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TALK ME OUT OF MAME32!!!
Howard_Casto:
Yeah they all do that including mine. The problem is there isn't a true "out of the box" for any front-end.....
Why?
Well for one thing it needs to know where mame is, so you have to set that up. If it supports artwork it needs to know where it is, although many assume it's where mame is. It also needs to know the possible games, which is external for all the better front-ends. That means you have to generate the list some way. Since this can take a while, most fe's also dont' auto scan upon startup.
The problem with "right out of the box" mentality is less setup means crippled features. So sure, you could make one that works straight out of the box, but it would have to be in the mame directory and all of your artwork would have to be in the default places, your mame.exe would have to be named mame.exe and you would have to bear with a sometimes time consuming search for roms upon startup.
Since most people wuldn't be willing to do this, "straight out of the box" fe's are few and far between. Actually I can't think of a single one.
SirPoonga:
--- Quote from: Dink on August 22, 2002, 11:42:43 pm ---
I need to use a frontend because I use multiple emulators (mame32, project 64, 1964, daphne .99.4, daphne .99.5, stella, FCE Ulta, etc).
The problem is... there isn't a Win32 frontend that:
1. runs on Windows 98SE
2. launches win32 AND dos emulators
3. is compatible with all the current emulators
4. that is easy to configure (SELF CONFIGURING)
Since most frontends are free, I can't complain. :)
--- End quote ---
Weird, never heard those complaints before all together.
1.Most run on 98
2.many run dos and win32 apps
for 3. there are a few out there
4. that's hard.
It's have to know where your emulators are, what the cfg files look like, etc.. Would take ALOT of work.
Howard_Casto:
--- Quote from: SirPoonga on August 23, 2002, 03:34:00 pm ---
Weird, never heard those complaints before all together.
1.Most run on 98
2.many run dos and win32 apps
for 3. there are a few out there
4. that's hard.
It's have to know where your emulators are, what the cfg files look like, etc.. Would take ALOT of work.
--- End quote ---
SirP is right....
Regarding #3...
Actually without the aid of my wrappers there are none that are compatible with all the current emulators as a few don't have command line support. :)
Also regarding the rest....
I don't think you non-programmers realize what an incredible amount of work it takes to support more than one emulator, much less all of them. It took me 4-6 months to design the wrapper system, and even now they are only 95% effective.
Some of the new front-ends, including mine, support a MASSIVE amount of features. Keep in mind that a commercial peice of software that does as much as say, 3d arcade, will have dozens to hundereds of people working on it. >p< does it all by himself. All of us fe programmers are in this same boat. Combine that and the fact that we have actual lives outside of this hobby and you'll realize that we have to pick and choose what and can and cannot do.
Some choose to make an extrememly basic fe and give it really good configuration support. Others choose to add a slew of features and skimp on the ease of setup. It's not humanly possible to add the things that some users ask for. You can add one but not the other, you can add some but not all.
The ONLY way you'll see a very flexiable, auto-configuring fe that bosts multiple emulator support and a good number of features is if it's commercially made or you can convince about 20 or so programmers to work on a fe together, for free no less.
This is not a rant or anything like that, just an explaination of why what you ask is nearly impossible. If I got paid to do this, I figure it's all I would do, and I'm sure a lot of the guys feel the same way, but the sad fact is that we dont' get paid for it, so we have to stick to the real world for now.
Of course if you were willing to pay us........
;)
)p(:
--- Quote from: Howard_Casto on August 23, 2002, 08:57:38 pm ---
Actually without the aid of my wrappers there are none that are compatible with all the current emulators as a few don't have command line support. :)
--- End quote ---
And this was a great idea by Howard making his wrappers universal it took away the need for others like me to spend so much time on that. :D
To explain a bit further...this is how I go about it. I mostly add feutures request I also think are useful or cool. While adding stuff my first priority is getting it to work ok for me as my fe is in the first place made for my own use. As I know how to cfg my own fe in most cases addiong stuff will add to the difficylty for others. Occasionally when I get the feeling it is getting out of hand. I will take a look back and reorganize the configuration of the fe to make it easier. For those, who have following the development of my fe, a good example is the 65 release that introduced the concept of selectionsets and most importently made the cfg file into a strict hierarchy with no more crosslinking ;)
Peter
thelevin8r:
Ala Micr$oft, create a Wizard that will step the nube(me) through each step. Lets say I want to add Dafnie with the wizard. The wizard puts the files where they need to go. It then gives specific instructions on what file chsnges need tp be made abd where they should go