Snaps. Have trouble to make them working.

[bobetko]

SORRY. Moved this question to Software forum.

 

I am in the process of building my first MAME arcade machine. For my front end I've chosen MaLa (ver. 148). I just lost 2 days trying to make screenshots (or snaps) of the game working, actually displaying within mala interface.

I followed any available guide I could find to set everything properly.

I used suggested folder structure:
C:/Emulators/mala
C:Emulators/Programs/mame (ver. 148)
C:Emulators/Programs/mame/roms
C:Emulators/Programs/mame/snaps

When I run games and when I push f12, screenshot gets generated in snaps folder under subfolder named identically as the running game. So, this part works fine. As a matter of the fact, I tried to run MAMEUIFX and snaps are working fine once I point MAMEUIFX to look into my snaps folder.

In Mala, initial standard layout doesn't have Snap/Title object, so I used MalaLayout editor to add it. Everything seems ok.
I also added Layout folder, for example, I have:

C:/Emulators/mala/Layouts/standard.mll
C:/Emulators/mala/Layouts/standard/standard_background.png

In Mala, I set my folder "Layouts" as layout folder, and my new standard.mll is selected.
I made sure to point mala to C:\emulators\Programs\mame\snaps

I even tried other layouts from mala website, but none of them wanted to show snaps.

Snaps simply won't show, no matter what I do. I checked every ini file in mala (including standard.mll), mame folders and made sure that all settings for Snaps are properly defined. Everything seems right, but images simply won't show.

Does anybody have idea how to make this damn thing to work.

Also, can anybody suggest me some alternative arcade friendly front? I am ready to give up on this.

Thanks

[Dcpmark]

Have you tried the Mala Frontend section? I'm certain someone there will be able to help you. There are too many people who use and like Mala not to have plenty of experts around.

But if you truly end up needing another frontend, I'm a HUGE Maximus Arcade fan. I got it up and running perfectly, snaps included, and I'm a noob who sucks at everything Windows-based. The only downside that I can see is that it costs $25.