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MALA vs Hyperspin
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Cynicaster:

--- Quote from: TheShaner on June 06, 2012, 12:32:37 am ---
Also, I think it is funny that people say things like "You dont play the front end".  The way I see it, you spend all of this time creating a bad ass cabinet, configuring it, etc, why would you skip out on the front end design to add that last layer of polish??  Big letters on a plain background seem like a cop out.  Just my opinion.

--- End quote ---

Well, here’s a counter-opinion: spending hours upon hours designing and tweaking layouts, and assembling screenshots, animations, sounds, graphics, etc. is a whole lot of time spent with no commensurate benefit, other than maybe to scratch some kind of bizarre OCD-induced itch to have everything just so.  The games are just as easy to locate and run from a utilitarian list as they are from a flashy/elaborate one—maybe easier.  I’m not saying that your front end should be an ugly, poorly organized mess—I’m simply saying that the core elements are relatively easy to set up, and going beyond that quickly leads into the worst “diminishing returns” scenario imaginable.   

I mean, I see some of these videos on Youtube where guys have these fancy pictures and media for all kinds of console emulators, and I almost feel sorry for them for the amount of time they must have wasted getting it all running.  I’d be willing to bet that in three lifetimes they wouldn’t spend as much time actually playing those games as they spent setting up the front end.  So what’s the point?   
nickbuol:
So I am looking at these two FEs (Mala and Hyperspin).  My first cabinet had good ol' ArcadeOS on it.  Since then, I've messed with Mala years ago, and for a while had MameWah on my current cab I built in 2005, but am currently set up with AtomicFE.  It works, but I am ready for an update.

My current computer in the cabinet has a bad hard drive controller, and another computer (almost same specs with a AMD Athlon XP 2900+ CPU at the core) that used to be my primary PC.  I plan to swap that in-place.  I am also very out of date on the system (by several years).  I am looking at getting an external harddrive to get me up to date, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, the harddrive comes with Hyperspin preinstalled and "configured".  (I am sure that this idea bother some, but don't judge me yet as I haven't done anything yet, and don't know if I ever will.  My current setup suits me fine.  Sort of like getting a ticket for running a stop sign when you haven't done it yet and don't know if you ever will, but ask about the intersection that the sign is at.  Plus I've been in this hobby for well over a decade and while there is that line in the sand, and I know it doesn't make it right by any means, but I would wager that at least 90% of those with MAME cabinets have gotten at least one ROM without owning the boards.  There are also hundreds, if not thousands of discussions here around obtaining, storing, sharing, sorting, and filtering full sets of ROMs.).  My concern is what kind of hardware will I need computing wise to simply run the front end?  I guess that I could replace it, but a huge benefit of the hard drive option is that it only takes a few tweaks and it works, vs. having to get everything setup again from scratch.

What are the minimum **realistic** specs required for Hyperspin?
GregD:
You need a dual core processor (2.6+) and a decent graphics card.  Onboard graphics are fine if it is a new pc.
nickbuol:

--- Quote from: GregD on June 06, 2012, 04:13:01 pm ---You need a dual core processor (2.6+) and a decent graphics card.  Onboard graphics are fine if it is a new pc.

--- End quote ---

Wow.  That is the same as my primary PC is now (I know, it is "outdated") but I use it for photo and video editing, plus first person shooters with great frame rates  (its all about the components).  Seems silly to need that much power just for a front end.  Maybe when it is time to upgrade the main PC in our house, but I don't feel like dropping that amount of money just for the front end when others will work as-is.

Thanks for the info Greg!
rooter:
I love Hyperspin.  All the other frontends I have tried just feel like you are just browsing a list games on a computer.  Hyper spin makes everything feel consistent and somehow like the machine was made to play games.  The menus move more like the menus in arcade games, I guess.

However, it is always very laggy for me.  Even on a beastly machine with an SSD hard drive.
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