HyperSpin v2 is coming...

[Dazz]

BadBoyBill has been listening to working on HyperSpin and v2.0 is currently in development and has been for a little while.  The engine is being completely re-written and optimized.  Lines of code that numbered in the thousands is down to a couple hundred.  Many of the most requested features are also being added.  Below is just a short list of the new features that are being worked on, there are many more features and optimizations that are to come later.  

* Vertical Resolution and Widescreen Support

 
* New wheel/game list display options, including coverflow with reflections.


* Search Functionality:


* In FE Operator Menu that will have some basic options:


* Parental Controls / Game Rating Options with support for AAMA,ESRB, PEGI and HSRS (custom HyperSpin Rating System)  - We prefer not to assume fake ratings for AAMA, ESRB, PEGI.  We will only use these ratings for games officially rated by those companies based on information at their respective websites. HSRS was made up to cover games not rated by those companies.


* Multiple Favorite Lists - Up to 5 different lists can be created.



* Passcoded Favorites - use a 3 button combination passcode to protect your favorites list.



* Hide/Disable Menu Items



* A new more robust Genre system.

* Much much much more to come.

Right now we have a push on to have all of our game databases completed with Genre and Ratings.  We also have a push on to have complete sets of wheel images and boxart for all supported systems.  The MAME wheel images are almost complete with about 200 missing, but more being created everyday.

As of right now we do not have a release time frame for HyperSpin v2...  My personal estimate is sometime after the first of the year, but I really have no clue.  Keep an eye out for more information.

[jtslade]

Awesome. Very awesome.

[abispac]

wow vertical resolution.... i been asking for this for while, thanks guys...good work

[RetroBorg]

Looks awesome, can't wait.

[arzoo]

 

[nickynooch]

As someone who doesn't use Hyperspin I probably have a noob question (I'm a big Maximus Arcade user/fan).  Is it possible to run Hyperspin properly without renaming all the files I have currently?  I was toying with setting it up to play with, but I don't want it to mess with my current maximus arcade setup.  I still prefer the look of maximus arcade.  Of course, parental controls are pointless for me, but I always kinda wanted to run more than one front end for grins and testing.  Hyperspin is a gorgeous front end for sure, I just prefer maximus arcade.

Basically I'm not going to run hyperspin if I have to rename all my files now (namely the games names) and I have no idea if they are in the no-intro naming convention, goodtools, etc.  Probably a bit of all of the above.

Also, does anyone else have another front end as their primary front end and run hyperspin additionally (as their secondary frontend), if so how difficult was the setup?

Hopefully not hijacking this thread, just a quick question.

Thanks guys!

[PsychoMikey]

Well, it can be done without renaming your roms, but that means changing the xml/gamelists in hyperspin to fit your rom sets + video + images which is probably alot more work. Getting roms with no-intro names is not really that hard.

[nickynooch]

 

[wxforecaster]

As someone who doesn't use Hyperspin I probably have a noob question (I'm a big Maximus Arcade user/fan).  Is it possible to run Hyperspin properly without renaming all the files I have currently?  I was toying with setting it up to play with, but I don't want it to mess with my current maximus arcade setup.  I still prefer the look of maximus arcade.  Of course, parental controls are pointless for me, but I always kinda wanted to run more than one front end for grins and testing.  Hyperspin is a gorgeous front end for sure, I just prefer maximus arcade.

Basically I'm not going to run hyperspin if I have to rename all my files now (namely the games names) and I have no idea if they are in the no-intro naming convention, goodtools, etc.  Probably a bit of all of the above.

Also, does anyone else have another front end as their primary front end and run hyperspin additionally (as their secondary frontend), if so how difficult was the setup?

Hopefully not hijacking this thread, just a quick question.

Thanks guys!

Absolutely. Assuming that your names match for your ROMs and auxiliary art work/videos/etc... (same name, different extension), this process takes all of 5 minutes. Having a no-intro set is nice, but not necessary.

Simply use HyperSpin's ROM2XML utility to parse your ROMs folder and generate an updated XML file for that gaming system -- which ends up in the HyperSpin\Databases\[name of system] folder, replacing the baseline XML file.


Evan

[nickynooch]

 

[TheManuel]

Hmm...

I'm afraid it's not that easy.
That will create your system xml for each emulator and the games will run but you will have to rename any existing HS themes to match your own names.  That being said, somebody in the HS board posted an application that does just that.

Setting up any good front-end takes quite a bit of time if you are obsessive compulsive like I am.  I spend countless hours setting up MaLa a couple of years ago and now I'm doing the same with Hyperspin.  Still, it's a lot of fun.

[Dazz]

I know getting no-intro names isn't hard, but to redownload all no-intro games I would have to rename all my images/videos/roms I have already working perfectly in maximus arcade.  Also, if I just decided to download duplicates, that eats up a lot of hard drive space.  Oh well.  Glad to know the xml can be edited though, but I could imagine that would be a lot of work, but who knows maybe worth messing with.  Thanks for the heads up.  I guess I'll probably just end up with one front end for a while.

Probably just too much work for something to monkey around with when in the end I'd stick with maximus, just was interested on messing around with hyperspin for fun.

Still looks like they are doing a lot of cool things with Hyperspin.

As far as rom names, we are now offering up our custom/official XML's and HyperSpin DATS.  These DATS are based off of the No-Intro naming convention, but we have minted out the game lists so they only contain USA/EUR/WORLD games.  All of our artwork, wheel images, box art, themes and videos will all be based off of these new DATS.  These DATS can then be run through CLRMamePro to audit and rename your roms.

You mention not wanting to have to rename your videos/images that you are currently using in MA, well those wouldn't work in HyperSpin anyway.  MA uses .jpg/.bmp images and .avi videos.  Images in HyperSpin are .png and videos are .flv.  These file types offer better compression, more versatility and higher quality images and videos at quite a smaller file size. 

The artwork sets that we are putting together are the best sets on the internet.  All images, including game logos, box art, cart art are either being completely re-traced or go through a major touch-up process before we consider them quality enough to be added to our official sets.  Below are a couple examples of the cart art and box art that have recently been completed.

Since we like to have options we have 3 different types of cart art.  Realistic with 3d view, vector and realistic standard view.


We have box art for consoles in 2d and 3d


NES Cart style wheel images


Standard NES wheel logo's.


We still have much much much more features that are being added, new artwork being created daily and a very active community.

[wxforecaster]

Dazz,

Any chance to add additional artwork layers (at least one or two)? I know many of us would like to make use of BOTH the awesome cart and box artwork, but right now we're limited to either/or given the 4 artwork limitation in the themes.

Evan

[BobA]

Wow!  Just looks better and better.  Waiting with extreme anticipation of front end nirvana.  

[Dazz]

Dazz,

Any chance to add additional artwork layers (at least one or two)? I know many of us would like to make use of BOTH the awesome cart and box artwork, but right now we're limited to either/or given the 4 artwork limitation in the themes.

Evan

No, adding more artwork layers would cause more problems than it would have benefits.  The theme structure is not going to change. 

If you want cart & box art to appear then I'd suggest creating a decent looking default system theme.  Or you can even batch process images and add cartart and boxart to the same piece of artwork.  You'd be surprised with what one can come up with using only 2 free artwork layers.

[wxforecaster]

Thanks Dazz. I'm a software engineer by trade, so it won't take much to composite the two graphics sets into one. Maybe I'll develop a small freeware app that let's the user take some combination of artwork and resize/rotate/composite them back into a single .png/.jpg.

[nickynooch]

   

[Dazz]

I was a Maximus Guy for a long time.  I was actually one of the first people to actually buy MA.  There just came a time that I wanted something different.  I started beta testing with HyperSpin and I now know the FE inside and out.  I didn't develop it, so I had to learn how it worked just like everyone else.  Sure it takes time to setup and learn, but I think it's by far the most rewarding FE to setup especially when friends come over and see it in action.  I have gotten more reaction from people having HS on my cabinet than I ever had for the 5 or so years that I used MA.

Newly added feature:

* Multiple Favorite Lists - Up to 5 different lists can be created.

[DaveMMR]

Do you anticipate the system requirements will remain the same?  I had HS on my cab but had to take it off because it slowed things down (I'm using an older computer).

However, I'm digging the new artwork and I maybe I'll use this for a stand-alone computer strictly for console emulators.   

[Dazz]

Do you anticipate the system requirements will remain the same?  I had HS on my cab but had to take it off because it slowed things down (I'm using an older computer).

However, I'm digging the new artwork and I maybe I'll use this for a stand-alone computer strictly for console emulators.   

It may be a little less because of the code optimizations, but with that being said I wouldn't expect it to be a big decrease.  I still think for best results a dual core machine with 2gb ram or more is ideal for HS.

[Havok]

Parental Controls is great, however do you know if there will be password locked menus? With the favorites and perhaps custom lists?

[Dazz]

Parental Controls is great, however do you know if there will be password locked menus? With the favorites and perhaps custom lists?

This is one thing that we are currently debating...  Why would you really need password locked menus/favorites?  

The parental controls system is FE wide.  This includes all game lists and favorite lists.  So if you don't want your kids seeing Adult games on the list, you would set the rating down to Everyone or something like that.  All game lists would show games rated E and lower.  When you, the adult, wants to play your games you can just switch the parental controls to Adult when you play and then switch back when you are done.

Favorites are going to be able to be password locked using a 3 button combo.

[Havok]

I would want it just because the controls are currently not granular enough. Some games will have a lower rating than what I would prefer and some games that I think are ok may have a higher rating. Rather than go ahead and adjust the levels for each game in question, it would be much easier to just have a password on a custom list so no-one that shouldn't be seeing it would be able to access.

It's not really about adult content vs. kids games as I'm not interested in adult games, it's more about what's in the game in question; there will always be disagreements between what I would rate a game and what it is officially rated. I believe that the ratings are based on descriptions on the games from the developers, they're not derived from the groups actually playing the games and seeing the content firsthand...

[Dazz]

* Passcoded Favorites - use a 3 button combination passcode to protect your favorites list.




Havok - In cases like yours I believe that the parental controls combined with our new option to hide/disable menu items would be perfect.  Set the FE to a rating that you are comfortable with and then you can manually disable any additional games by the press of a button.

* Hide/Disable ROMs

[headkaze]

It's a nice idea although already done in GameEx using GameEx Login

Still good to see BBB still working hard and HS can't be denied it's place as one of the best FE's around. My only gripe has been there is so much graphical content to gather and organize and I'm out of HDD space on my cab now anyway. I'll be sticking with GameEx but kudos to the HS team for their hard work 

[jackhammerslam]

headkaze buy another HDD if you're running out of space.
I was a 3darcade user until I found hyperspin over a 18 months ago now the rest is history
I found gameEX more as a multimedia setup than an arcade system frontend
I've been digging the changes since 0.7.
as far as setting hyperspin up it's almost idiot proof. If I can do it. it mustn't be hard
as far as the community is concerned hyperspin and gameEX have strong support and both are paitent with noobs
hyperspin maybe graphical but it's what grabbed me in the first place.
BBB and the team have constantly impressed me. All I gotta do is wait.
if any of you guys want help changing to HS we'll Be here to help I'm normally HS site anyways (when I'm not working)

[Mister Hat]

Sucks I can't use it

[Havok]

Sucks I can't use it

Cheer up - 11.10 comes out on Thursday!

[TheManuel]

 

[BobA]

 

[abispac]

---fudgesicle--- this...... 

[pathartl]

Dazz, love all the work you guys are putting into this, but I've got one question...

Why does it run so slow on all of my machines?! I know you guys are using Flash for the artwork, but are you using it for the main app too? My arcade cabinet currently has a dual core Pentium in it and it stutters a lot when going from game to game on the wheel. The only thing I've been able to make it run semi decently on was my main desktop, and that's a Core-i7 2600k clocked at 4.2GHz!

[wweumina]

You'll need to turn off alot of the effects etc or lower your resolution to get it running well.  It still looks very good even with the lower settings chosen.

[abispac]

Dazz, love all the work you guys are putting into this, but I've got one question...

Why does it run so slow on all of my machines?! I know you guys are using Flash for the artwork, but are you using it for the main app too? My arcade cabinet currently has a dual core Pentium in it and it stutters a lot when going from game to game on the wheel. The only thing I've been able to make it run semi decently on was my main desktop, and that's a Core-i7 2600k clocked at 4.2GHz!

either you have issues with your pc, maybe low ram? ---smurfy--- video card? too much stuff runing in the background? im using a Pentium D with  1 gb ram no problems at all.

[pathartl]

either you have issues with your pc, maybe low ram? ---smurfy--- video card? too much stuff runing in the background? im using a Pentium D with  1 gb ram no problems at all.

3GB of RAM, nVidia 8600GT running XP, nothing else in the background. I mean it's usuable but more often than not I try to launch a game, only to not have Hyperspin recognize my keypress and I have to push start a second time to load the game. This has become such a habit sometimes I accidentally launch two games so then I have to exit out of the game, alt-tab to the other game and play.

[yotsuya]

  for updates or insights!

[TheManuel]

It will come like a thief in the night...

[brad808]

It will come like a thief in the night...

AKA never at all... (I live in a poor area.... thieves don't come to poor areas!)

[abispac]

F U C K - U GUYS......HS will be out whenever BBB feels its ready.....i hate this bumps for nothing.....

[ratsflif]

Bump

[Havok]

Engage maximum BUMPS!

[Dazz]

It's coming and it will be here when it's ready.  We have put a lot of focus in making sure that our ROM databases, box art, wheel art, themes and new mp4 videos from EmuMovies are all in line.  Tons of new artwork has been completed.  Our FTP site has been re-built, websites have been moved to faster servers with more drive capacity.  There is a TON of work that has to go on in the backend before we can hope for a smooth release. 

It will be worth the wait.

[chillinwater]

It's coming and it will be here when it's ready.  We have put a lot of focus in making sure that our ROM databases, box art, wheel art, themes and new mp4 videos from EmuMovies are all in line.  Tons of new artwork has been completed.  Our FTP site has been re-built, websites have been moved to faster servers with more drive capacity.  There is a TON of work that has to go on in the backend before we can hope for a smooth release. 

It will be worth the wait.

Engage maximum BUMPS!

[(+_+)]

Was that a Freudian slip Dazz based on the pic. 

 "There is a TON of work that has to go on in the backend before we can hope for a smooth release."

[404]

It's coming and it will be here when it's ready.  We have put a lot of focus in making sure that our ROM databases, box art, wheel art, themes and new mp4 videos from EmuMovies are all in line.  Tons of new artwork has been completed.  Our FTP site has been re-built, websites have been moved to faster servers with more drive capacity.  There is a TON of work that has to go on in the backend before we can hope for a smooth release. 

It will be worth the wait.

hopefully the controller bugs that have so far prevented me from using hyperspin on x64 systems have been fixed. 

[hellothere123]

It's coming and it will be here when it's ready.  We have put a lot of focus in making sure that our ROM databases, box art, wheel art, themes and new mp4 videos from EmuMovies are all in line.  Tons of new artwork has been completed.  Our FTP site has been re-built, websites have been moved to faster servers with more drive capacity.  There is a TON of work that has to go on in the backend before we can hope for a smooth release. 

It will be worth the wait.

We are from Hyperspin...we are the best...you know it...I know it ...and ESPECIALLY I know it ...(right I just said that).

Anyway, oh yah, Hyperspin...its coming soon - don't ask when- because you are not worth to ask such questions to me - Hyperspin...yes, I get my self worth from Hyperspin...sometimes write it on my hand to make me feel like a man


Hey Hyperspin is nice, but how about sending some news of when I can download it off a torrent for free...other than that...kiss it!

[lordnacho]

Wow, you sound as whiny as Luke. 
-"This R2 Unit has a bad motivator"
-"But I was going into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters"
-"I can't get Hyperspin to work so I'm mad at you, wahhhh"

[Havok]

I personally would rather see a polished full release than something half assed. As long as they are working on it, that's good enough for me. I'll be building a new Mame cab fairly soon and I think I've give HS a "spin" at that time.

If you're having issues, try out AtomicFE - we have a release with basically everything preconfigured. Just drop the files in the correct directories and you're done...

[yotsuya]

Havok-

Has there been any tweaking done to Atomic recently? If it supported PNG transparency, that would be awesome.

[Havok]

Nothing recently. Just more tutorials\documentation and themes. You might want to drop Youki a line as he very often does tweaks at user requests.

[Dazz]

It's coming and it will be here when it's ready.  We have put a lot of focus in making sure that our ROM databases, box art, wheel art, themes and new mp4 videos from EmuMovies are all in line.  Tons of new artwork has been completed.  Our FTP site has been re-built, websites have been moved to faster servers with more drive capacity.  There is a TON of work that has to go on in the backend before we can hope for a smooth release. 

It will be worth the wait.

We are from Hyperspin...we are the best...you know it...I know it ...and ESPECIALLY I know it ...(right I just said that).

Anyway, oh yah, Hyperspin...its coming soon - don't ask when- because you are not worth to ask such questions to me - Hyperspin...yes, I get my self worth from Hyperspin...sometimes write it on my hand to make me feel like a man


Hey Hyperspin is nice, but how about sending some news of when I can download it off a torrent for free...other than that...kiss it!

  It's free for download on our site.

[Neostalker]

Think he was talking about a full download of a complete setup of all emulators, artwork, videos, and configuration. minus roms of course. But that would be very awesome and I would pay a pretty penny to have a Hyperspin 2.0 setup completely configured out of the box with all art and movies. Well, keep up the good work anyway and we hope for a v2.0 release soon 

[Savannan]

I agree to a point.

Yes it would be AWESOME to have HS pre-configured with emulators (minus the roms of course)...I know for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to get MESS working..but thats another story..so having everything pre-configured would be the cats meow!

but to be packaged with videos, that would be taking $$ for emumovies.

[Neostalker]

They could come together and split the profits. I think in the end they would get more money considering a lot of people on here don't want to spend all the time piece-mealing the software together.

 I'm a computer tech myself and don't even want to but at least I can. I'm sure there are people out there that would love to have a fancy Front End like Hyperspin but are intimidated by the task of downloading tons of different files and then configuring it.

[bigster]

I have been using Maximus for 3 years and I was planning on switching to Hyperspin based on all the raving I hear about it.  I am at a crossroads though, all the artwork and mp4 videos i downloaded from emumovies are not capable with version 1.2.  Hyperspin 2.0 is almost elusive as UMK3 wavenet.  In fact, a new version of nesticle may come out before Hyperspin 2.0 comes out. 

My question is, should I change now and just rename the mp4s to flash video (i head it kind of works) and then rename everything when 2.0 comes out.  Or, should I just wait for the "coming soon" 2.0 to make the switch.  I do not want to set up a front end several different times.

[Trnzaddict]

I have about 50 systems set up on my console HS, trust me distributing this preconfigured is a bad idea, theres alot to be learned and if something stops working the user is screwed.

Oh, and HS 2.0 isn't too far off, Bad Boy Bill already has someone making video tutorials for all the features of HS 2.0 so to be at that point, a release isn't far off.

[Lilwolf]

Hopefully...

but other teams should take note.  When your not full time in a project, making smaller, incremental upgrades REALLY helps.  Huge upgrades like this can make an upgrade take years.

I have webmame working with hyperspin v2 categories for like a year and 1/2 now.  Of course, untested

If they had added parts, every 4-6 months they could have added parts....  Total development time might have gone up some, but people could have used/tested parts for ages.

[GregD]

I have a pre-configured Hyperspin drive and it has been great.  I would never have had the time to do all the work to get it looking pretty by myself.  For the most part I have figured everything out (except my issue with Daphne but I am just starting to research that and I will eventually get it).  I am all for them distributing the complete package although something tells me you will still have to go to emumovies to get the video files.

[hellothere123]

Hyperspin version 2.0                                    

then finally   

[ChrisK]

Every time this thread gets bumped I get excited, only to be disappointed.  I'm really interested in trying out Hyperspin 2.0, but it's been quite a long wait. 

[wweumina]

Hyperspin version 2.0                                    

then finally   

This combined with your earlier post makes you come across as an ungrateful 12 year old. Not sure if that is your intention.

[evh347]

Shoot, without Hyperspin my Mame cabinet would be permanently off and in storage.  Hyperspin completely reinvigorated my classic arcade spirit.  I have more emulators, games, artwork, movies, etc... than I ever thought I would all in one place. 

Now I'm installing Electric Ice buttons and LED Blinky...this thing just keeps getting better.

It was a real pain in the ass to setup (including figuring out how to get MESS working from HS).  Still don't have Daphne working properly, but that's probably because I'm still trying to use an older version of Daphne and I'm not a script genius like some of those HS Admins are.

Count me in as one who is waiting for HS 2.0.  I check almost everyday.   

Last project for the summer, install Active Marquee...just need HS 2.0 to be released!

[yotsuya]

The one thing I am looking forward to the most in HS 2.0 is the ability to have a sound play when I select a game (although I think it can be done with scriping in 1.0, I just don't know how).

[yaksplat]

Is there a list of potential new features anywhere?

[ChrisK]

On the Hyperspin forums..........which are down right now. 

[beast8812]

I have a pre-configured Hyperspin drive and it has been great.  I would never have had the time to do all the work to get it looking pretty by myself.  For the most part I have figured everything out (except my issue with Daphne but I am just starting to research that and I will eventually get it).  I am all for them distributing the complete package although something tells me you will still have to go to emumovies to get the video files.

Can you PM me some info on the pre-configured hyperspin drive.  This is exactly what i've been looking for. 

[Dazz]

I have a pre-configured Hyperspin drive and it has been great.  I would never have had the time to do all the work to get it looking pretty by myself.  For the most part I have figured everything out (except my issue with Daphne but I am just starting to research that and I will eventually get it).  I am all for them distributing the complete package although something tells me you will still have to go to emumovies to get the video files.

Can you PM me some info on the pre-configured hyperspin drive.  This is exactly what i've been looking for. 

Bad, bad, bad... don't even think about asking us for support when you can't make any changes to the file system.... or you get the trojan/virus from the torrents that are flying around. These drive sellers and torrents is what's making us include callback's or unique keys for HS 2.0.

Download the files from a official source, support the project and learn to setup things yourself... You'll get much more enjoyment out of it.  That's not only for HyperSpin, but it goes for pretty much everything in this hobby.

[yaksplat]

Download the files from a official source, support the project and learn to setup things yourself... You'll get much more enjoyment out of it.  That's not only for HyperSpin, but it goes for pretty much everything in this hobby.

+1

[Mysterioii]

Hmm I hadn't really thought if it that way....  I also got a preconfigured drive a few years ago, and that's really how I found out about Hyperspin.  I was at the time using Advancemenu for MAME and mamewah for all my consoles.  I liked what I saw in Hyperspin, but didn't like the way he had a few things set up and also wanted to add some systems, so I had to learn how to get it to the state I wanted it in.  So now I'm a paid full menu on Hyperspin and a paid lifetime member at emumovies.

I'm not arguing anything, I completely see your point of view now that it's been pointed out, but for me it's really what got my foot in the door with Hyperspin.  Maybe I would have discovered it on my own eventually but I'm glad I found out about it when I did.

[beast8812]

Bad, bad, bad... don't even think about asking us for support when you can't make any changes to the file system.... or you get the trojan/virus from the torrents that are flying around. These drive sellers and torrents is what's making us include callback's or unique keys for HS 2.0.

Download the files from a official source, support the project and learn to setup things yourself... You'll get much more enjoyment out of it.  That's not only for HyperSpin, but it goes for pretty much everything in this hobby.
[/quote]

Thanks for the advice.  I will have to try setting it up some more myself.  I've got hyperspin downloaded and some other things downloaded.  I know this is a touchy subject but if i'm not using a torrent to get a rom, how should I get them.  I know for hyperspin and emu movies are official sources and I know where to get some of the emulators from there official sources, but I don't really see anyone posting official places to get roms.  I did come across a place with a hyperspin project.  Would you recommend them?  Its hard to know where to get stuff from if no ones allowed to talk about it.  Thats why I was just looking for a preconfigured setup because half the crap I download and try to get working never works.  I'm all for trying it myself and I have had some success.  Any help pointing me in the right direction will be appreciated.  I see hyperspins website is back up so that should be a lot of help.

[GregD]

I have a pre-configured Hyperspin drive and it has been great.  I would never have had the time to do all the work to get it looking pretty by myself.  For the most part I have figured everything out (except my issue with Daphne but I am just starting to research that and I will eventually get it).  I am all for them distributing the complete package although something tells me you will still have to go to emumovies to get the video files.

Can you PM me some info on the pre-configured hyperspin drive.  This is exactly what i've been looking for.  

Bad, bad, bad... don't even think about asking us for support when you can't make any changes to the file system.... or you get the trojan/virus from the torrents that are flying around. These drive sellers and torrents is what's making us include callback's or unique keys for HS 2.0.

Download the files from a official source, support the project and learn to setup things yourself... You'll get much more enjoyment out of it.  That's not only for HyperSpin, but it goes for pretty much everything in this hobby.

Sure.  Some guy at work gave me his hyperspin drive that he created because he wasn't playing the games anymore and I was just supposed to say no thanks.  I am going to spend hours upon hours doing it myself when it was handed to me?  Did I say I purchased the drive or downloaded via torrent?  

[Neostalker]

I think this hobby is awesome and everything that goes into. Some people just don't have the grey matter to spend on configuring software when they've already spent countless hours researching everything else into this hobby. I actually think it would be way more beneficial having everything preconfigured, that way when it does break it is much easier to troubleshoot. It might take a while but it won't take anywhere near as long as building something up from scratch.

Then again, I am a fan of the barter system so I would much rather trade my technological expertise to someone who is good at carpentry instead of me wasting time and money trying to work with carpentry when I haven't spent more than 5 minutes of my life working with wood. I just think it would be better if more people were willing to actually help instead of guide.

[Mysterioii]

Well, I presume the arguments against preconfigured drives are twofold:  First, people selling preconfigured drives are essentially selling roms and are selling Hyperspin (and whatever other programs and utilities they choose to include) without compensation to the creators, and I can clearly see that as bad.  Now, the unnamed person I got my preconfigured drive from started out as an old-school rom burner, and that was a great service back when download speeds were lame and torrents didn't exist.  For essentially the cost of the blank media and shipping they'd send you the disks... and I know there is some precarious double-speak there, it's exactly the same as when you find a video collector sharing old TV shows lifted from old tapes and stuff.  "You're not paying for the copyrighted material, just the media, shipping and a small stipend for my time".  I know from the cost of the media at the time that there had to be very little profit margin involved.  After rom sets got to be too huge, he started doing the drives.  Again, based on the known cost of hard drives at the time I know he wasn't profiting much at all.  I really think the guy just loves the hobby, and that's why he started including Hyperspin on the drives.  He liked setting it up, wants to help people out.  If these were base $100 hard drives and he was selling them for $250, yeah that's bad.  But when it's a base $100 hard drive and he wants $115 shipped for it, and I know the work that went into the thing, I don't see that as evil (no more than any other aspect of this hobby).

The second issue of course is that if everything is preconfigured then some people  will NEVER do anything more on their own, so that cuts down on new subscribers to Hyperspin and Emumovies.  Well I'm completely with you there.  I definitely believe in giving back to the community, that's why I'm paid members on both now.  Will likely donate additionally in the future, and in the past I donated to the MAME dev's dumping project (dunno if that's still going on...  if so somebody shoot me a link, it's about time for another contribution).  But if I hadn't come across that preconfigured drive (that was a little bit lacking) I probably would't have discovered Hyperspin and Emumovies, and would still be using advancemenu and mamewah.

Honestly there's a lot of shades of grey in this hobby.  I'm personally not selling roms or drives and have no desire to.  If one of my bros wanted help setting up a system, I'd definitely help them out.  And in doing so I'd introduce them to the proper resources and encourage them to give back to the community too.

[Neostalker]

+1  I Exactly understand what you are saying. People need to relax and just have fun with this hobby without screwing people over. I love the idea of contributing or helping the community back out. I just think things would be easier if some of these things you could just buy out right. Most of us are do-it-yourselfers, the other half are both do-it-yourselfers/buyers. I would definitely prefer spending $100 or $200 for a pre-configured drive (talking about a pre-configured hyperspin with all emumovies added and such. No Roms, don't care about those as it's easy enough to add the roms to a rom folder and click audit.) than paying hyperspin $25 for access to their FTP and Emumovies $25 for their FTP. It would just save me time and make things easier.

As I said before there are plenty of other more difficult things you have to deal with in the hobby, why add more to it?

[BadMouth]

As I said before there are plenty of other more difficult things you have to deal with in the hobby, why add more to it?

Because it's awesome having something that can't be bought.  

I consider learning how to set up and maintain your system= earning it.
If you aren't willing to, you haven't earned it and shouldn't have it.

[Neostalker]

Some people have busy lives. Some people work over 50 hours a week or more and have family that they have to take care of. Why not have something you can buy? When someone has the means to purchase an item or service why hold them back from it? Is money not earned? Maybe they are fully aware that if the product breaks that they won't get support from it but are still willing to pay.

Tell me what is wrong with that?

[yotsuya]

Not to put gas on the fire, but you're not buying a pre-configured drive from Hyperspin/Emumovies (who developed the content). If they wanted to sell you a preconfigured drive with their content, that's one thing. But if you buy a preconfigured drive from someone, then Hyperspin/Emumovies isn't compensated for their work (especially Emumovies). That's how I see it.

[BadMouth]

Some people have busy lives. Some people work over 50 hours a week or more and have family that they have to take care of. Why not have something you can buy? When someone has the means to purchase an item or service why hold them back from it? Is money not earned? Maybe they are fully aware that if the product breaks that they won't get support from it but are still willing to pay.

Tell me what is wrong with that?

The problem is that when something doesn't work, they come here and don't know enough about their setup to even know what questions to ask.
When someone doesn't understand that they have a "front-end" and MAME is a separate program from that, or that they press TAB to map the controls,
you have to wonder where they got everything from.

It's the same as giving someone a version of MAME compiled with the no-nag diff and then the end-user who doesn't understand it complains that there are games that don't work (when there should be a big red box telling them "this game doesn't work")

Just my opinion.  I'm not in charge of anything.
I like having stuff normal people would never bother putting the work into. 
(and I'm coming off three months of 60-70hr weeks)

[Mysterioii]

Not to put gas on the fire, but you're not buying a pre-configured drive from Hyperspin/Emumovies (who developed the content). If they wanted to sell you a preconfigured drive with their content, that's one thing. But if you buy a preconfigured drive from someone, then Hyperspin/Emumovies isn't compensated for their work (especially Emumovies). That's how I see it.

Yep I agree, and pointed that out in my post.  However in my particular case (and I know others may be much different), I wouldn't have even discovered Hyperspin and Emumovies (at least at that time) if it weren't for that preconfigured drive that piqued my interest.  And now I'm a paid lifetime member at both.  So they got my money BECAUSE of that drive.    

But again, everyone's different.  As I said there are a lot of people I'm sure that would just take the drive and never give anything back to Hyperspin/Emumovies.  Now, maybe those to sites COULD get together and offer a preconfigured "total package" minus the roms...  But at that point I'd agree, just do it yourself.  Not everyone wants to use the same emulators, not everyone wants the same systems, not everyone has the same hardware....  I definitely don't mind configuring it myself.  When I got the drive it was really just to get a ton of data all at once in a form factor that basically provided me an instant backup (I copied what I wanted onto the drives already in my cabinet and kept this drive in another room for safekeeping).  It just happened to already have Hyperspin on it, and I gave it a look, and it got me into it.

Really I don't think it's hard to configure.  You just download a lot of stuff and put it in the right places.  The biggest issue for me is that I had some old rom sets that didn't use the same naming convention so the themes, wheel art, other artwork etc. didn't match the names of my roms.  Renamed a bunch of crap by hand then found some renaming utilities that are better than nothing.  Having some issues now with some Japanese Saturn images wherein the zip file is of the proper name but the bin/cues inside don't follow the same naming convention.  Dunno if it'll work that way or if the bin/cues have to match the zip...

[yotsuya]

Not to put gas on the fire, but you're not buying a pre-configured drive from Hyperspin/Emumovies (who developed the content). If they wanted to sell you a preconfigured drive with their content, that's one thing. But if you buy a preconfigured drive from someone, then Hyperspin/Emumovies isn't compensated for their work (especially Emumovies). That's how I see it.

Yep I agree, and pointed that out in my post.  However in my particular case (and I know others may be much different), I wouldn't have even discovered Hyperspin and Emumovies (at least at that time) if it weren't for that preconfigured drive that piqued my interest.  And now I'm a paid lifetime member at both.  So they got my money BECAUSE of that drive.    

  to you, my friend. However, I bet you're probably the exception, not the rule. That's where the issue would lie.

[lordnacho]

Hyperspin needs this.  
http://emumovies.com/forums/index.php?/files/file/321-emumovies-download-service-utility/

Sort of rewarding in that I know how it works after a lot of time spent, but so is sleep and it's better for you.

[GregD]

There are many ways to skin a cat.  I got a head start with my Hyperspin setup when a friend gave me their project.  That said, I only have a few systems on it and I am looking to add more so I will have to learn everything.  Without being handed the drive, I would still be using Maximus without a doubt. 

[jasonl2972]

Is the hyperspin site not working at full because their upgrading the version?I remember them having a bunch on install and config videos that were very good and i had saved them to my fav's for when i was ready to install it.but now i can't find it on their site and alot of stuff is missing.Am i not looking in the right spot or could it all be that i timed it out to be just when they overhaul the whole site for the new version?

[Dazz]

Is the hyperspin site not working at full because their upgrading the version?I remember them having a bunch on install and config videos that were very good and i had saved them to my fav's for when i was ready to install it.but now i can't find it on their site and alot of stuff is missing.Am i not looking in the right spot or could it all be that i timed it out to be just when they overhaul the whole site for the new version?

I have not converted our Docs section to the new site yet.  The old Docs section can be found at http://hyperspin-fe.com/oldsite