Front End review blog

[SirPoonga]

http://frontends.blogspot.com/

I'm starting a blog as I review front ends.

[SpamMe]

How about enabling comments for the reviews? As frontends change, users might be able to mention when features are added, bugs fixed etc. Kind of a Wiki thing.

[SirPoonga]

They should be enabled, hence my last sentance.

Also why I plan on adding FE version when I review.

[papaschtroumpf]

it's entirely blank for me 

[jelwell]

A rating of 5 stars or Most Excelent if the frontend can be completely controlled by a standard JAMMA setup and control mappings are configurable. JAMMA setup is two players, each having an 8way joystick and 3 buttons along with a coin and start button.
A rating of 4 stars or Not Too Shabby if the frontend if game selection can be done completely with JAMMA and control mappings configurable. Frontends with ratings might need keyboard and mouse to setup the FE, change settings, general maintainence.

You might want to differentiate a bit more between 4 & 5. Imagine a frontend that achieves 5 but has no "locked" mode. One of your friend's kids is bound to screw up all your settings by hitting too many of the keys on your control panel.

So for example:
MAMEWAH 1.5+: 4
MAMEWAH 1.02-: 5

But which is better? Minwah decided, and I agree, that very little configuration should be available via the frontend - or you'll end up with a screwed up front end real quick.
Joseph Elwell.

[SirPoonga]

I like my ratings as is.

[youki]

That is a very interresting thing.  And even could help Front End developper to Enhance their product to reach the goal of a near "perfect" front end.

But when you can, you should send your comment and ask the developper about functionnality you think the front end not support.  Because in lot of case , it is not because some user don't know how to do that, that you can't.
Sometime it is due to a lake of documentation.

So, if you test Atomic Fe , don't hesitate to ask me questions.   I wouldn't like to see (like i already saw) in a blog or a website sentence like  : Atomic doesn't support display of Flyer, Arcade cabinet Picture, Title  while Atomic supports that and more! 

[Buddabing]

I like my ratings as is.

[SirPoonga]

Didn't I just say
"It's just a scale so when you skim through you can identify with what you are looking for quickly."

You guys don't think like a math major

[screaming]

Holy cow, people!

  The guy is offering to do us all a huge favor and cut down on one of the most commonly asked questions on this board and you guys have a problem with the color of the star images he's going to use (<-- sarcasm, to stress the point)?!

  Every time someone asks "WATS DA MOST L33T FE 2 UZ FOR MY NEW L33T CAB?" I think to myself, "Self, I wish there were a web page that rated all these just to get this idiot out of here because you know once you answer this question you're never going to hear from him again and he won't shut up until you do.  Too bad you're too lazy to commit to making one up.".

  SirP, 'spects.

-sab

[Buddabing]

I have quite strong opinions on this subject, I certainly hope that you aren't as dismissive and condescending to everyone else who wants to give you some input on what information to put in your reviews.

Rating features from one to five is just wrong. Where I come from, five stars or icons or whatever is better than four. People will get wrong information if they just "skim through quickly", since the feature they want may be in the "4" category.

Many features do not lend themselves to this kind of assessment. How about open source? That's not a one to five scale. How about cross-OS or cross-system compatibility? How about low-resolution compatibility?

I think that an extensive list of features in a checklist is a much better way of comparing between many front ends. You can still use stars for subjective comparisons, for example, ease of installation or the willingness of the developer to answer questions or add features.

You mentioned Game Launcher. I think GL was a terrific front end when it was supported. It supports arcade resolutions well, is open source, runs on DOS, and runs well on a slow machine. While many people couldn't care less about these features, they are important to others.

The same thing goes for Youki's front end. If you want a user-friendly config program, maximum eye candy, and great support from the developer, look no further. But users of arcade monitors should avoid it.

Regards,
Buddabing

[youki]

But users of arcade monitors should avoid it.

Why?  90% of my user, use it with arcade monitor  me included!

[Buddabing]

But users of arcade monitors should avoid it.

Why?

[SirPoonga]

Fromt he first blog post
"I will add more to this when I get more time..."

Controls aren't the only criteria i am going to use.

[screaming]

What if you had multiple categories and used stars (or some other method like color and darkness of a circle, like Consumer Reports uses) to rate each category?

Some example categories would be:

DOS
Multimedia
Developer Support
Community Support
Configurability
JAMMA-compatible

Would that solve your problem, Buddabing?  It seems your beef is about the general overview rating being rated on a scale, instead of being rated on people's individual needs.. ?

-sab

[SirPoonga]

Yeah, maybe I will come up with a grid of features
Basically i want a simple way at the beginning of the review that sums up the FE.  The FE may have mroe features but it will give the basic core features everyone looks at.

For example, operating systems it runs on.   I could just link to a logo of the OSes supported.

So, that begs the questions, when people look for a FE for their cabinet what do they look for?

What OS it runs

If the controls work well with cabinet, meaning if the person has a tball the person can use a mouse, if the person has a jamma converted cabinet  the person will want something that can be controlled only by keyboard, etc...

Arcade monitor support, ala what resolutions and frequency range can the FE handle.

How the FE lists games.

Multiemu support?


What else?
For each of those I need a way to rate it or compare the options.

[youki]

Quote
But users of arcade monitors should avoid it.


Why?

[jelwell]

So, that begs the questions, when people look for a FE for their cabinet what do they look for?
What else?

Here's a good place to start, *waaay* outdated of course.

Things I looked for when I picked my front end:
"Looks like an Arcade game" mode versus "Looks like a windows/gui application".
Customizable look and feel.
Able to use various artworks (cabinets, marquees, control panels, flyers, etc)
Lockable (no way to edit via control panel once setup)
Ability to hide windows.
Easy to setup.
Active developer / community support.
Supports filtering mame list by categories, nplayers, etc.
Fast to scroll through thousands of game titles.

I'll let you guess at what I picked.
Joseph Elwell.

[SirPoonga]

Supports filtering mame list by categories, nplayers, etc.

uhg, nplayers.  Personally, I don't like it since controls.dat does they same thing

[jelwell]

Supports filtering mame list by categories, nplayers, etc.

uhg, nplayers.

[SirPoonga]

Yes, you could.  However controls.dat isn't as complete as nplayers.ini because control information is the main goal.

Take a look at the data that is stored in controls.dat
http://fe.donkeyfly.com/controls/report.php?theGame=1944
A tad more info than nplayers.ini

Plus I wonder how nplayers.ini is generated, someone just trying out all the games and reporting what they are? 

[SirPoonga]

I am finally settled in and am ready to start looking at frontends
I am debating how I am going to do this.
I have a dual celeron 366 system that I am going to get running for my arcade cabinet.  I know some of the more intensive frontends won't hack it because that is only going to have a voodoo3 in it.  So I will probably try the frontend both ont he arcade and main computer.

[Buddabing]

I am finally settled in and am ready to start looking at frontends
I am debating how I am going to do this.
I have a dual celeron 366 system that I am going to get running for my arcade cabinet.

[SirPoonga]

I have to see if my ATI 128 is still working.  I think it failed and that was the ultimate demise of my last computer, or the AGP port died.

Anyway, yeah, they will definately be tested on the voodoo3 as that what will be in my cabinet   If there is one that doesn't work I will probably install it on my main pc.  Or if it is too slow on my arcade I iwll try on main pc.

PC specs:

Arcade
Dual Celeron 366 on an Abit BP6 motherboard, not overclocked (been abused too much, the highpoint driver is flakey now so the harddrives have to go on the normal IDE ports)
256 unless I can find more dimms
Will probably only have a 5-10 gig harddrive.  I am trying to remember the size of the extra harddrive I have...  I think it is 8gig.  The roms will stay on my main machine and be mapped through a network drive.
Voodoo3 3000 PCI

Actually, if I can get my USB stick to boot on the arcade I might skip a harddrive all together.  I thought I saw a windows 98 on a stick somewhere.

Main Pc
AMD 64 3200+ on an Abit KV80 motherboard (can you tell someone likes Abit).
512Meg of memory (plan on going to a gig sometime soon)
Diamond Stealth S120 (ATI 9550 chipset).

Wish I had a gigabit ethernet card for the arcade, would direct connect to main PC then.  Hmmm, fast transfer rates...

However, not sure what OS to install on the arcade.  Debating between Win98 and XP, considerings the specs...

[Howard_Casto]

I am finally settled in and am ready to start looking at frontends
I am debating how I am going to do this.
I have a dual celeron 366 system that I am going to get running for my arcade cabinet.

[Buddabing]

You're absolutely right that points should not be taken off for not working on an obsolete video card such as a V3.

However, it's a credit to Youki and AtomicFe that it works on so wide a selection of hardware.

[RayB]

agreed.... The Voodoo cards used their own set of drivers. A game had to be written to specifically support the card, or go through OpenGL. I don't think it's realistic to expect an FE in 2005 to be written to support cards/drivers from 1997.

[SirPoonga]

I think it is realistic that a FE should support older hardware, that's what most people put in their cabinets.  But it should just be something worth mentioning about the FE since that is usually an easy problem to fix, buy a new card

Anyway, I have a Game Launcher review almost done.  I just have to figure some stuff out with it.  GL will be what I am going to use in my cabinet for now since the computer in it is made of flakey old parts.  I tried Mala, AtomicFE, and some other newer FEs and had issues with them.  Once I get GL setup the way I want I will go back to those and figure out what's up with them and write a review. For Mala I know one bug, it searches for mame.ini for any mame exe.  So if you have mamepp.exe it won't search for mamepp.ini.

[Minwah]

I think it is realistic that a FE should support older hardware, that's what most people put in their cabinets.

Not sure I agree with this anymore.  I would go as far as to say the majority of cab builders now use pretty high spec machines, and 'old pc' guys are in the minority.

This is just an observation, and I could be entirely wrong.

[youki]

From my side , i don't think guys use High tech machine for their dedicated cabinet.

Lot of people don't want spend money  for an high tech machin which will be used only in a cab.

They prefer recycle their old PC and keep the new generation one for standard usage (including game of course).

But of course , i think the majority of user don't use their PC in a Cabinet. And use frontend because it is nice and once configured  , it is very simple to run a game for emulators.

Concerning support of old hardware.  The strenght of windows was to hide hardware. So as soons as you  stay "standard" in your coding  you don't too much problem with hardware.  The problem is that for instance DirectX provide a variety of function which work only if the Video card support this feature and are not emulated by the sofware layer.  (For instance, the alpha blending in DirectX7) . So if a function require a specific hardware (even if i have it) , i don't use it , i code my own routine which should work everywhere.

Concerning Atomic , i choosed DirectX because it was a good compromise between old PC and new PC requirement.  And it is the version provided in standard with Win2k and win XP.  And there is no problem to install it on Win98  and even  it should work on win95.

[SirPoonga]

I think it is realistic that a FE should support older hardware, that's what most people put in their cabinets.

Not sure I agree with this anymore.  I would go as far as to say the majority of cab builders now use pretty high spec machines, and 'old pc' guys are in the minority.

This is just an observation, and I could be entirely wrong.

I see the opposite.  Granted you see alot more posts about people wanting to know what minimum specs are on mame than if a certain computer will run mame.  But that type of question is going to be asked more by people who are going to build a mame specific computer.  I see an awful lot of "I used my old computer in my cabinet" and those people already know what the computer can do with mame since they have the computer so they won;t be asking those type of questions as much.

Like me for example.  The computer I am using in my cab isn't my old computer but a former roommate's old computer.  It's a 1.4Ghz tbird.  He gave it to me.and ATI Rage 128 and Voodoo3 are not that old.  Only about 5 years old.  For most people that was their last computer since most people get a new computer about every 3-5 years.

Like youki said, I think most people will put an older computer in there cabinet, but they will still run mame on their main PC.

If you look at the general advice about computer for mame speeds given around here the answers are usually:
1) Fastest you can afford
2) but since most of the games that would require something over 2.5Ghz don't work well or just don't work it's not worth getting a new system for mame.

That means most people will not be running mame on anyhting that is considered top of the line, even for last year.

Now, a 1.0Ghz machine with 256 megs of memory better be able to run a frontend.  Hopefully the video card is supported.

Ok, I admit the Voodoo3 is different since it uses glide drivers and has long since died.  I am using 3rd party drivers on my cabinet right now.  But if the FE is having graphical issues with my cabinet, for review purposes, I will install it on my main PC which is an AMD64 3200+ with an ATI Radeon 9550.

Hmm, I should post my PC specs on the lbog...

[swindus]

For Mala I know one bug, it searches for mame.ini for any mame exe. So if you have mamepp.exe it won't search for mamepp.ini.

Thanks. I fixed it 10 minutes ago.

[Howard_Casto]

I'm sorry, but I've got to disagree yet again. 

I honestly don't think system specs are that much of an issue anymore. 


I definately agree that cab builders don't put top of the line machines in their cabs, usually they put their old desktop pc in it after they upgrade. 

The thing is, in the year 2005, their old pc is going to be at least 1 gigahertz with 256 megs of ram.  If your front-end of choice won't at least run decently with those specs then something is wrong with it.  I mean heck, with some of the bells and whistles turned off, dk will run on as little as a 500 mhz with 256 megs of ram and when I made it, it was intended for high end cabs only. 

[youki]

From my experience in France, the majority of mamecab i saw or heard about are running on PC between 500 and 1 Ghz.  Of course some have some P4 3ghz.. but only few.

Personnaly i'm developping Atomic on a old Celeron 533Mhz with 256mega of RAM. despite the fact i have a 2ghz pc in my cab , and another 3ghz PC i use for my work and mame compilation.(too long on my old celeron!!!)

I think even if it is not very confortable to develop a 533mhz  with only 256meg on XP , it is a good way to force you to optimize, and a very good way to find bottleneck in your code.  in general, I would said developpers shoud use low power computer  instead of a higth tech machine with huge memory....  But the "standard" seems to be the opposite. Mentality of developper now are , The user has to updgrade his PC if he want use my software...  For me , the software has to fit the hardware and not the opposite.   but i'm a little bit "old school".

[Minwah]

I think even if it is not very confortable to develop a 533mhz  with only 256meg on XP , it is a good way to force you to optimize, and a very good way to find bottleneck in your code.  in general, I would said developpers shoud use low power computer  instead of a higth tech machine with huge memory....

This is true, I used to use a P2 333 when Mamewah started and although it had very low system requirements anyway (by it's nature), it was a good way of making it as fast as possible.

Trouble is if you want to keep up with the latest Mame and/or other new apps., and don't have room for more than 1 PC it is difficult to do so.  I've been using a 1.4ghz AMD for the last 3 years, but just got a 2.8ghz P4 as my desktop.

[Howard_Casto]

Well in a skinable fe, the memory requirements need to be scaleable.

[Howard_Casto]

Also something of note is that xp itself barely runs on a 533 with 256 megs of ram.  If you wish to develop in such an environment you really need to be running 98 as nobody making a mame cab is gonna run a crappy 533 mhz with xp on it.  Actually the processor isn't that bad, but the 256 megs of ram is.  Windows xp at rest uses about 170-230 megs of ram.  512 is really the minimum. 

[youki]

Actually the processor isn't that bad, but the 256 megs of ram is.  Windows xp at rest uses about 170-230 megs of ram.  512 is really the minimum.

It is wrong , if you have a dedicated PC in a cab, 256mb in the PC is more than enough.  It is just a question of XP optimization.  I have XP with 256meg in my cab , i don't have any problem.

I developpe Atomic with 256meg on an old celeron 533Mz using "huge" development tools , when i run in debug mode  VC++ 7  , Atomic , Animated layout, and mame  , it works.   Of course i use "little game" to test , but we can still work well with only 256mega.

One of my near friend has a 800mhz cpu, XP ,128MB,  AtomicFE and Mame in his mamecab , and it works smoothly up to the generation of game like "Metal slug 4".

But i agree, the FE need to be scalable, it is normal if you have more power to offer more functionnality. Atomic is like that.   Heavy animated layout wont work very well on very low power computer...  but basic one could work on a Pentium 100Mhz.

[SirPoonga]

Game Launcher review added.

[Lilwolf]

btw, I spent time to make a list of priorities..

controls.dat if it exists, then nplayers, then listxml

works all the time... just correct most of the time

Yes, you could.