I have an Unraid server where I keep all my game ROMs, and I usually play them on Retrobat on a few PCs around the house. Now I’m trying to figure out the best and most user-friendly way to play these same ROMs on my Android phone. I’m a bit confused about how frontends and backends work with emulators. Currently, I’m just hosting the ROMs and save files on the server directly. Would it be better to host a full backend on the server and then just use a frontend emulator (like Emulation Station) on my phone? Would this approach even work? Looking for advice or suggestions on good emulator apps or setups that would let me seamlessly access and play my ROMs from my phone.
4 Answers
Android isn’t great at mapping network drives like PCs do, so trying to directly access your Unraid server’s storage as if it was local can get messy. Instead, you might want to use syncing tools like Syncthing or even something like Tailscale (which you mentioned) to sync your ROMs and save files between devices. That way, your phone always has a local copy to run smoothly without waiting on network streams.
I get what you’re going for with centralizing everything. One thing to consider is apps like ROMm or emulatorjs, which can run in Docker containers on your Unraid server. They serve your ROMs in a way that might be easier to stream or access from your phone via a browser or compatible frontend. Since Unraid supports these containers via community apps, it might be worth trying that out to see if it fits your setup better.
Honestly, the simplest way might be to just put the few games you actually want to play directly on your phone’s storage. It avoids headaches with network drives and syncing issues, especially since Android doesn’t handle mapped drives like a PC does. You can always pick your top 10 favorites and transfer them over for quick access.
About your question on frontends and backends: in most emulator setups, the backend is the actual emulator that runs the game, while the frontend organizes the library, UI, and sometimes adds extras like metadata. Hosting a full backend on your server is tricky since emulator performance depends on the local device. Usually, the server just provides storage, and your phone runs the emulator (backend). So your current method of hosting ROMs and saves on the server and using a frontend on the phone sounds like the common approach.
