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Author Topic: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)  (Read 3377 times)

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Vicinus

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Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« on: June 30, 2020, 05:50:46 am »
Hi,

what is the current status of frontends for a racing cabinet with a widescreen (16:10) display?
What would you suggest?
Usually I use hyperspin on my other cabinet but it is not really made for 16:10 afaik.
I want to play PC, Mame and model 2 games.
Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you

nipsmg

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #1 on: June 30, 2020, 09:26:09 am »
I'm pretty sure you're the same guy from Reddit, but in case you're not and other people are interested, here was my post on reddit about the same topic:

Quote
I’m just putting my cabinet together now:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,162932.0.html

I found this for BigBox, and it has a lank to the theme. I already have a license for big box for my MAME can do I’m gojng to use it.



I highly recommend it. Yeah, Hyperspin is ‘Free’, if you want to spend 1,368,748 hours configuring it.

Launch box is such a great tool for organizing and setting up roms/emulators, and BigBox is amazing. Worth every penny. You can pair it with rocket launcher and get even more out of it.

Oh and Launchbox/BigBox actually get updated more than once a century with is nice (actually quite regularly).

I'd love some other comments from people who have set one up as well.  What worked/didn't work for you?

Howard_Casto

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #2 on: June 30, 2020, 09:47:56 am »
Checkered flag is bare bones and you can skin it to work in any aspect ratio.  You set the games up manually, but since racing games in particular require a lot of fiddling I've found it easier that way and I've already added art and configs for most of the popular games. 

Vicinus

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #3 on: June 30, 2020, 11:57:24 am »
@nipsmg: Yes i am the guy from reddit  :)

Thank you for the info and links. I appreciate it. That bigbox video looks great, no doubt. But you said you can pair it with RL and i think that program the real hassle when using Hyperspin.


@Howard: I read about your project Chequred flag before and it looks quite interesting - found it via google. Will take a look if that would be an option.

nipsmg

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #4 on: June 30, 2020, 12:34:51 pm »
Checkered flag is bare bones and you can skin it to work in any aspect ratio.  You set the games up manually, but since racing games in particular require a lot of fiddling I've found it easier that way and I've already added art and configs for most of the popular games.

Of all the times I’ve been to your site and I never paid any mind to it. Honestly, so far I like it the best.  Simple, easy to use, not so busy/flashy/loud/confusing for guests.

I’ll take a look.  Looks like it’s a classic VB app.. any issues on win10 that you’re aware of?

Howard_Casto

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #5 on: June 30, 2020, 03:56:28 pm »
It's actually directx8 with a vb backend so you'll need directx installed and the last directx4vb dll (I believe I put an installer for that on my site).  Other than that and the fact that you have to do everything manually I can't think of any issues you might have other than you need to supply art if I haven't setup the game. 

nipsmg

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #6 on: June 30, 2020, 09:18:29 pm »
Awesome.  Thanks Howard.  I will take a look next week.

Howard_Casto

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #7 on: July 01, 2020, 02:20:45 am »
Slowly starting to work on my racing cab again so it along with several of my other apps might get new releases in the upcoming months. 

Vicinus

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #8 on: July 01, 2020, 10:29:49 am »
Hi Howard,

today i tried running your Chequered Flag frontend but while it seemed easy to setup it just won't show any game or list icons. Just the background.

I only tried mame to keep it simple.
Installed dx4vb successfully
Copied your images in the image folder
Changed the mame.txt in "Emu Settings" to point it to the right folder
and hit up CF.
But as I said I just see the background image.

If i hit a certain button on my wheel, mame will load a game. So something is working.
edit: When I leave that game with the esc i get a black screen. I can start that game again though, so CF is still running.

Any idea what's wrong?
Oh and i'm running Windows 10 with latest updates.

« Last Edit: July 01, 2020, 10:55:05 am by Vicinus »

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #9 on: July 01, 2020, 03:41:01 pm »
Did you download the packs and put them where I tell you to?  (See the about Checkered flag page on my site). 

Vicinus

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #10 on: July 01, 2020, 05:42:16 pm »
well i think so. I put them in the Images folder. Snap to snap, logo to logo, etc. I also tried changing skin.txt to the whole path (c:\games\CF1.0\Images\...), but still no dice.

Howard_Casto

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #11 on: July 01, 2020, 08:45:50 pm »
You say you tried just a mame gamelist..... did you try it before altering the list?  I'm trying to figure out where the problem is by narrowing it down. 

Vicinus

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #12 on: July 02, 2020, 03:18:55 am »
I did not alter you gamelists, if that is your question. 
edit: clean install on other pc. (also win10). Only copied images in folder. Unfortunatly it did not work.
« Last Edit: July 02, 2020, 03:40:15 am by Vicinus »

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #13 on: July 02, 2020, 08:15:51 pm »
Windows 10 isn't the issue... I'm running it on windows 10 right now.  What kind of video card do you have?

Vicinus

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #14 on: July 03, 2020, 03:34:34 pm »
1. PC (the one i want to use in the cab): GTX 970
2. PC: RTX 2060

oh and Howard, thanks for your support. While i tend to go to hyperspin again, i would really like your FE to work. (It does work with steam, right? ;D)

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #15 on: July 03, 2020, 06:20:21 pm »
Unfortunately I only use AMD/ATI cards so I can't test for those.  People have gotten it to work on nvidia stuff though.  Send me a snapshot and maybe I can figure it out by what I see. 

Vicinus

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #16 on: July 03, 2020, 07:45:13 pm »
The snapshot would be just your standard background in 1600x900 with a black border (since it is displayed on a 1920x1200 screen. Nothing else. I can hear the Beach_wave-sound. When i hit arrow keys i hear it changing games. up arrow(list change?) would crash the program: "Run time error 7 Out of memory"
Oh and when i hit up CF i see for just a split second the magnified upper left part of the intro.mp4.

Maybe i did make a mistake but i can't think of any. At least according to the readme.


« Last Edit: July 03, 2020, 07:50:46 pm by Vicinus »

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #17 on: July 03, 2020, 08:08:12 pm »
Try using the attached exe and see if that helps. 

Vicinus

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Re: Frontend for widescreen display (PC, Mame, model2)
« Reply #18 on: July 04, 2020, 04:17:58 am »
Opens up faster to the wave sound, but to just a black screen. Up and down does nothing (or seems to). left and right causes an error "Run Time Error "9": Subscript out of range." key 1 starts a game successfully.
« Last Edit: July 04, 2020, 04:19:41 am by Vicinus »