What's new / better in Maximus Arcade (compared to MALA or Mamewah?)

[MPTech]

haven't had time to play / work on my Arcade for several months and I'm planning a complete PC upgrade and S/W reinstall.

Originally, I install Mamewah 3 or 4 years ago and was very happy with it, but it's not user friendly for setup. (but I worked through all of my issues and it's working well now).
For the planned PC upgrade / re-install, I was investigating MALA and had it running with a couple emu's a couple months ago, and that's what I was planning on for a FE.

My PC build is almost done and I ran across MA. Looks very good and I went out to the site and downloaded it, just wondering what was the driving force behind developing a new FE? (pros / cons)
Looks great! I'm still reading all of the posts, but have seen a comparison yet.

just asking before I jump to another FE
any feedback would be greatly appreciated


thanks guys!

[MPTech]

Thanks nickynooch, very helpful feedback.

Like I said, I did like Mamewah, but do not want to set it up and debug it again. I also want to add a couple more emus and I know it would be more hours of trial & error and use & support seems to have dropped considerably. (it was a GREAT FE for it's time, and thank you to it's creater!!)

MALA, I really don't have anything against it. I tried it a few months ago and it was also very good (I even used my Mamewah templates and didn't have any problems setting it up. (my only challenge was creating the filters, and I just didn't finish my research).

So, if the learning curve isn't bad for MA and there is good support and no significant bugs, I'm thinking that is the direction I'm going in.

Any other feedback / advice / experience, would be greatly appreciated!

[jordanshadow]

When I created my cabinet I looked into multiple front ends (maximus, hyperspin, mamewah, mala). Ultimately I decided that Mala far exceeds all of them in most instances. Maximus Arcade is fairly easy to setup and the gui is pretty decent but I found it difficult to adjust the themes for it and all the standard themes I did not like. Hyperspin is my second  choice but it requires a very strong computer, emulators are moderately difficult to setup, and finding all the required media is a daunting task. Also hyperspin cant flip into vertical mode that I know of and I am using a four player cocktail setup. Mamewah as you mentioned is nice but difficult.

I chose Mala because it is very easy to setup all the game lists and emulators, arcade layout friendly, theme editor is excellent. Overall I felt that if there was anything I wanted to do I could accomplish it with Mala. Also some of the standard themes on the Mala wiki are excellent. Check out Mame Blue or the alien theme.

My two cents...

[methodical]

I found Maximus to be the best looking. Sure Hyperspin is fancy, but there's just too much going on. Other frontends just looked dull to me. MA is extremely easy to set up, and there are a lot of nice little features in it. Check out the trial and have a look around... best way to tell.

[Dazz]

I found Maximus to be the best looking. Sure Hyperspin is fancy, but there's just too much going on. Other frontends just looked dull to me. MA is extremely easy to set up, and there are a lot of nice little features in it. Check out the trial and have a look around... best way to tell.

Too much going on in HyperSpin?  Please PM me with an explanation as to what you mean.  I'm finding that a lot of Maximus users simply don't like the animations.  However, almost everything in HyperSpin can be changed to suit.

To answer the topic,

I've used Mala and Mamewah on my cabinet.  Unfortunately with Mamewah on my 4 player setup I found my configs were getting messed up after a couple hours of play.  I still don't know how this happened...  I also tested Mala as well but ended up going with Maximus.   

Pros:
Maximus is easy to setup
Looks good on a cabinet setup.

Cons:
Lack of support - except for this forum
Lack of updates - I think Mameseer has lost interest in MA.
Emulators are hard coded and adding support for new emulators can only be done by hack workarounds.
Price - for no support or possible future updates     

If you have a PC that can run HyperSpin, I say give it a shot.  Test out all of the ones that you are interested in and then make an educated decision.

[shateredsoul]

I agree with what nickynooch and Dazz mention. I found out about frontend becaus of mamewah, but boy was it a pain, but at least thanks to mamewah I found out about Maximus Arcade.

I would like to emphasize one thing though, calling adding a system to maximus a "hack job" makes it sound super difficult, and although it is a hack... it's pretty easy to do.

1. Adding new systems to Maximus Arcade is as easy as pointing another systems config screen to a different emulator and a different rom folder.  After that you just need to change the art (so if you use the virtual pinball config screen to add sega naomi, you would change the virtual pinball art to naomi art). For some systems you do have to add some command line, it's literally the equivalent of 2 words (and only for gamecube and wii).  IMO adding non-supported systems to hyperspin is much harder... even though there's a add system wizard you have to figure out autohotkey, change sleep time to match your system speed, etc etc.. BUT the support in the hyperspin forums is top notch!  very patient users over in those forums. And if you just want mame, or are only interested in the currently supported systems it's pretty easy to setup.

2. Ok... although I do agree that Hyperpsin seems like a daunting task (and it is!) the end result is beautiful.  I like the look much more than maximus. I like the animations (although.. when I make my own pc themes I just insert a background and add a video). In general, you'll just impress more people, you'll have fun just looking through the games and seeing the game boxes pop up.

3. Maximus Arcade is clean, still works fine, is easy to setup using the current roms and videos you have (they have to match). Plus it's super easy to add new systems. It's still impressive and if you only care about finding the games and being able to launch them, then this will probably be more than adequate.If you choose Maximus spacegoogie came out with a really nice skin to use with it (he only asks for a $5 donation). I also have a theme with other system art already added in (from atari 5200 to nintendo wii).  I wouldn't mind sharing that theme. It's the default one, I just switched out the art to install new systems.

Either one is great, and although the forums for Maximus are dead, you can still get it running great. If you decide you do want something flashy go with Hyperpsin.