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MALA vs Hyperspin
Cynicaster:
--- Quote from: harveybirdman on May 24, 2012, 04:57:37 pm ---
--- Quote from: Cynicaster on May 24, 2012, 04:50:18 pm --- The only complaint I have is that it has a tab to configure background music that plays while you browse your games, but it doesn’t work. Other than that, I’d recommend it.
--- End quote ---
Try disabling fades, I'm using background music and hoping for a bug fix on the issue you are referencing.
/hijack
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I've tried everything, I give up. If you go into the menu and manually start the music, it works, but it doesn't automatically start the next time you load up MaLa, which kind of defeats the purpose for me.
BadMouth:
It's just a matter of taste. I tried Hyperspin and ended up doing everything I could to get it to not look and feel like Hyperspin.
I dislike the whole "wheel" concept, so I guess there wasn't much hope for me. :lol
I don't like GameEx and the others that look and feel like media center software....because they look and feel like media center software, not like an arcade game.
I use MALA. It's basically just a gamelist that you choose the font and color for, plus any other pictures, video, or info you want displayed for a game.
You decide what is displayed, where it is displayed and how big it is.
It looks as slick or basic as your background picture editing skills allow. ;)
If you can draw what you want your front-end to look like in photoshop, you can make MALA look like it.
You can have different themes for different emulators if you want.
I have a very basic theme, but it's exactly what I want.
(the marquee, screenshot, & CP change with the highlighted game)
Driving cab one is more polished
I gotta start doing some different color schemes.......right after I finish the current red and black cab. ;)
Go to the MALA forum and search for "theme" to see what people have come up with.
The biggest complaint most people have about it is that it can't display tranparent layers correctly, so for example, you can't display the video inside a circle with the edges of the video covered up.
With some work-arounds, it's possible to have all the arcade games show up in your MAME list, even if they use a different emulator.
It isn't easy, but well worth it IMO.
JayB:
I really like Hyperspin, even did the audio for the start up video and have it running on my main machine. Visually, it's very impressive.
Now, and this is what made me consider using another frontend for this other machine I've just built. With Hyperspin you've got all the visual stuff for each game which looks great but, I wanted to keep a theme that was consistent with the look of my machine when scrolling through the games lists. I chose Mala for that one as the main menu screen stays in context which was important to me and I have a video preview for the chosen game. I think Hyperspin works really well but, all the visuals can pull you out of the theme of the machine, well unless it's just called "MAME Arcade" or..well you get the idea
This is the video of my machine. I just wanted the player to stay in the theme of the machine and that allowed it perfectly.
Le Chuck:
I was a FE whore for years, making my own and modding others. I would waiver between super simplistic GameLauncher style and the wheel style to that crazy ass one in the mid 00s that was a VR arcade your navigated an avatar around in.
I use MALA exclusively now. Whether I'm making a machine for myself or for a friend or client MALA gives me the flexibility to do what I need to do simply and quickly. Others can do more for sure but MALA does everything I need. Plus I've got DaOld Man's plugins to play with in MALA and I am not giving those up. You can't make me.
Nephasth:
I've got Hyperspin on the big Beast and love it. But for the little Beast and all future builds using a computer, I'll most likely go with MALA.