Some advice for a simple Mame setup with front end

[Ledsigns80]

Hello All,

Recently re-did my basement and re-arrange my very small 3 cabinet personal arcade.  While I have always wanted to build a mame cabinet, I realized I'll never have the time nor space to give to it.  However I have always loved the concept of mame and always wanted some sort of option to play classic games with arcade controls.  My solution is this.  I have a 42" flat screen mounted behind my bar in my basement that is hooked up to a old Pentium 4 HT PC.....it runs mame and plays games like Killer Instinct, UMK3 games just fine with no lag.  I tried running hyper-spin but it just seems to bog the machine down and freeze it up.  So I would like to try a different front end such as MaLa, but I'm looking for suggestions???

Part 2 of this is my controller method:   I know it may seem stupid but I use two of these (Mortal Kombat Fight Sticks) as my controllers because I can store them when finished and I mainly just like to play fighting games.  My question is how do I go about getting them to work with mame and the front end.   I know how to do it on a per game basis....for example I mapped all the appropriate controls for Mortal Kombat to the appropriate buttons on the arcade sticks, however to do this for all the games seems to be a very time consuming.    Thanks in advance.

[ant2]

Gameex is much more light weight and that's what I run on my p4.
Just change the controls globally instead of changing the controls just for the game itself within mame.
 

[BadMouth]

I like Mala, but the default layout sucks pretty bad.  You'd have to at least learn how to make a layout for yourself.
It's basically just a background picture, then you place the gamelist and pics where you want on top of it.

Mala Wiki : http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Mala_Wiki

Uncle T's step by step setup guide: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=56010.0
Emulators are a bit dated, but Mala still works the same way.



Maximus Arcade is probably the most noob friendly.

[Ledsigns80]

Gameex is much more light weight and that's what I run on my p4.
Just change the controls globally instead of changing the controls just for the game itself within mame.

Thanks any advice on how to run setup on Gameex or a step by step guide???

[Dawgz Rule]

Game Ex is pretty straight forward.  Just run it and you will see.  The support community is pretty good too.

[mgb]

I don't think your method of using those controllers with a 42" flat screen is stupid at all. if it works for you then its cool.

As far as setting controls for all games, Hit tab and select controls general and then what you put in for controls will apply to all games. You may have to then make tweaks to the Mortal Kombat controls that you already set as well as tweak some other games for the best feel.

I also like Mala but I've never used Game Ex so I can't compare.
Good Luck

[Ledsigns80]

Game Ex is pretty straight forward.  Just run it and you will see.  The support community is pretty good too.

Is there a way for gameex just to show mame and a few other emulators and not all that other stuff (xbmc, jukebox) I just want to keep it simple

[raygun]

Is there a way for gameex just to show mame and a few other emulators and not all that other stuff (xbmc, jukebox) I just want to keep it simple

Hi Ledsigns, sorry I can't help with GameEx but if you're still looking at frontends you should also check out Attract-Mode: http://attractmode.org

It's pretty new and it sounds like it may be what you are looking for, I'm using it with no problems on my old pentium 4 laptop to list mame and a few other emulators...
   

[Dawgz Rule]

Is there a way for gameex just to show mame and a few other emulators and not all that other stuff (xbmc, jukebox) I just want to keep it simple

Yes, absolutely.  This is what I did with my cab.  Some features can be simply turned off in the advanced set up.  For a small fee, you can pay for the unlocked version and you can custom edit your menus and eliminate the nag screen. 

It is an excellent out of the box solution that requires minimum effort to have a truly professional look.