[Feature Request] Ability to host emulator files in server and allow desktop clients to download and use them

[gitmotion]

First off, great job with this - I've been playing around with it today and it works pretty well and loving it so far 👏

If I may add an interesting touch, I thought it would be cool to be able to host the emulator files on the server as well.

• then maybe be able to set the profiles and defaults in the web client which also maps to an OS
• so when you go to the game page you can choose which OS you want to play on (or it knows based on the type of desktop client that was installed to grab from if available)
• for example: in the windows client, you would be able to hit a new option called "emulate" which signals the desktop app to request the emulator files from the server
• then add an emulator directory to the Retrom client roaming app folder (~/AppData/Roaming/com.retrom.client/emulators) to store the downloaded emulator (or wherever works best). the "emulate" button/action above would first check to see if these files exist already
• and then uses that to emulate that rom type moving forward
• with options to "uninstall" the emulator and retain the ability to use your own (like it is currently)

that way anyone connecting to the Retrom server doesn't need to have any files already, they can just download Retrom and have it do the rest and stay true to the "Configure once, play anywhere."

It seems somewhat of a straightforward thing but I could be wrong haha but I could see this type of feature being super useful. I think later down the line it would be very interesting to see the emulator ported to the web client but that may be a whole different project.

Thanks and keep it up!

[Protoc0l]

I second this being an awesome feature! Love this idea! And love your work so far JMBeresford!

[JMBeresford]

Thanks for the praise and the well thought out idea! I have always had this as a goal for Retrom, albeit one that sits behind other higher priorities. Supporting something like this for portable emulators is definitely not out of the question 😎