Looking for a good frontend/MAME/game sorting solution.

[orangelounge]

If anyone could recommend to me the best way to go about achieving such a goal, I'd be greatly appreciative.

I would like a MAME Frontend/rom sorting solution to:


*Be able to not only browse a full gamelist, but also to browse by categories (Shooters, platform)
*Be able to sort out all junk (mahjong) ROMs and clones (Doesn't necessarily need to be done by frontend, any solution would work)
*Be able to start not only MAME, but SNES, NES, Genesis, etc. emulators as well.
*Not have any "YOU MUST BE LEGALLY ENTITLED TO USE THIS ROM TYPE OK TO CONTINUE"
*Have a layout that's usable at low resolutions (running 640x480 on a TV via S-Video)

For anyone who can suggest the best way to go about this, I'd be greatly appreciative.  Thank you so much.

[Chris]

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Front-Ends

[SGT]

*Be able to not only browse a full gamelist, but also to browse by categories (Shooters, platform)
*Be able to sort out all junk (mahjong) ROMs and clones (Doesn't necessarily need to be done by frontend, any solution would work)
*Be able to start not only MAME, but SNES, NES, Genesis, etc. emulators as well.
*Have a layout that's usable at low resolutions (running 640x480 on a TV via S-Video)

I'm pretty sure that all currently active front-ends do all of the above.  The frontends that get the most press on this forum and are still being updated are (sorted in descending alphabetical order  ):

Mala
GameEx
AtomicFE

*Not have any "YOU MUST BE LEGALLY ENTITLED TO USE THIS ROM TYPE OK TO CONTINUE"

You will need to patch and compile Mame for it to disappear.  If you don't want to compile, I think one of the front ends will submit an "OK" for you so that it goes away quickly, anyone?

[orangelounge]

*Be able to not only browse a full gamelist, but also to browse by categories (Shooters, platform)

How do you do this in MaLa?  Just wondering.  Does it require a specific layout to be used, or how should I configure this up?

Thanks again.

[SGT]

Not a specific layout.  If you just want to browse, you can create a filter.  However I think most people would use either Mala's game list editor or romlister to create custom game lists based upon the criteria that you specifiy.

[Green Giant]

*Be able to not only browse a full gamelist, but also to browse by categories (Shooters, platform)

How do you do this in MaLa?  Just wondering.  Does it require a specific layout to be used, or how should I configure this up?

Thanks again.

Sounds like you are talking about the mala tree.  It is extremely easy to setup and can have multiple menus that lead to many different lists.  You can assign different layouts to each list and menu.  I actually found it easier to setup different layouts in the tree than the traditional method.

For example, on my cab I have:

-mame  -sports      -football
                           -basketball
             -shooter  -vertical
                           -gun
             -year       -1975-1980
                           -1980-1982
-nintendo
-sega

Now expand that by about 40 lists for mame.  Basically everything in catver.ini has a gamelist so that no list has more than 50 games.  But it is all in menus within menus to make browsing easier.

[loadman]

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Mala_Tree

 

[Green Giant]

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Mala_Tree

 

Hey, the information about the tree is finally there, sweet.   

[loadman]

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Mala_Tree

 

Hey, the information about the tree is finally there, sweet.   

You can thank Organic Jerk for that  :-)

[orangelounge]

Thanks so much for the help!

EDIT:  What's that layout that's used in the Wiki link above?  I really like that.  That's EXACTLY what I'm looking for.

[jfh2112]

*Not have any "YOU MUST BE LEGALLY ENTITLED TO USE THIS ROM TYPE OK TO CONTINUE"

You will need to patch and compile Mame for it to disappear.  If you don't want to compile, I think one of the front ends will submit an "OK" for you so that it goes away quickly, anyone?

Yes, GameEx will do that for you. It's actually been improved recently; it used to throw a ton of "OK"s at MAME, but now it seems to detect when the screens show up & sends when appropriate.

I don't know if any other FEs will do it; I registered GameEx in December & have used it ever since.