Favorite Front End

[Hoopz]

This poll is setup in order to have one definitive poll that offers several benefits over some of the other "What's your favorite front end" poll.

1.  Users may change their vote at any time.  For example, anyone using an older FE that decides to use a new front end can change their vote at any time. 

2.  All FEs from the wiki are included.  When new FEs become available, I'll update the poll to reflect what's new.

3.  Saint has agreed to sticky the poll so that it's readily available to everyone without having to use the search feature.

I am including all Front Ends listed in the Wiki for several reasons.  This will get closer to being a comprehensive poll of all offerings, including some that haven't been updated in awhile.  It may also attract some members who haven't been very active recently, yet who may be content running their FE.  The more votes we get, the better the poll should be. It may also include FEs that some aren't familiar with and inspire them to research some more.  Finally, if someone points out that a FE hasn't been included, it can then be added to the Wiki.  In the words of Michael Scott, win-win-win.

Obviously, post any comments regarding your favorite.  Let me know if another FE needs added.  And I do realize that command line isn't necessarily a front end.  However, several of the more/most helpful members here use it and I think it's valid to include it.   

[polaris]

good stuff, ill give it a week til someone posts it again without looking through the stickies

Mala  first ive tried no reason to change.

[bigdog1977]

Sweet thanks Hoopz!!! Your not such the A*s Bag I thought your were! hahaha. Where is Maximo G+ on the list kid? 

[loadman]

I used to use GameLauncher but development ground to a halt.  I was cool for it's day.

But now days it 24/7 MaLa. 

I still use command line for testing (well it is in the list) 

I really like the work that has gone into the development of most of the other FE's though. There are some talented dev's out there. 

Don't forget the cool guys who make MAME and FE utilities / plug-ins. They Rock   

Am I getting off track again?  Nurse another pill please!!! 

[Dazz]

+ 1 for Maximo G+

[somunny]

Well, I had to vote for Mamewah as it's the only FE I've used so far.  I have it installed on my 2004 and 2006 cab projects. 

I've never had any desire to change it up but I am planning on using MaLa for The Ark just to try something different.

[TheShanMan]

When I saw this thread I thought "oh man, that's ALL we need - yet another 'favorite FE' thread, and on top of that it's stickied!". But your poll is actually an excellent idea!

(mala for me)

[bewareofwolfe]

The first FE I used was Kymaera atleast three years ago now.
Then It was 3d arcade I loved it, it is cool, but now because of it's ease of use all the goodies it supports etc... I pick MALA

[Hoopz]

I've been wondering if XBMC should be added to the list.  If anyone is using it for this function, let me know please.

Thanks.

[Space Fractal]

No multiple choice?

I think I should not vote because I have my own little FE, based on MultiJuke and is on the vote list.

From other authors I like both Mamewah and Mala and would vote on both of them if I could. Its these I have use/used.

[nuka1195]

hoopz, i am writing a plugin for xbmc for mame and of course will use it for media playback.

it will be a while, but i think it's perfect for a bartop, where it supports music, video and pictures along with arcade gaming.

[FrizzleFried]

I too vote Maximo!

 

[protokatie]

Well I voted AFE, and I presume Havok did as well..

Just waiting for the 3rd and final vote for atomic from Youki...

[shmokes]

There may be a couple of minor features that Maximo G+ doesn't do as well as some of the other front ends, but as a complete package I think it is clearly superior to the others in terms of both accessibility and advanced features.  The balance those devs have struck between power and usability is, IMO, as close to perfect as any front end is likely to come in the near future, perhaps ever.

[Havok]

Well I voted AFE, and I presume Havok did as well..

Just waiting for the 3rd and final vote for atomic from Youki...

Haha - these guys don't know what they're missing. Most of them prefer "FE for Dummies" setup over power. Meh.

 

[youki]

Haha - these guys don't know what they're missing. Most of them prefer "FE for Dummies" setup over power. Meh.

hehe... most of them will change they mind when they will try Atomic 0.20... 

And most of my current users don't spend their time to answer poll on forums , they play!! 

[Gatsu]

I like MaLa. So far its been the easiest setup for me out of the others that I had on my arcade console. And the visuals are all customizable, and easy to customize. I really dig that. I can make some workable and good looking in very little time.

Sure its got a few bugs, but the developers staying on top of it and actually listening to users in the community, which is awesome. I highly recommend it.

[bigdog1977]

FrizzleFried what is that picture of in your Avatar??

[loadman]

Sure its got a few bugs, but the developers staying on top of it and actually listening to users in the community, which is awesome. I highly recommend it.

Sorry I felt the need to clarify this 
The deal is basically just before Swindus stopped working on it he thew in a heap on functionality that was never fully beta tested, but he was good enough to pass the source code onto me so now I am bust bug squashing then I will add/change other things.
Sorry for the thread hijack 

[divemaster127]

When will the atomic .20 be out just curious
dm

[FrizzleFried]

FrizzleFried what is that picture of in your Avatar??

You don't wanna know...

[Blanka]

I don't understand the popularity of Hyperspin It looks like the front-end equivalent of Polonaise/Line dancing, of the movie Meet the Grannies, of a Happy Meal, of the new VW Beetle, of leggings and fake curled/blonded hair, of TV calling games, of Char, or well to summarize it all: it equals bad taste.

I was almost the first to vote for EmuLaunch. I like a Mac effort. But it is not fast and complete enough. When it is 5 times as fast, and supports U360 mapping it will get my vote. Now it is Mala.

[youki]

When will the atomic .20 be out just curious
dm

I was expecting end of September. But i got a Baby , so  i will be late on my planning.  Should be mid october.

It is almost finished , we are polishing things.

[joebells]

I don't understand the popularity of Hyperspin It looks like the front-end equivalent of Polonaise/Line dancing, of the movie Meet the Grannies, of a Happy Meal, of the new VW Beetle, of leggings and fake curled/blonded hair, of TV calling games, of Char, or well to summarize it all: it equals bad taste.

I was almost the first to vote for EmuLaunch. I like a Mac effort. But it is not fast and complete enough. When it is 5 times as fast, and supports U360 mapping it will get my vote. Now it is Mala.

of course not everyone is going to like it(hyperspin) but I wonder why you think it looks so bad?

[TeutonicDarkness]

 
 There are many Front Ends that have feature I like,
or I like the way they look...


However I have to choose the older Version of
Mamewah in Combination with the Setup tool
provided by David Butler.

Most of the other I couldn't figure out or was
turned off by the unusual directory structure I
had to setup... (unusual to me anyway).

However with this combination it can't get any easier!




*** Teutonic Darkness ***

[LaDite]

HI,

Atomic 0.20 is the next No. 1 of the front end

upon its release in mid-October, it will be supplied with a program installation with + 100 pre-configured Emulators

Come see the result (90% ok) :



http://www.atomicfe.com/forums/index.php?board=2.0

LaDite

[gonzo90017]

HI,

Atomic 0.20 is the next No. 1 of the front end

upon its release in mid-October, it will be supplied with a program installation with + 100 pre-configured Emulators

Come see the result (90% ok) :

http://www.mediafire.com/?jmwijydjgne

http://www.atomicfe.com/forums/index.php?board=2.0

LaDite

   

The forum link isn't working. Seems you have to register to see the forum.

[headkaze]

I thought Atomic 0.20 was going to be more like HyperSpin but it looks more like GameEx 

[Hoopz]

Youki, congrats on the baby!   

When will the atomic .20 be out just curious
dm

I was expecting end of September. But i got a Baby , so  i will be late on my planning.  Should be mid october.

It is almost finished , we are polishing things.

The FE is being polished or the baby?   

[billpa]

I don't understand the popularity of Hyperspin It looks like the front-end equivalent of Polonaise/Line dancing, of the movie Meet the Grannies, of a Happy Meal, of the new VW Beetle, of leggings and fake curled/blonded hair, of TV calling games, of Char, or well to summarize it all: it equals bad taste.

Wow...why dont you tell us how you really feel? 

[tspeirs]

I think Hyperspin should definitly be voted best newcomer, and best innovation of recent times. Its nice when something new comes along and people try to do something new and innovate. It takes something special to do something new rather than just reinvent the wheel. As I wouldnt vote for my own front end I voted for Hyperspin.

Credit where its due.

[youki]

I thought Atomic 0.20 was going to be more like HyperSpin but it looks more like GameEx 

The layout you show exists for AtomicFe since the 0.18 , he is donwloadable since a while. He has been inspired by a Mala layout where we added real time reflection effect.

Atomic 0.20 have HyperSKin layout  of course , as you have already seen on video i posted , but it is really not the main enhancement has Atomic was already able to do that , i just added "rotation" effect and the possibility to map layout on game or category.

Atomic 0.20 reserves lot of surprise.

[Aabra]

Definitely Hyperspin

While the argument of there not being enough themes was valid in the past... I currently have 243 fully themed games for Mame.  While I realize that there are several thousand - remember that people have typically been making themes for their favorite games first.

What this means is that 243 of the most popular games have been done....  all or at least most of the games you actually play are in there.  The few of your favorites which aren't in there can easily be added with a little effort if you want.

Not to mention all my movie themes.

[RetroBorg]

Not to mention all my movie themes.

Aabra's movie themes are definitely worth checking out: http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?t=861

[Aabra]

ehh - that's an old link Retro before I started modifying the trailers so that there's no black around the edges or 5 second green preview screen before the trailer starts.  This link is a bit more up to date (although more movies have been added since - check the latest post in that thread for a list) and has a video included. 

http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?t=885

[Todd H]

Over the years, I've gone from Gamelauncher to Mamewah to Hyperspin. Gotta say Hyperspin has quickly become my favorite.

[Aabra]

I just made up a new preview video today for my movie themes so I figured I'd post it here just for fun as some people are probably confused.    I realize that there are other front ends for movies but I like having the trailers start right away when browsing through the movies.  Call me crazy but I think it's much cooler than staring at some boxart with no sound. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h330mOuhdU

[Havok]

My XBox 360 is my movie front end...

 

[kaptainsteve]

The reason I like Mala is that it is easy to set up and easy to use while in a cabinet.
I don't like too many choices and selections on the main menu.  Let the frontend open mame up automatically and then the user just has to pick some games.  Too many choices is just too much to think about for those who want to play games, not read/navigate menus.  I want people to focus on choosing a game, not navigating or waiting for videos to stop playing in order to play a game. 

Finally, Mala is pretty easy to set up and get going.  I dont' want to start worrying about collections of attract videos and all this artwork collections that go into folders that I dont' know what their name is?  I mean, isn't the snap and marquee folders in mame enough of this nonsense?   I like the idea of hyperspin, or should i say Ultracade, but for me to use it I would want it just to load up the snaps and marquees from default because I don't want to have to devote too much time to gathering videos and graphics and organizing and setting it up right.

My favorite frontend of them all was Ultramame because it was so simple and looks like, if there was a real "mame" arcade cabinet from the 80's, that it would be it's frontend.  But, the only reason I don't use it now is that I can't install it anymore, it's got some bugs and I can't figure it out.

Ok, so I'm lazy... so what?

[Aabra]

The reason I like Mala is that it is easy to set up and easy to use while in a cabinet.
I don't like too many choices and selections on the main menu.  Let the frontend open mame up automatically and then the user just has to pick some games.  Too many choices is just too much to think about for those who want to play games, not read/navigate menus.  I want people to focus on choosing a game, not navigating or waiting for videos to stop playing in order to play a game. 

I don't think you're referring to Hyperspin here but since you mention it later on I have to assume that you are.  If you're not then please forgive me for this assumption.  In Hyperspin to get from the main menu to actually playing a game takes 2 clicks.  Once on the system (Mame, Sega Master System, NES, Movies, or whatever you want) and once on the game.  My grandmother could use this without getting confused. 

I'm also not really sure what you mean by waiting for videos to stop playing... I don't think *any* front end forces you to wait for the video to stop playing before you can select a game.... I mean that would be awful. 

 I like the idea of hyperspin, or should i say Ultracade, but for me to use it I would want it just to load up the snaps and marquees from default because I don't want to have to devote too much time to gathering videos and graphics and organizing and setting it up right.

I created a little video here as it seems that a lot of people believe that Hyperspin can't do this.  It absolutely can and does.  You don't need individual themes at all.  This is still a work in progress though as you can see for SNES as the wheel images don't exist yet - they're still being created so we're currently forced to use Hyperlogo to generate them.  It still looks pretty good though.  The completed NES default theme though obviously looks better.

Admittedly in its current incarnation (Beta) you have to set up a lot of this manually which isn't that hard but a bit complicated for the average user.  Once it's all done however you'll simply download a torrent which has everything already setup in its correct directory. (with maybe the exception of most videos which you'll have to download from emumoves if you want them) After that you'll simply run the config program to set the rom directories and emulators that you want to use - and that's it.

That's the direction that BadBoyBill is taking the program in. 

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=8-7-J5pWO0g