About

Attract-Mode is a graphical frontend for command line emulators such as MAME, MESS and Nestopia. It hides the underlying operating system and is intended to be controlled with a joystick, gamepad or spin dial, making it ideal for use in arcade cabinets. Attract-Mode is open source and runs on Linux, OS X and Windows-based systems.

Features

Open Source, Cross Platform

• Licensed under the GNU General Public License.
• Runs on Windows, OS X and Linux (including Raspberry Pi, Odroid).

Easy Configuration

• Built-in configuration menu, with on-screen help messages, for easy configuration of most settings.
• Frontend settings are stored in simple text files, so it is also easy to configure from your favourite text editor.

Looks Good

• Fully scriptable layouts written in the Squirrel programming language.
• Appearance is completely customizable/themable.
• Supports any image, video or audio format supported by FFmpeg. SWF files supported through gameswf.
• Layouts can arbitrarily position, colour, scale, rotate, pinch and skew layout artworks, text, images and videos.
• Various built in animations available (Penner easing functions, fades, sprite animation, particle effects, scrolling text, and many more).
• GLSL shader (vertex and fragment) support.
• Configurable screensaver and intro.
• Display layouts/skins from other frontends (Hyperspin, MaLa, MameWah).
• Hardware accelerated video decoding (mmal on Raspberry Pi, dxva2 on Windows, vaapi on Linux)

Arcade Customizable

• Frontend actions can be mapped to any joystick, keyboard or mouse input (or unmapped completely). Arbitrary key/button/joystick combinations are supported too.
• Built-in support for multiple monitors.
• User configurable sounds and ambient music.
• Supports screen rotation and flipping (including auto-rotation to match games).
• Plug-in system to enable the extention or further customization of frontend functionality, including integration with external programs such as LED control or joystick mapping software.
• Exit hotkeys can be configured for emulators to force them to exit, even when they don't want to.
• Pause functionality allows users to return from an emulator to the frontend, and then resume again right from where they left off (Linux and Windows versions only).
• Supports per-game customization of the game launch commandline (executable and parameters).

Organize your Content

• Filter and sort game lists based on multiple game attributes.
• Easily mark and cycle through your favourite games.
• Built-in game information editor.
• Automatically generate game lists from directory contents.
• Import game information from MAME -listxml and -listsoftware commands.
• Import game lists from Hyperspin and Mamewah/Wahcade!.
• Scrape missing game information and artworks from thegamesdb.net, progretto-snaps.net and adb.arcadeitalia.net.
• Catver.ini, nplayers.ini, languages.ini, series.ini and history.dat file support.
• Track game usage statistics (times played, total time played).
• Steam support.

• Available localizations: Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish.

Documentation & Tools

• Attract-Mode Readme
• Compile instructions
• Layouts manual
• Project Wiki
• Online Layout Editor (forum thread)

(photo by BrianAg95 with a custom layout)