Favorite Front End

[SNAAKE]

is there a way I can setup a windows7 computer to boot directly to a front end witout windows at all? dual boot perhaps. personally I use a xbox for emulators but my brother wants a cabinet with a computer that boots to a simply front end.

I should be doing more research but figured Id ask here first.

[danny_galaga]

New incarnation of my cab is now using Mala. It was Atomic FE, which was great, but Mala is now more useful for me

edit: hmmm, how do I change my vote?

[codefenix]

I vote Wah!Cade, because my cabinet's OS is Ubuntu.  There simply aren't any other frontends on Linux that offer the same customization options. 

( although please correct me if I've overlooked any )

[Frankdavis]

Wah!Cade is good, but have you heard about "phpmyadmin" it is highly recommended for MySQL front ends and very suitable with Ubuntu.




 

[Mister Hat]

Unfortunately I really don't have much choice besides WahCade. 

[mamefreak2]

Can't comment on the other front ends but I just started using Hyperspin and I can't say enough good things about it. I'm not a computer guy and there are definitely some tweaks here and there that you learn along the way but overall it's pretty easy to learn and the front end just looks awesome.

As an added bonus, the forum over there is great and the folks have been extremely helpful in getting me set up. I'm not completely done yet but I'm close and when it's done it's going to look awesome.

[Gray_Area]

For a decent looking interface, with a fair amount of features, and relative ease in making a simple and decent looking layout, I've used Mala on all my machines - main, horizontal rig; vertical rig; and specialty rig (about twenty games).

[ripsnort]

I've tried about 70% of the listed frontends and for me nothing beats hyperspin, sure you may need a better spec pc but a p4 will do it. Secondly I didn't see 3d arcade this was a brilliant idea though a bit buggy but it still tops most of the others as a multi system FE

[Porkans]

Didn't have the patience for hyperspin and couldn't customize some emulators in maximus. Definitively staying with Mala.

[drventure]

I +really+ wanted to use 3darcade, but the configuration of that thing just completely bamfuzzled me. Still, it's pretty dang sweet looking.

Maybe one day I'll go back and try it again, but Mala works great, is easy to write extensions for, and is particularly easy to get setup and going in the first place.

[shmokes]

Is there a way to easily make Hyperspin elegant? I think it has tons of potential, but out-of-the-box it's an assault on the senses. There's just WAY too much going on at all times. I think the default skin/theme designers are in serious need of a lesson in white space and, perhaps, a dose of Ritalin. 

[drventure]

Funny. That's exactly what I thought the first time I checked out hyperspin.

I suppose it lives up to the name, but, yes, if there were some more "subdued" themes out of the box, I'd find it more appealing.

[Dazz]

Is there a way to easily make Hyperspin elegant? I think it has tons of potential, but out-of-the-box it's an assault on the senses. There's just WAY too much going on at all times. I think the default skin/theme designers are in serious need of a lesson in white space and, perhaps, a dose of Ritalin. 

Funny. That's exactly what I thought the first time I checked out hyperspin.

I suppose it lives up to the name, but, yes, if there were some more "subdued" themes out of the box, I'd find it more appealing.

What kind of "subdued" themes would you be looking for?  The thing with HS is that you can make it look as flashy or as "subdued" as you want.  If you have a theme from another front end it can be easily adapted for use within HyperSpin.

Do you have an example of a theme you would like to see done in HyperSpin?

BTW - I have a theme that makes HyperSpin look exactly like Maximus Arcade.  It's not quite finished yet and I'll have to dig up the files and see if I can resurrect it.

[drventure]

Hey Dazz.

That's a tough one. I'm not really much of an artist. Just to be clear, HS is really impressive stuff. It's a very cool, slick looking interface (hell, my Mala theme is a kind of a rotating wheel, a bit like HS, but limited to what Mala can do).

Maybe a theme with a little less of the full screen animations, something like that.

I'll have to download the latest HS and try it out again...

[shmokes]

In terms of general feel I have something in mind like the Aeon series of themes for XBMC. It's unfortunately not an arcade frontend theme, but it's an example of a theme that organizes and presents an enormouse amount of info from a variety of sources in a clean, elegant, yet visually impressive way. Really, Hyperspin is pretty cool. It can do a lot of awesome stuff. I just think it falters from trying to do it all at once.

[Howard_Casto]

You know it's funny.  Back in the day when I used to make these things I was constantly stuggling to add as much stuff as possible.  Now that I'm "out of the game" and I've taken a step back I realize it was a colossal waste of time, at least visually.  The amount of games (via a gamelist or graphical representation) that can be shown on the screen at once and how smoothly it can be displayed is FAR more important than the type of blending effects and animations it can display on the screen at once. 


As you said, the key is getting as much displayed on the screen as possible without it looking like a massive train wreck. 

I wrote a custom fe for my pacman cab last year that supports nothing but a snapshot and a title image (sort of like a marquee).  Both image elements support animation and the transition from game to game is smooth.  I've got more enjoyment out of this barbones fe than I ever did out of rd, lazarus or dk.

Hyperspin is easily the most impressive looking thing out there, but much like 3darcade and some of my  eclectic works looking nice doesn't always make for good navigation.

I also think one of HS's major flaws is it's reliance on flash animations, which I talked about ages ago when it first came out.  Because they are full screened I would imagine that it would be a major pain in the butt to adapt them to another theme.  So yeah, you can do a custom theme, but you have immediately lost all of those great animations that makes hyperspin, hyperspin.  Even if you do alter the main theme  a little you might not be able to do something as simple as change the color scheme.  Why?  Because all of those great animations were made with the default colors in mind... you make run into contrast issues.

[Dazz]

As I have stated before; Hyperspin can be as basic or as complex as you want it. The animations are done at the discretion of their theme creator. 

Nobody has really taken the time to create a good minimalist type of theme yet.  There isn't any reliance on flash animations at all.  They are there if you want them, but you don't have to use them. Anything from the transitions between games to the exit screen can be modified. If you want a simple fade transition between games it can be done.

I agree that some themes might overdo the animations.  I will sometimes modify a theme and remove the animation based on my personal preference. 

Seriously, take a few minutes and download our HyperTheme.  Find some artwork, or heck take artwork from your favorite them from another FE.  Drop them into our theme creator and see how easy and basic you can create a theme. There are a couple HS theme creation tutorials online as well.

Heck, give me a link to your favorite theme from another fronted and I'll create something very comparable.  It would be fairly easy to take a Mala theme and convert it for use in HS.



---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.888922,-96.768292

[Howard_Casto]

As I have stated before; Hyperspin can be as basic or as complex as you want it. The animations are done at the discretion of their theme creator. 

Nobody has really taken the time to create a good minimalist type of theme yet.  There isn't any reliance on flash animations at all.  They are there if you want them, but you don't have to use them. Anything from the transitions between games to the exit screen can be modified. If you want a simple fade transition between games it can be done.

I don't think you got what I was talking about.

Let's say I do create a new theme.... well those hundreds of flash animations created for the mame theme aren't going to look right... so I can't use em.  If I want fancy animations for each game then I'm going to have to make my own or tweak the exists ones... manually.....  thousands of them.  If I don't use the flash animations then what I've got is basically every other fe out there.  If that is the case then what is the point of using HS?

I don't think that the way HS is setup is bad at all and I do NOT think you should change it... that's what makes it special.  My only point was HS is definately not for everyone and I can understand why some choose not to use it.

[Dazz]

As I have stated before; Hyperspin can be as basic or as complex as you want it. The animations are done at the discretion of their theme creator. 

Nobody has really taken the time to create a good minimalist type of theme yet.  There isn't any reliance on flash animations at all.  They are there if you want them, but you don't have to use them. Anything from the transitions between games to the exit screen can be modified. If you want a simple fade transition between games it can be done.

I don't think you got what I was talking about.

Let's say I do create a new theme.... well those hundreds of flash animations created for the mame theme aren't going to look right... so I can't use em.  If I want fancy animations for each game then I'm going to have to make my own or tweak the exists ones... manually.....  thousands of them.  If I don't use the flash animations then what I've got is basically every other fe out there.  If that is the case then what is the point of using HS?

I don't think that the way HS is setup is bad at all and I do NOT think you should change it... that's what makes it special.  My only point was HS is definately not for everyone and I can understand why some choose not to use it.

I guess that's what I'm confused about and something I've been trying to get a clear answer for since the very begining.  People have asked for less of "an assault on the senses" or "subdued" themes in the past and I'm not quite sure what they mean by that.  I'm assuming that they mean no flash animations or special transitions and make it look/act like other FE's.

Also, I guess I'm confused as to what flash animations you are talking about...  There are several different kinds of animations that can be used.  Some of the themes are completely animated such as our Moon Patrol theme.  These themes take talent and experience in flash to create.  Of course someone with no flash experience isn't going to create a theme as elaborate as this one.



Some themes might have animated characters that were done in flash.  Yes, these animations are normally done for that specific theme.  Again, these are more advanced themes and of course editing them would require skill.

Then you have our canned, or built in, animations.  These can be seen here.  These are the most widely used animations on themes.

These are simple animations that anyone can do just by using our theme creation program, HyperTheme.  It really is just a matter of selecting the image and applying the animation style to that layer.  The theme editor also allows for the editing of existing themes, so if you don't like one of the canned animations or think another animation would look better it can be changed fairly easy without much experience.  If you don't like the throbbing game title, then edit the theme, select the game title, remove or change the animation settings, and then save the theme.

Don't worry... HS isn't going to be changed.  It's going to stay special and become even more special with the next update.  We just want people to know that themes can be made to be however you want. 

I wouldn't mind knowing why someone wouldn't choose not to use it... I can see where people with machines less than 3 years old. We all know that a Pentium 1 w/24mb of memory wouldn't run it. I also see where some people would be turned off with the current Navigation scheme.  If it's not for the themes/animations, then what's keeping some from using it? 

Seriously, I don't benefit from people using HyperSpin or not in any way.  Donations go straight to Bill, the creator of HS, and I've never seen a single penny of it.  I just think that it's a quality product with a great community backing it and pride myself on our users excitement.

[Howard_Casto]

Well if you take away all the fancy animations and such, what you have is a fe that has a fairly iffy backend, high resource requirements, questionable navigation and a complex setup.  A ton of fes have this problem.  It is impressive enough visually that if you like the looks of it you'll put up with these minor annoyances, but if you don't care for the default theme, there isn't any point in bothering.

In terms of the asthetic problems with the main theme... that video you just upped about gave me a seizure.   It is a beautiful, expertly crafted flash animation.  One that unfortunately is too jarring a transition between it and a simple list.  Notice how the snapshot... the only thing that is important in that whole screen is barely noticable.  Form is great, but you need function as well.  The primary things displayed on the screen should always be the games artwork, the gamelist and relevant game info.  Animations are cool and enhance things quite a bit, but they should never distract from the actual data.

Also there is a factor of theme cohesion.  All the custom flash animations for HS are completely unique and lack any visual cues, transitions or color schemes to tie them all together.  When I think "animated theme"  I think just that.... the theme itself should be animated.  There might be an animated background...  the game artwork might move around or be textured on something interesting.... you might even get a very unobtrusive sprite or animation related ot the current game when idle, but the entire theme should remain as a whole unchanged and any game specific elements you do introduce should never overpower, much less completely override the main theme.   That doesn't mean you are limited to one theme of course.  You can have a different theme for each gamelist which I know HS can do.  The thing is that the current flash animations, particularly the custom ones, are so overpowering that it feels like the whole theme gets changed every time you select a different game.  That's just a bit much.

So no people aren't saying to ditch the animation and transitions, they are saying to make them tasteful. 

[yotsuya]

Dazz-

I just recently upgraded the computer in my main MAME machine, and I was finally able to run HS after running AtomicFE. I've enjoyed HS's flexibility and have had a lot of fun creating my own themes in HyperTheme. I'm really looking forward to v2.

[headkaze]

Horses for courses

[shmokes]

My last post was made on an iPad, so finding and posting an example of the Aeon Nox XBMC skin wasn't very feasible. Here it is:



A couple of things you'll see here: One is what Howard was talking about. See how each game, movie, TV show, music artist/album, has its own artwork, info, etc., but how all of that stuff exists within the theme?  Never, at any time, no matter what you are looking at, are you taken out of the Aeon environment. It's all a seamless, cohesive experience.

The other thing is that a metric ton of information is being displayed at any given time, but it's always classy. Imagine that same video where instead of the little tick-tick-tick noise you here when scrolling through lists or selecting menu items it instead played a short sound sample from some random movie. Because that what Hyperspin does.

I see no reason why Hyperspin could not be skinned with something every bit as elegant as that Aeon theme. It strikes me as a very powerful front end. But as it stands, it has been designed to be as outlandish and in-your-face garish as possible by default. I lack the talent and motivation to skin it myself, but I think these are things that the Hyperskin team ought to think about. Hyperspin appears to be designed to appeal to adolescent boys. It makes me think it was designed with something like this in mind:



I'm honestly not trying to just be insulting. I see Hyperspin and I want to use it. But both times I've tried it (once when it first came out, once last week) I had to switch away. It's too much.

[jimmy2x2x]

Nice post Shmokes, I much prefer the relaxed elegant approach to front ends.

Hopefully V2 will have something for everyone

[Dazz]

My last post was made on an iPad, so finding and posting an example of the Aeon Nox XBMC skin wasn't very feasible. Here it is:



A couple of things you'll see here: One is what Howard was talking about. See how each game, movie, TV show, music artist/album, has its own artwork, info, etc., but how all of that stuff exists within the theme?  Never, at any time, no matter what you are looking at, are you taken out of the Aeon environment. It's all a seamless, cohesive experience.

The other thing is that a metric ton of information is being displayed at any given time, but it's always classy. Imagine that same video where instead of the little tick-tick-tick noise you here when scrolling through lists or selecting menu items it instead played a short sound sample from some random movie. Because that what Hyperspin does.

I see no reason why Hyperspin could not be skinned with something every bit as elegant as that Aeon theme. It strikes me as a very powerful front end. But as it stands, it has been designed to be as outlandish and in-your-face garish as possible by default. I lack the talent and motivation to skin it myself, but I think these are things that the Hyperskin team ought to think about. Hyperspin appears to be designed to appeal to adolescent boys. It makes me think it was designed with something like this in mind:

I'm honestly not trying to just be insulting. I see Hyperspin and I want to use it. But both times I've tried it (once when it first came out, once last week) I had to switch away. It's too much.

By default, HyperSpin is designed to be an ARCADE experience.  When you walk into an arcade you see flashing lights, sounds, screen animations, cartoon like characters, video game like artwork, etc.  First and foremost; HyperSpin was made to be used in Arcade cabients, not an HTPC environment.  However, we have many members that use HS on their HTPC's.  If you want a HTPC design, such as Aeon, then spend time and learn to create what you want... or wait until someone releases such a theme.  Just because it's not included with the initial download; it doesn't mean that there isn't such themes.

Again, with a little work HyperSpin can look and act exactly like Aeon.  If you don't don't like the game sounds when moving the wheel... simply delete the wheel sounds in the \media\main menu\sounds folder.   

This theme pack is actually still being worked on.

Hyper Aeon



When HS 2.0 comes out we'll probably see more similar themes.  2.0 has a customizable coverflow system that will allow people to create different wheel types.  Below is just an example of the coverflow with the reflections being added automatically.

[mamefreak2]

Nice post Shmokes, I much prefer the relaxed elegant approach to front ends.

Hopefully V2 will have something for everyone

I'm not a computer guru by any stretch and didn't know anything about even using photopaint. But it's really, really easy to customize.

They give you a million soundeffects for when the wheel changes. I found it to be a little busy so I eliminated all but one. Now when the wheel switches to a different theme I get the guantlet 'gong' when you add in a quarter. Really nice and professional and it took me all of about 5 minutes to go through the sounds and pick which one I wanted.

Creating themes is really easy to do to. In my spare time I've created 5 or 6 that have been posted over there as well. It's an awesome front end.

[Sparkolicious]

I absolutely LOVE HyperSpin. In fact it is the only reason I got back into my arcade rig.  I used mamewah back in the day, and it worked, but it was way too plane IMO.  I went from never having seen HS to setting up multiple systems and changing themes in about a week.  I don't see what is so difficult about it really.  Their forums are FULL of information, and with a modest donation, you have access to all kinds of themes/art on the FTP.  

It strikes me as a very powerful front end. But as it stands, it has been designed to be as outlandish and in-your-face garish as possible by default. I lack the talent and motivation to skin it myself, but I think these are things that the Hyperskin team ought to think about. Hyperspin appears to be designed to appeal to adolescent boys.

Man I am pushing 40 and it still appeals to me!   I mean I think the outlandish and in-your-face garish design is exactly what a lot of people expect out of an arcade machine...  Stand in the middle of an 80's arcade and you get what I mean.  For me, that is the exact experience I want to create in my game room/bar.  It all comes down to personal preference....  In the words of the not so famous anywhere else but New Orleans Howard Lee "Hokie" Gajan... "I guess that's why they make chocolate AND vanilla"  

HS FTW!!!  

[Necro]

I would love to use hyperspin....just need a flip-x option and I'd switch over in a second.  (cue the Ballad of the PITA Mirror Cab)

[Dazz]

I would love to use hyperspin....just need a flip-x option and I'd switch over in a second.  (cue the Ballad of the PITA Mirror Cab)

This might be a possibility in v2.0.

[Maniacmat]

This is my first post on the forum and I hands down voted Hyperspin, I used another frontend in an old machine and found it painful to customise etc, but Hyperspin in one day I managed to setup my mame collection, Neo Geo,N64, C64 Atari, Sega master system, Megadrive, Nintendo, and Super Nintendo.  I still have a few minor tweaks here and there, but all are playable and very easily change between them. 

One thing I have a problem with Dazz is scrolling through large numbers of letters, I can go left a right to skip to the next letter, if I have something like Moon Patrol in the middle of the M's it can take a week to get to, maybe a speedup after a few seconds, this might already be a feature??

All in all, hyperspin is killer!

[wivelden]

Dazz
Whats the minimum requirements for HS?
Does it need a decent graphics card?

[shateredsoul]

Dazz
Whats the minimum requirements for HS?
Does it need a decent graphics card?

http://hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6537

I just googled "hyperspin requirements"

any modern pc should be able to run it fine (even the cheapo desktops)... but probably not on netbooks

[Necro]

I would love to use hyperspin....just need a flip-x option and I'd switch over in a second.  (cue the Ballad of the PITA Mirror Cab)

This might be a possibility in v2.0.

Woot!  But I'll stay unexcited until it's released.

[Acids]

I am blown away that not a single person is using ArcadeOS.  My first mame cab ran ArcadeOS and AdvanceMAME, and it stayed that way for a long time.  Like everyone else, I eventually moved on to other FEs, but not 1 single person still using gool old ArcadeOS?  It must be the advent of the ArcadeVGA card that made ArcadeOS basically obsolete.  But I still have a soft spot for it and owe a debt of gratitude toward it.
Here's to you, ArcadeOS 

I started that way as well.     Once setup it was cool and worked like a charm.
My mame collection grew rapidly and my hardware kept getting better so i kinda outgrew it.

the good ole days huh 

[Wade007]

Mala is great. I chose Retro GUI as my design/skin for Mala.

I was able to alter the vector files to support all the arcade emulators I've chose to use in my home arcade build.

See my blog article here highlight the software side of things including Mala and Retro GUI:
http://www.cheapskategamer.com/pc_game_stories_and_news/building-an-arcade-emulation-cabinetpart-one-software/

[nylaine0416]

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

[Coru]

hyperspin <3 looking forward to 2.0. any word on when thats coming out?

[Eldritch1969]

I use Mala. Simple and efficient.

[tcolar]

I use MameChose, the frontend I wrote in the last couple month

https://bitbucket.org/tcolar/mamechose/overview

I'd like to add it to the wiki, but can't seem to find a  way to register/login there .....

[rtkiii]

I thought Hyperspin was going to be great but it needs to many extra tools to work the way Maximus Arcade works with one application.  Chaning to that.