primitive ways.

Re: Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

#93

Post by Gamemaster1379 »

zurdi wrote: post #63
Gamemaster1379 wrote: post #62

I get the impression the authors are monitoring the thread. I'm not home to check this out but I like the idea. A few questions. 1. Does the web interface allow you to download your ROMs in a similar fashion to Plex letting you download your files? I could see myself using this to fetch from my libraries and would like a nice GUI box art interface to grab a game I'm looking for. 2. How does this work with ROM hacks?…

Of course! we are excited about the post and we want to answer any question regarding RomM. Answering you: 1. That's exacty what RomM (among other things) does. You will have a Jellyfin/Plex interface from where download your games 2. Right now we match using the name of the file, but we are planning to add match by hash thaat will increase the accuracy even more. If it doesn't match anything, you are able to match i…

Thanks so much for the answer! This is a really cool project! I'll definitely check it out once I'm back.

Re: Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

#94

Post by plokiju »

zahlman wrote: post #92
gassi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hosted as in self-hosted, as in run on a server with Docker/Proxmox/Unraid and accessible via a web browser, as opposed to running locally on a single device. The solution isn't ideal for those who hoard entire romsets, but it's great for those of us who curate their collections down to a more manageable size. That can be anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple thousand games, and the metadata sources are fairly r…

I guess the subtext was lost. I was stunned by the idea that anyone would want such a thing to be "accessible via a web browser" at all. Self-hosting is the improvement you implement over letting someone else host it, but hosting it at all was an idea that would never have crossed my mind had it not been brought up. And it creates the impression that such hosting is somehow necessary to use the software. It's a sort…

That's funny. I come at this from the opposite direction. I like to run stuff on my home server, and I started a ROM collection because of Romm. If you're used to managing a media collection using jellyfin/Plex, adding roms feels pretty natural.

Maybe this project is appealing to a totally different audience than most ROM managers

Re: Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

#95

Post by pipes »

gassi wrote: post #51
pipes wrote: post #49

Looks lovely. Thanks for creating this. If you have time: Does it (or can it) run emulators natively? I'm trying to get my head around js emulator, how is that libretro? Is libretro compiled to wasm? Is it running retro arch underneath or have you managed to implement the libretro API? I love and hate retroarch. Its menus are ridiculous but it's still easier than managing multiple emulators.

The project that powers the in-browser emulator is EmulatorJS, which use RetroArch's libretro cores compiled to WASM. More info on the process here: https://emulatorjs.org/docs4devs/buildingraw I believe it's running RetroArch, as when you load a corrupt file or start without selecting a game it displays the RA menu. If you want to dig deeper you can check out their github or ask in their Discord, the team have been…

Thanks for this. If it's running libretro cores compiled to wasm, why is retro arch required? Is it a version of retro arch compiled to wasm?

Re: Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

#96

Post by zurdi »

TOGoS wrote: post #89
gassi wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you mean by this, but in this context it's hosting and managing applications on your own servers instead of consuming from cloud/SaaS providers.

Back when I was a lad we called that "a computer program"

This is like you telling me the difference between a car and a truck and I telling you that there is no difference, both are automobile. Everything is a computer program, but I bet you can tell the difference between the "computer program" your washing machine uses vs the one your desktop pc/laptop uses

Re: Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

#97

Post by gassi »

pipes wrote: post #95
gassi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The project that powers the in-browser emulator is EmulatorJS, which use RetroArch's libretro cores compiled to WASM. More info on the process here: https://emulatorjs.org/docs4devs/buildingraw I believe it's running RetroArch, as when you load a corrupt file or start without selecting a game it displays the RA menu. If you want to dig deeper you can check out their github or ask in their Discord, the team have been…

Thanks for this. If it's running libretro cores compiled to wasm, why is retro arch required? Is it a version of retro arch compiled to wasm?

Honestly I'm not the best person to ask about this, your best bet is to ask in their discord.

Re: Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

#99

Post by import »

zurdi wrote: post #63
Gamemaster1379 wrote: post #62

I get the impression the authors are monitoring the thread. I'm not home to check this out but I like the idea. A few questions. 1. Does the web interface allow you to download your ROMs in a similar fashion to Plex letting you download your files? I could see myself using this to fetch from my libraries and would like a nice GUI box art interface to grab a game I'm looking for. 2. How does this work with ROM hacks?…

Of course! we are excited about the post and we want to answer any question regarding RomM. Answering you: 1. That's exacty what RomM (among other things) does. You will have a Jellyfin/Plex interface from where download your games 2. Right now we match using the name of the file, but we are planning to add match by hash thaat will increase the accuracy even more. If it doesn't match anything, you are able to match i…

Thanks for the answer. Curious how hacks can be enabled, any pointers on that?
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