Hey all,
I just wanted to share with you a very reassuring status report on what's possible with the amazing software developments in the emulator frontend field these days.
As far as I'm concerned, the best 2 frontends for a cabinet with multiple emulators in mind right now, for a Windows system, are Emuwizard and Game Launcher.
I'm currently using Emuwizard, since it has skin support built in, though I'm not sure it's going to have a lot of development done in the future, and there is some work it needs. Game Launcher for Windows is getting a lot of attention and updates these days. Once skin support is added I may switch over.
The most recent exciting development is Howard Casto's tools that I am helpiing him test. These stand alone tools are allowing me to, with my frontend of choice, launch emulators that don't support command line, and exit them with my key of choice (for those emulators that don't have a remappable shortcut key to exit).
Here's a list of all the emulators/systems my cabinet currently supports through EmuWizard. All of these emulators can be launched and exited completely through the use of my control panel, No keyboard is needed at all. I'm using Windows 2000.
MAMEW
ZSNESW (Super Nintendo)
VirtuaNES (NES)
Gens (Sega Genesis)
Project 64 (N64)
Magic Engine (Turbo Graphics 16/PCE)
Daphne (Laserdisc Games)
I'm planning to add Nebula, a sega master system emu, and more this weekend. Unfortunately there's not an acceptable Atari 2600 emu or Intellivision emu so far that can be integrated, hopefully the authors will add command line support to the leading emus in the future. In the end, I'm hoping my cabinet might support more games than any single machine in the world (from one interface). I guess that's not the most legal thing in the world, but I wonder if it's possible.
I imagine that as I work with my cabinet, I will soon be able to add even more to this list. All I'm limited by now is time.
I just want to that all of the frontend developers out there for all their hard work, it's truly amazing that they are willing to spend so much time making these great products, AND give them to us for free no less. My cabinet's in a state now where I can have a party and folks can walk up and use it completely transparent to Windows. It's awesome.
Thanks everyone. If anyone's interested, I'll post up some shots of the cabinet in action and my custom EmuWizard frontend interface.
Brad