Author Topic: prettiest front end? (Read 17985 times)

fantoboy · « **on:** March 22, 2006, 10:39:47 pm »

I've had a modded xbox running emulators for awhile. I just started building a pc for a cabinet. The xbox has always had cool frontends (or as they call them dashboards) to launch emulators. Are there any pc frontends that look as cool as these? All the ones I've seen are pretty much text in front of a jpg. Anything 3d or just as cool out there? I just wanna launch MAME, MUGEN, and maybe Zinc and another emulator or 2.
So I guess I'm looking for a simple attractive frontend that will launch executables.

Here are some samples of xbox dashboards:

http://www.allxboxskins.com/skins/uix/weeshit_preview.jpg

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/lofiversion/index.php/t345867.html

http://usuarios.lycos.es/dashesthcinhumano/Doc1_archivos/uix_screenshot171259.JPG

http://www.tdubel.com/artikkelit/kuvat/uixasent/uix.jpg

http://www.tdubel.com/artikkelit/kuvat/uxkuv/xme.jpg

daywane · « **Reply #1 on:** March 22, 2006, 11:39:56 pm »

Try AtomicFE
Most people here like Mamewha (also a great program a bit hard to set up, I think)
(not knocking the FE )
Love the creator. (one of my favorite people here)

<------- you think I might like this one

Me... I like AtomicFE
I will find you a link
http://www.atomicfe.com/

fantoboy · « **Reply #2 on:** March 23, 2006, 01:01:00 am »

That's probably the best I've seen. I'm really suprised that the level of sophistication is so much higher on xbox front ends. The mame scene has been around so much longer.

Most of those pics i linked to are showing 3d menus. They arent simple jpg skins.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #3 on:** March 23, 2006, 02:10:30 am »

LOL.. I mean no offense, but when I think pretty I do NOT think of either mamewah or atomic fe.

Check out 3d Arcade or The Dragon King. Ironically two of the oldest are still the best looking.

(p.s. dk is mine so I'm slightly biased in that respect)

youki · « **Reply #4 on:** March 23, 2006, 04:24:44 am »

Quote

Love the creator. (one of my favorite people here)

thanks!

#Edit: oops.. re-reading your post, i just figured out that you was speaking about MinWah not me! Sorry!.
MinWah is one of my favorites people here too!

sWampy · « **Reply #5 on:** March 23, 2006, 10:32:47 am »

Gameex looks pretty good, but a little to much like windows out of the box for most people here.

3d Arcade does look really great, but is fairly slow to move around in due to all the beautiful 3D rendering of machines, and takes quite a lot of horsepower to run.

The Dragon King is good looking, but some reason I've always had trouble getting it set up and running exactly like I wanted it to.

JoyMonkey · « **Reply #6 on:** March 23, 2006, 11:11:01 am »

Speaking of XBox skins, does this look familiar?

I got permission to do a rendition of the XBMC Project Mayhem 3 skin from its author, it was for Kymaera- but then Kymaera dropped off the face of the planet and the new features that would have made the skin really cool were never implemented.

markb · « **Reply #7 on:** March 23, 2006, 07:27:50 pm »

As mentioned 3D Arcade looks very good and has several different modes, but I would recommend the minimum specs to use it of 800mhz CPU, 256mb Ram, 32mb Graphics and probably higher if you want to run some of the video items.
You can however change the way the menu's are presented so they are more 2D like Mamewah than 3D and still have a very presentable frontend.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #8 on:** March 24, 2006, 04:31:49 am »

Gotta remember, 3darcade also has a very impressive 2d mode. That's why I mentioned it. It also has 3d, flat-skins. (2d skins that use 3d objects). I would never reccomend running 3darcade in fps mode (at least for use as a front end).

It's this "3d flat-skins" deal that will be the main addition of the new dk. Among other things.

Btw I also like kymaera, as far as 2d fes go it's the only one that's on par with the other two. The only reason I didn't mention it is, as you said, it disappeared.

Also I wouldn't consider gameex a front end. It's more of a complete and total rip-off of xp media center's gui.

I wouldn't classify it as a mame cab front end, rather a set-top box navigation menu. In other words, while it looks nice, it also looks like it should be on a pc hooked to your living room tv, not in a mame cab. So I don't think it should even be compared with the others.

On the minimum system requirement complaints, I'm not sure why this is still even being discussed at this stage. While fe's like 3darcade, dk and kymaera sometimes require more resources (for fancier skins only, I should make that clear), it should be a non-issue as the average pc these days is at least a 1 gig processor with 256 megs of ram, more than enough to run any of them. I honestly hope you guys aren't building big expensive mame cabs and getting all cheap on the pc. It is the heart of the machine ya know.

Also reading back what I said I'm my first post, I think people might mis-understand what I meant.

By saying that mamewah and atomic don't come to mind when I think of "pretty" I didn't mean that they were ugly. Mamewah and atomic could both be made to look very nice, it's just as far as I can tell the skins in atomic don't really take advantage of what it can do in a visually pleasing manner, and while mamewah could potentially have very nice skins, it's limited rendering capability seriously holds it back.

So one has reached it's limits in what it can do graphically and the other hasn't utilized it's potential.

I don't want to get nasty messsages over mis-wording.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #9 on:** March 24, 2006, 04:38:01 am »

Quote from: JoyMonkey on March 23, 2006, 11:11:01 am

Speaking of XBox skins, does this look familiar?

I got permission to do a rendition of the XBMC Project Mayhem 3 skin from its author, it was for Kymaera- but then Kymaera dropped off the face of the planet and the new features that would have made the skin really cool were never implemented.

New features? Looks like a standard skin to me. What does it need?

youki · « **Reply #10 on:** March 24, 2006, 06:15:37 am »

Quote

atomic don't really take advantage of what it can do in a visually pleasing manner,

That's true. My current layout editor is awfull. But i will change on the next version. I'm writing a new layout editor that will be infinitly better. And some more surprise to come in term of layout...

Lilwolf · « **Reply #11 on:** March 24, 2006, 08:41:51 am »

I think one thing is the frontend authors aren't always artistic.

Heck, I wrote my first version of jfront JUST so I could steal the teaser images for arcadeFX. Heck had mine out for a year before ArcadeFX came out... I never ran it on my system with the default skin but ArcadeFX's.

Prettiest. I still think most of the frontends out there still miss a bunch of 2d options that they could. I've remindied it on my new version of my frontend, but am uninspired to make it ready for others right now. Got it how I like it... stole the graphics from other sources that I need... and am happy with it. I might go and try and fix it up at some point... but I don't see the need since I don't think I could ever come up with a skin that others will move to... and I'm not going to release with stolen graphics

So I steal for myself now.

Also, I think 3d frontends will become bigger in time. I started rewriting my old 3d frontend (still think its cool). I have it now working as it did before with a new java based 3d opengl wrapper. And now I have to figure out how to add all my cool features that I like to work inside of the pacman machine that I've parsed. This is currently the trouble...

fantoboy · « **Reply #12 on:** March 24, 2006, 09:15:40 am »

Is there a front end that can show the desktop as the background?
I was thinking of using dremples as the background, and maybe having a menu over it.

youki · « **Reply #13 on:** March 24, 2006, 09:34:18 am »

I dont know what is "dremples"?

My Fe can not show the desktop as background, but you can use AVI files as background. So may be you can manage to have the effect you want.

fantoboy · « **Reply #14 on:** March 24, 2006, 09:43:20 am »

http://www.geisswerks.com/drempels/

dremples is a moving wallpaper

youki · « **Reply #15 on:** March 24, 2006, 10:02:46 am »

That's really cool! thanks. It gives me some idea...

dntaskwho · « **Reply #16 on:** March 24, 2006, 11:33:28 am »

GameEx has had some major changes lately. There is a theme editor now and some of the themes that are being made are great. It has a option to make it run for an arcade display and change it so its doesn't look like Windows MCE. It also has great settings for the arcadevga setup. Every game is set to correct resolution without configuration. The front end is easy as hell to setup and he updates it almost every other day. He even put in remote management software. It also has the view control panel when playing a mame game feature. Dragon King is nice but it is a pain to setup this is easy straight out of the box and can be tweaked without to much trouble. Check it out www.tomspeirs.com/gameex

tspeirs · « **Reply #17 on:** March 24, 2006, 11:48:10 am »

I would say try them all out, and don't listen to a front author who recommends his own front end. They generally love replying to these sort of threads, and often bag other front ends.

It's all down to how YOU feel about a front end, and unfortuantly you need to do your research. It takes time, theres no best or prettiest front end as everyone has different rquirements, hardware and taste. Although it would be helpfull to have a most used front list or a shortened list of front ends in active development somewhere but I would say these are generally the most used, and all but Gamelauncher and Dragon King is still in very active development.

Gamelauncher
Mamewah
Automic Front End
Kymera
Dragon King
GameEx
3D Arcade
Emuloader
Mame32

Buddabing · « **Reply #18 on:** March 24, 2006, 11:51:15 am »

Quote from: tspeirs on March 24, 2006, 11:48:10 am

It would be helpfull to have a most used front list or a shortened list of front ends in active development somewhere.

There is

tspeirs · « **Reply #19 on:** March 24, 2006, 12:04:53 pm »

Quote from: Buddabing on March 24, 2006, 11:51:15 am

Quote from: tspeirs on March 24, 2006, 11:48:10 am
It would be helpfull to have a most used front list or a shortened list of front ends in active development somewhere.

There is

Sorry, my bad, very nice. Perhaps these kind of threads can be redirected there in the future. Although maybe I've got crap in my eyes, but I did not see a status column, indictating whether the front end is still in active development, or approximatly when last updated. I think this is important as some front ends don't work anymore due to changes in MAME. If I'm missing that though please correct me.

EDIT: Yep crap in my eyes it's there, just need to read it fully. I think a another column would be better though IMHO.

Cheers.

Buddabing · « **Reply #20 on:** March 24, 2006, 12:50:52 pm »

"approximately when last updated"

This might be better than just "under active development".

We ran out of space in the columns.

tspeirs · « **Reply #21 on:** March 24, 2006, 01:14:21 pm »

Quote from: Buddabing on March 24, 2006, 12:50:52 pm

"approximately when last updated"

This might be better than just "under active development".

We ran out of space in the columns.

Great job though, something like this has been needed for a while.

Perhaps maybe month and year would fit. eg. 03/06. Or even year on it's own would identify the front ends that have been abandoned. Maybe some of the keys in the last column could be made into 1 characters instead of 2 and this would free up a bit of real estate?

I did notice one mistake however, in that some of the FE's ie Mamewah, Atomic FE and Gamelauncher are specified as having AM (Arcade Monitor Support). I am assuming this means direct Arcade Monitor support without special hardware (e.g without ArcadeVGA). I believe the only front ends that do this are AdvanceMenu, ArcadeOS, and Kymera(dos).

Thanks.

Buddabing · « **Reply #22 on:** March 24, 2006, 03:30:43 pm »

I interpreted arcade monitor support as supporting low resolutions that arcade monitors use. e.g. MAMEWah's "Classic 368x240" mode.

I don't think the average user is going to attempt to use Windows with an arcade monitor without an ArcadeVGA card. I should probably either add this to the explanation for AM, or else get rid of AM altogether and use something like LR for low resolution support.

I originally had the keys in the last column as single letters, but I agree with the change to a short acronym or mnemonic.

daywane · « **Reply #23 on:** March 24, 2006, 04:32:41 pm »

Quote from: youki on March 23, 2006, 04:24:44 am

Quote
Love the creator. (one of my favorite people here)

thanks!

#Edit: oops.. re-reading your post, i just figured out that you was speaking about MinWah not me! Sorry!.
MinWah is one of my favorites people here too!

you are also

tspeirs · « **Reply #24 on:** March 24, 2006, 05:03:28 pm »

Quote from: Buddabing on March 24, 2006, 03:30:43 pm

I interpreted arcade monitor support as supporting low resolutions that arcade monitors use. e.g. MAMEWah's "Classic 368x240" mode.

I don't think the average user is going to attempt to use Windows with an arcade monitor without an ArcadeVGA card. I should probably either add this to the explanation for AM, or else get rid of AM altogether and use something like LR for low resolution support.

I originally had the keys in the last column as single letters, but I agree with the change to a short acronym or mnemonic.

Yes, LR sounds better. I was just thinking that it undervalues the efforts in Kymera, ArcadeOS, and AdvanceMenu that do support Arcade Monitors without special hardware.

I think two letters are better than one, unless you need to add real estate for last updated. Again I think this is very important information. Software that's in active development and supported should be a critical decision in choosing a front end, and should at the least be more prevelant. Just my opinion though. Maybe a slightly smaller font size for some of the columns would help.

But again kudos to you for doing this.

I think ultimatly, if you could filter the list based on criteria a user enters, so they can choose there perfect front end, that would be the ultimate request for this. Maybe it should be a seperate little php app or something, that links back to the wiki. With this you could add column sorting also. I could code it for you, but I am only skilled in .net and asp for web stuff, so you need some sort of windows hosting available. Let me know if your interested.

tspeirs · « **Reply #25 on:** March 24, 2006, 05:14:22 pm »

Quote from: Howard_Casto on March 24, 2006, 04:31:49 am

Also I wouldn't consider gameex a front end. It's more of a complete and total rip-off of xp media center's gui. I wouldn't classify it as a mame cab front end, rather a set-top box navigation menu. In other words, while it looks nice, it also looks like it should be on a pc hooked to your living room tv, not in a mame cab. So I don't think it should even be compared with the others.

Have you actually tried it? I'm guessing not as at a bare minimum a thousand people disagree. Here's several of them:

[Cabinets running GameEx]
http://www.gameex.info/forums/index.php?showtopic=66

Buddabing · « **Reply #26 on:** March 24, 2006, 05:46:16 pm »

BTW, if any FE author feels like editing their own wiki entry, please feel free. It is very easy.

gonzobrian · « **Reply #27 on:** March 24, 2006, 06:59:47 pm »

Quote from: tspeirs on March 24, 2006, 11:48:10 am

I would say try them all out, and don't listen to a front author who recommends his own front end. They generally love replying to these sort of threads, and often bag other front ends.

I disagree with most of this. Sure try them all out. But to say don't listen to a FE author is silly. Why wouldn't you? Who is going to know the software better to tell others what it can do? Unless I try every FE when ever there is an update how will I know if there are improvements? Also I have been reading these forums for some time and have never seen any FE author "bag other front ends." On the contrary most seem to admire each other and point out what is good in the others work.

tspeirs · « **Reply #28 on:** March 24, 2006, 07:21:21 pm »

Quote from: gonzobrian on March 24, 2006, 06:59:47 pm

I disagree with most of this. Sure try them all out. But to say don't listen to a FE author is silly. Why wouldn't you? Who is going to know the software better to tell others what it can do? Unless I try every FE when ever there is an update how will I know if there are improvements? Also I have been reading these forums for some time and have never seen any FE author "bag other front ends." On the contrary most seem to admire each other and point out what is good in the others work.

Yes mostly, but not always. I've seen it quite a few times, in fact there's an example of it in this thread. Perhaps I was a little harsh and over generalized a little, but it does happen. It's probably just 1 or 2 of them, or maybe even 1. I'm not talking about authors talking about new features available or posting news, or advising users on what there own FE's do. They should do that, it's when they talk about other front ends. I just like things to be factual and unbiased, unless its independent. I'm not going to put links to posts with this happening, but it happens now and again. I certainly respect just about everyone who contributes something useful though, I just got on my high horse that's all. Sorry about that. My philosphy is to be nice and treat everyone with respect, unless they really blow deserving it. I sometimes get ticked off when others are not the same.

Just so there's no misunderstaning, I see you posted in this thread Youki. Note, I am not talking about you here. I really like what you've done with Atomic, it's original, creative, and your dedication to the product and users is admirable...

Brad · « **Reply #29 on:** March 24, 2006, 07:28:25 pm »

Tom and others are correct. There is NO perfect frontend as it's almost ALWAYS up to personal preference. You really need to try them all and then make an informed decision. If you don't want to try them all, read the feature-set of each and take a sub-set to try.

Brad

tspeirs · « **Reply #30 on:** March 24, 2006, 07:41:48 pm »

Quote from: Brad on March 24, 2006, 07:28:25 pm

Tom and others are correct. There is NO perfect frontend as it's almost ALWAYS up to personal preference. You really need to try them all and then make an informed decision. If you don't want to try them all, read the feature-set of each and take a sub-set to try.

Brad

Yes.
I think the real goal here is to make it EASIER for users to find there choice. That's my real point. It seems like there's a post like this every week, and although its great how everyone helps, I believe in creating things that save time and make things more efficient. That's why I am 110% behind the Wiki. Perhaps it can evolve into a www.topfrontends.com

By the way, the domain seems to be available. lol!

headkaze · « **Reply #31 on:** March 25, 2006, 04:44:38 am »

It's especially annoying when FE developers bag other front ends when they don't even keep up to date with it's development. Time and time again I hear people say GameEx looks like MCE, GameEx has no skin support. It's had full Theme support with the Theme Editor for a while now. And if I do say so myself, the Theme Editor is the most fully featured, bug free and easy to use than all the others I have tested during it's development. Although I am the author, so I admit I am slightly biased

Once an FE has full skin support I believe the look of the front-end becomes the job of the users.

The future of FE's will definately become more like MCE or XBox dashboards with pretty 3d effects and what not.

mccoy178 · « **Reply #32 on:** March 25, 2006, 07:45:24 am »

Quote from: tspeirs on March 24, 2006, 05:14:22 pm

Quote from: Howard_Casto on March 24, 2006, 04:31:49 am
Also I wouldn't consider gameex a front end. It's more of a complete and total rip-off of xp media center's gui. I wouldn't classify it as a mame cab front end, rather a set-top box navigation menu. In other words, while it looks nice, it also looks like it should be on a pc hooked to your living room tv, not in a mame cab. So I don't think it should even be compared with the others.
Have you actually tried it? I'm guessing not as at a bare minimum a thousand people disagree. Here's several of them:

[Cabinets running GameEx]
http://www.gameex.info/forums/index.php?showtopic=66

I'm trying this out now as we speak. That video is incredible! Great idea to link that site, as I would've never even looked.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #33 on:** March 26, 2006, 02:04:54 am »

Quote from: headkaze on March 25, 2006, 04:44:38 am

It's especially annoying when FE developers bag other front ends when they don't even keep up to date with it's development. Time and time again I hear people say GameEx looks like MCE, GameEx has no skin support. It's had full Theme support with the Theme Editor for a while now. And if I do say so myself, the Theme Editor is the most fully featured, bug free and easy to use than all the others I have tested during it's development. Although I am the author, so I admit I am slightly biased

Once an FE has full skin support I believe the look of the front-end becomes the job of the users.

The future of FE's will definately become more like MCE or XBox dashboards with pretty 3d effects and what not.

I mean no offense but I wasn't "bagging" anything and I have kept up with it's development. While the skins are nicely done I've still yet to see anything other than the "text list with images" layout that's been around since the rd days.

Compared to other fes the skinning features are still more limited. Easier to modify definately, but that isn't what we were talking about. It's not there yet... I'm confident that one day you'll get it there, but it's not there yet.

And while it's hidden well, the basic media center look and feel is still quite apparent. At least it is to me. Like I said it resembles a set top interface rather than a front end.

I will completely agree with you about it being the users fault though. You can't be expected to make a buttload of skins and write the dang thing as well. I suggest your users get busy and quit doing the whole "mamewah skinning" thing (namely take the default skin, change it ever so slightly and try to sell it off as a brand new skin.) I've had a similar problem with dk over the past few years, that's why you only see my skins on the download page.

headkaze · « **Reply #34 on:** March 26, 2006, 05:33:30 am »

-- deleted --

youki · « **Reply #35 on:** March 27, 2006, 07:08:15 am »

Quote

Just so there's no misunderstaning, I see you posted in this thread Youki. Note, I am not talking about you here. I really like what you've done with Atomic, it's original, creative, and your dedication to the product and users is admirable...

Thanks.

I have to admit i thougth you were talking about me because i did a post "against" your nagscreen in another thead where you posted. Despite that i really respect your work , that 's a great job too.

headkaze · « **Reply #36 on:** March 28, 2006, 09:06:44 am »

Quote from: Howard_Casto on March 26, 2006, 02:04:54 am

Compared to other fes the skinning features are still more limited. Easier to modify definately, but that isn't what we were talking about. It's not there yet... I'm confident that one day you'll get it there, but it's not there yet.

What FE are you comparing? I tried every layout/skin/theme editor I could find including those with MameWah, AtomicFE and Dragon King and made sure every feature I thought worth adding was included in the GameEx Theme Editor. To be frank, most of them were very buggy and lacking features so I didn't really find much worth copying. Most of them are knock-together apps and not full skinning applications, so I don't think they even compare to the GameEx Theme Editor.

So please be a little more specific what FE you are comparing GameEx to when you say "compared to other fes the skinning features are still more limited". What features are missing from the Theme Editor that are included in other fe's? Perhaps I could add these missing features if I knew what you were talking about.

Here is a link in case you havn't tried it.

)p( · « **Reply #37 on:** March 29, 2006, 04:10:29 pm »

Quote from: Howard_Casto on March 26, 2006, 02:04:54 am

I will completely agree with you about it being the users fault though. You can't be expected to make a buttload of skins and write the dang thing as well. I suggest your users get busy and quit doing the whole "mamewah skinning" thing (namely take the default skin, change it ever so slightly and try to sell it off as a brand new skin.) I've had a similar problem with dk over the past few years, that's why you only see my skins on the download page.

Problem is with more complex skinning it really becomes very difficult to make a nice gui for the average user. A good example is the c64 skin for 3darcade that uses cylarcade mode to animate a row of diskettes etc. Just look at this video how it works...

It will be really difficult to design good gui's for this kind of skins. This will be a big challenge for the next generation fe's...not me anymore

peter

youki · « **Reply #38 on:** March 30, 2006, 05:20:50 am »

Yes, you 're right. And if you want make a good editor it consume more time than making the FE itself.

I'm currently busy rewriting the Atomic one (that have still relativly simple layout in comparison of what is required for a full 3d one) , and to do something great it is lot of work.

nipsmg · « **Reply #39 on:** March 30, 2006, 07:39:14 am »

[quote author=)p( link=topic=51848.msg510750#msg510750
A good example is the c64 skin for 3darcade that uses cylarcade mode to animate a row of diskettes etc. Just look at this video how it works...

It will be really difficult to design good gui's for this kind of skins. This will be a big challenge for the next generation fe's...not me anymore

peter
[/quote]

That skin is excellent, wow. *votes for 3darcade* ;-)


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