ProtoBox 2 emulation environment [Updated]

[relay01]

[EDITED FROM ORIGINAL POST]

My project "ProtoBox 2" is an massive emulation environment that wraps the MameWah arcade frontend and various emulators in a portable, configurable, and versatile package. Its meant for those not in the know about emulation and arcade frontends to have a very approachable package to start off with. Its a freeware application written mostly in batch scripts. The members of this forum aren't exactly the target audience because it is meant to create a console-like experience as opposed to an arcade like.  It can however be used in arcade cabs as well (It works in mine at least).

Also should mention that it's a Windows based solution so Windows XP - 8 is required.

Currently ProtoBox 2 has support for the following consoles/game machines built in:
MAME Arcade (Uses a custom build of mame tweaked for ProtoBox)
NES (Nestopia)
SNES (ZSNES)
GBA (VBAM)
GB/C (BGB - [Used with permission])
Atari 2600 (Stella)
Sony Playstation (ePSXe)

These ones can be added in but are not bundled with ProtoBox:
Genesis (Fusion)
32X (Fusion)
SMS (Fusion)
GameGear (Fusion)
Sega CD (Fusion)
Sony Playstation (PSX)

More support to come.

I'm posting a somewhat untested pre-release version here since much of the recent improvements were do to feedback received from this boards members.
Upon release, ProtoBox 2 will have a project page on my website, some setup guide and demonstration videos, and more relevant documentation. But if you are bold, please feel free to try it out now.

Two things to note;
1. ProtoBox must be extracted to a path with no spaces. (I recommend the root of a drive)
2. You should change your display settings to 60Hz and 32-bit Color or some emus might not work right.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4DzdmfTzRtXNXU3R0xpVTVEOHc/edit?usp=sharing

[yotsuya]

I'd be happy to help.

[BobA]

Would be glad to try and help.  Have most of the console emulators and roms already.

[Bender]

sounds interesting
be glad to check it out

[Malenko]

same here, I'd be down to test.

[404]

There is a similar project that was going on in one of the Spanish language forums. I currently use their installer on one of my soon to be cabs.

I would be more than happy to give your build a test as well.

[Acids]

Count me in.   Im keen.

[Jigenjuke]

Count me in as well

[relay01]

Awesome,
I'll be sending everyone who replied to this thread a questionnaire if I haven't already. 

I was hoping to get more, for lack of a better term, "unskilled" folks to try the environment out but since it's built around mamewah, it's just as configurable as mamewah.  If one becomes really familiar with the environment, one should be able to customize it to their liking and it may add an ease of configuration you're not used to seeing in other projects.   So for the folks with tons of emulation/arcade building experience, I'd be interested to see how you feel it compares with your current builds.

Anyone else still interested can still respond but, I'll likely wait for responses from this group before getting to you.  Or by then I'll just release to public. :-)

[jammin0]

I can help out if you need it.

[relay01]

More info on the project:

  I initially started this project because after working with many different frontends/emulators, I found portability to be a major issue.  "<Insert Frontend Name> Setup Guides" were very prevalent but there were no portable, transferable solutions out there.  I aimed to take a very configurable frontend (Mamewah) and make it portable.  So any gamepad/control panel could be configured once, and the changes would just work for all emulators in the front-end, so a directory structure didn't have to be exact for games to be found, so I didn't have to generate a gamelist every time I added a game to the frontend.
  I started creating ProtoBox 2, for myself, so I could use the same "setup" on my netbook (on the go) and my arcade computer at home.  But I started putting so much work into making things "easy" that I figured others may want this too.  Only recently did I start putting in work to release it publicly.  With the help of a friend, we stripped out trademarks (ProtoBox name was based around my favorite video game character), prettied it up, and got permission for emulators/utilities that didn't allow even "free" distribution, and added a method to add emulators not free for distribution.  Creating ProtoBox 2 was a labor of love, prepping it for distribution was not :-). 

[Brian74]

Here to give a helping hand!

[Le Chuck]

I'm down to test.  Sounds interesting and useful.

[rovingmind]

I havn't used mamewah, i'm up for testing your system. 

[relay01]

Though I sent the link to about a dozen people total, I only really got feedback from a few.

  So preliminary reports from testers/trial participants were not favorable.  General consensus is that this is not ready for release.  I'm working on tweaking and fixing the things I can and writing up a quick little GUI for the gamepad configuration script.  (Though a lot of people hadn't tried that out, it's admittedly very confusing).  Also working to make it very clear without reading the docs what the user should do.  I'm starved for time these days so I don't know exactly when I'll have and update but I'll either post it here or start a new thread.

  Thanks to all who have participated, your feedback was greatly appreciated.  I'd have rather had a few people tell me up front that it was terrible then a bunch of people instantly hate it and never attempt to try it again.

[Malenko]

Though I sent the link to about a dozen people total, I only really got feedback from a few.

  So preliminary reports from testers/trial participants were not favorable.  General consensus is that this is not ready for release.  I'm working on tweaking and fixing the things I can and writing up a quick little GUI for the gamepad configuration script.  (Though a lot of people hadn't tried that out, it's admittedly very confusing).  Also working to make it very clear without reading the docs what the user should do.  I'm starved for time these days so I don't know exactly when I'll have and update but I'll either post it here or start a new thread.

  Thanks to all who have participated, your feedback was greatly appreciated.  I'd have rather had a few people tell me up front that it was terrible then a bunch of people instantly hate it and never attempt to try it again.

I was writing up a comprehensive report, you prefer something simple and quick?

[relay01]

Comprehensive is great!

I know not everybody has had it for the same amount of time so I'm still welcoming feedback and reports.  I was simply saying that for those who may still be interested in testing it, it may be a while based off of initial reports thus far.

Reading back my post, it would appear like I didn't still want feedback from those who have it... Not the case.  Sorry.

[relay01]

Once I put together a new build of MAME, I'll have another release with lots of improvements based on the feedback I got here.

Much of the feedback was regarding MAME, which is understandable considering the forum but my project is aimed at emulation and recreation of a home console experience more than an arcade experience.  So did anyone I sent the early RC to who hasn't spoke up yet try out emulators besides MAME? 

[yotsuya]

I ran the install once, and the resolution was way out of wack on my machine.

[relay01]

Yeah, default resolution supported is 800x600.  There's also 1280x720 support.  I've made it easier to switch to the desired reso right from the first run without modifying ini files.

[relay01]

Updated OP, beta version linked for download to anyone interested.

[relay01]

I"m sure i've introduced new bugs in fixing something else but here's a new release that:
-Fixes scaling issues on Fusion and ePSXe, Yay!
-Finally solves MAME list generation problems
-Allows () and [] in game names to be striped out of frontend lists.
-other stuff i can't remember.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4DzdmfTzRtXWDItMkp2WV9XYjQ/edit?usp=sharing