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Anyone running a frontend as your shell?
mhoward211:
I was curious if anyone has had any luck with running any of the front ends as your shell as opposed to Windows? I know Skeleton talks about his experience with it on his website. I guess what I am trying to find out is if it is a lost cause and I should just give up hope on having a Windows based system and return to DOS.
Thanks all!
Michael
Dink:
In a word, NO.
I think everyone has different needs for a frontend. If you are using an older PC that is dedicated to some of the DOS emulators then an older DOS frontend might do. If you using many of the newer Win32 emulators on a faster machine then a Win32 front might serve your purpose. The problem is that there isn't an easily configured Win32 frontend that works with all the emulators.
In summary, Windows is a great frontend for a MAME cabinet. Make your icons big, and setup some groups with shortcuts, and use a Windows compatible trackball.
Again, everyone has different needs and is looking for different output/control.
I run 9 different emulators plus PC games on my cab, with a SVGA monitor, so I start most things with the trackball anyways. Mame32, VPinMAME, 1964, Project 64, Daphne .99.4, Daphne .99.5, Atari 2600, NES, SNES, Apple ][e, etc. I lose some of the arcade cab realism but I can run everything I want in Windows 98.
)p(:
--- Quote from: mhoward211 on August 29, 2002, 11:37:55 am ---
I was curious if anyone has had any luck with running any of the front ends as your shell as opposed to Windows? I know Skeleton talks about his experience with it on his website. I guess what I am trying to find out is if it is a lost cause and I should just give up hope on having a Windows based system and return to DOS.
Thanks all!
Michael
--- End quote ---
yeah...i run my fe as the shell on my cab most of the time...I don't want to see that windows taskbar when booting for a split second...but every frontend should be ok :)
Peter
Howard_Casto:
--- Quote from: Dink on August 29, 2002, 11:50:57 am ---
The problem is that there isn't an easily configured Win32 frontend that works with all the emulators.
In summary, Windows is a great frontend for a MAME cabinet. Make your icons big, and setup some groups with shortcuts, and use a Windows compatible trackball.
--- End quote ---
Where have you been? My front-end will do all of that... it will even run all of the games you mentioned, plus it has built in functions to shut down windows when it exits if you so choose.
Windows, itself, simply put, is a hideous shell for a mame cab. Why?
You need a mouse or a trackball.
You need to have fonts turned way up, which makes many emulator menus unreadable.
No matter what you rig up it looks like windows. (bah! bah! bah!)
It makes your cab seem less authentic if people have to muck around in windoze to launch things.
Use emuwizard, use 3darcade, use gamelauncher, but please don't use windows. There are plenty of great windows front-ends out there with the arcade cab in mind, and with the use of my wrappers virtually and of them can run virtually any emulator.
Remember friends don't let friends uglify their cab with windoze. ;)
mhoward211:
Looks like I will your FE a try tonight Howard. I noticed on your website a post in which you replied to a question on this board about a 429 error I believe. Anyways, you go on to say that XP already has several of the files included that has been giving the errors in Win98. Do you use/recommend XP over Win98 as the OS with your frontend?
Thanks,
Michael