Pole Position mame

[heinekenlvr]

Hi all,
I am in the process of building a Pole Position mame using a PP cabinet and controls. I am quite familiar with mame32 as this is what I run on a cocktail machine that I have without a front end. My goal with the PP is it will only run verions of PP and PP2. Here is where I need some help. I would like the computer to load directly to a screen where the user would have the ability to choose to play either PP or PP2. Is this where the front end comes in? Can someone please tell me how this is done and whether there is good website that provides instruction? Thanks.
Mike the NEWB in Ottawa.

[loadman]

Yes that is where a FE comes in.

You can just have two items in the game list selectable via your steering wheel.

MaLa with racing layout:



Other FE's can do this too. 

Check the Wiki:
http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Front-Ends

Let us know if you need help.

You may find that you want to use a FE on your cocktail later on. Mame32 is cool to play/test on a PC but not very sexy on a Cab as it looks too much like windows.

[youki]

Or AtomicFE...

Here one layout optimized for Racing cab with game list selectable by steering wheel.

The video :



a snapshot.




As most of Fe, you can do your own skin off course.

And as said Loadman, check the wiki for a complete from end list.

[heinekenlvr]

Thanks for the help. I really like both of those front ends. I assume they will both work with Mame32??

[Havok]

Yes, however I would really recommend command line Mame. Why run two front ends? Your pc will thank you...

 

[shock_]

Definitely only run MAME, not MAME32.  MaLa provides a GUI for setting up all the config files for the command-line MAME anyway, I think (never used it, but there's an options button next to where you point to your mame.exe file location - and it's full of the same stuff you get in the MAME32 options menus)

...

Only having two games makes things very interesting, from a front end layout perspective.

If I was doing that, I'd (assuming MaLa) make two completely isolated layouts, each customised to one game... maybe lifting graphics from the flyers, marquees etc.

I'd then create two gamelists, with only one game in each, and set MaLa to swap layouts based on the selected gamelist.

Then just make sure you've bound a button (perhaps the pedal or gearshift?) to rotate through the list of (two) gamelists and there you go - completely excellent, completely customised to your cab and idiotproof game selector!

[Havok]

Or if you really want to make it simple, you can assign a button to launch one game or the other in AtomicFE, so a list would not be necessary...

The possibilities are endless!

 

[youki]

For limited number of games , i like this kind of layout:





It is easy to do the same thing to fit more with steering wheel control.

For just 2 games or 3 , i would separate the screen in 2 or 3 vertical zone, each displaying the game and relacted artwork in a nice way.  The game being selected by moving the wheel from right to left.  Zone could be in that style matching with the game .




As say Havok , possibilities are endless.   If you choose Atomic and need help for a layout , ask me. I will help you to make the layout you dream (or a least very close).