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x-wing:

Okay you guru's... what mame front end would you recommend for a "non-PC" type person?

I'm almost ready to deliver a cab, but I'm still undecided on what front end to have on the cab as the buyer is not what we would call proficeint with computers.

Here's the criteria:  must be Windows (or else I'd be using GameLauncher in a heartbeat... love that fe!!!), very simple (ie, not AracadeOS where you can mess with the mame.ini file), and be stable.

I've been testing EmuWizard on it, and it seems to perfectly fit the bill, but I experience a lot of lock-ups and freezes with it.  Many times when exiting a game, the whole fe locks up, and I am forced to power down the computer.  
This would definitely freak out the guy buying the cab....  My heart says to find another buyer, but this guy loves the cab so much, I can't tell him he's too stupid to run it.  ;)

Anyone know of an extremely straight-forward FE for winmame that is stable?

I personally use RD, but I'm afraid that "casual users" can accidentally mess with the mame settings too much to make it unusable, if you know what I mean.  Thx!!


x-wing

aramis:
hmm...as I started reading your post, the first thing I thought of was...EmuWizard. It's the simplest, easy to use FE I've found for windows, and powerful too...

I'm not sure why you are having lock-up problems with it...I've been using 0.7 for months now with no problem. I know 0.8 is out, but I haven't had a reason to update it. Is anything else running in the background that shouldn't be? That, or maybe not enough RAM? I dunno...it's been completely stable on my P3/667 WinXP machine.

If you get it running, you might want to change some of the default EmuWizard keys...for example, you don't want him hitting P2 start by accident and have it bring up the EmuWizard menu. Also, you can set it to automatically shut down the PC, etc...so the buyer never has to deal w/ windows at all.

aramis:
I forgot to mention that I've used EmuWizard with both Mame for Win and Mame32, versions .57-.59.

It's been perfectly stable for me for some reason...

Jakobud:
Try Cocktail FE:

http://mikebillings.com/frontend

Windows FE, very simple like Game Launcher.  I wish there was a Windows build of Game Launcher. It is by far the best FE. Period. It doesn't have all the fancy and unnecessary bells and whistles that FE programmers seem to think are necessary. Anyways, try Cocktail FE.  It's resemblant of Game Launcher, although it's Windows Based.

Let me know what you think

Jakobud

x-wing:
Thanks for the replies, guys.

I'm not sure why EmuWizard locks up so much.  I'm using the .7 version and winMAME .58 with an Athlon 1GHz w/ 256MB ram on Win98.  The video is handled with an ATI Radeon 7500 using the s-video out to a 27" Toshiba.  Just for kicks, I tried EmuWizard on another computer - Athlon 1800, WinXp, 512MB ram, blah, blah, blah... and it locks up on that one, too.  I'll try the latest version and see how that works out.

I'll also give the cocktail fe a look, too.  It looks very clean and sharp, like GL as Jakobud said.

Thanks again!

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