A vibesmaxxed emulation frontend built with Electron, React, and TypeScript.
- In-process Libretro cores — Runs cores natively via a C++ Node addon in-process (not an external RetroArch process)
- WebGL2 shader pipeline (18 presets) — Multi-pass CRT and display effects including CRT Geom, CRT Geom Deluxe, CRT Aperture, CRT Fast, CRT Caligari, NTSC Adaptive, LCD PSP, LCD GBA, LCD GBA + Motion Blur, xBRZ Freescale, SABR, Pixellate, Dither, Halftone, Motion Blur, Nearest Neighbor, Linear, and None
- Sub-millisecond frame pacing — Emulation loop runs in a dedicated Electron utility process with hybrid sleep+spin pacing (~0.1–0.5ms jitter)
- Hash-based library IDs — ROMs identified by MD5 against ScreenScraper, with name search only as a fallback, plus cover art sync
- First-launch homebrew — Bundled permissively-licensed homebrew imports on first launch so the library is not empty before you add ROMs
- On-demand core downloads — Cores are fetched when needed rather than hand-installed
| System | Cores |
|---|---|
| Arcade | MAME |
| Game Boy | Gambatte, mGBA |
| Game Boy Advance | mGBA, VBA Next |
| Game Boy Color | Gambatte, mGBA |
| Genesis / Mega Drive | Genesis Plus GX, PicoDrive |
| N64 | Mupen64Plus Next, ParaLLEl N64 |
| Nintendo DS | DeSmuME |
| NES | fceumm, Nestopia, Mesen |
| PSP | PPSSPP |
| PlayStation | PCSX ReARMed, Beetle PSX HW, SwanStation |
| Sega Saturn | Beetle Saturn, Yabause |
| SNES | Snes9x, bsnes |
More systems are on the way — the goal is to support any libretro-compatible core.
- Node.js 18+
- pnpm 9+
- macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools (for the native addon)
- Windows: Visual Studio Build Tools with the C++ workload
git clone https://github.com/ryanmagoon/gamelord.git
cd gamelord
pnpm install
# Build the native addon (required for emulation)
cd apps/desktop/native && npx node-gyp rebuild && cd ../../..
# Start development
pnpm devpnpm test # Run tests
pnpm lint # Lint
pnpm typecheck # Type check
pnpm storybook # Component browserSee CONTRIBUTING.md for setup instructions and development workflow. For a deep dive into how the app is structured, check out ARCHITECTURE.md.
