Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: severdhed on December 14, 2010, 10:44:06 pm
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i was recently at a local pizza place and they had a multi-game arcade cabinet set up. i was in a hurry, and didn't have time to play any games, but i liked the interface. it was pretty simple, with 6 screen shots of the games and you just used the joystick to select the one you wanted to play. (they may have been animated/videos, i can't remember)
after a little googling, here is a pic of what i'm talking about.
(http://www.atlantaarcades.com/images/uploads/arc-MsPacMan60in1/MsPacMan60in1_3.jpg)
my question is: are there any mame front ends out there that can replicate this? i've tried a few different front ends, but havent found anything like this. i am currently running mala, which i am relatively happy with...however i think i'd like to have something set up more like that cabinet, which i'm assuming is a 60-in-1 board.
any ideas?
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You need to use Hyperspin it blows everything away. Its Amazing!!! forget 60-1 how about 50,000-1
3D Mame Cab Hyperspin-FE Mameroom (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-JEQHS23L4#)
I started using it 4 weeks ago it gets easy as you learn how to add all the videos and wheel art into the files.
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i've tried hyperspin, but it just didn't work too well for me. i am running older pentium 4 hardware, and it was sluggish and difficult to set up....then there was trying to find all of the artwork....and it is really nothing like that interface i am looking for.
mala works fine, is easy to set up and i already have it working. hyperspin is flashy, but i'm just not sure that's what i want. i want it to be super simple, so that my 3 year old can use it by himself.
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I use Gamelauncher. Nice and simple. Works with Windows or DOS. The background changes to the game screenshot when you scroll down to each game.
(http://www.dribin.org/dave/game_launcher/screen_shots/mame.gif)
Here's a video of it in action (cue it up to 4:50 in):
Green Invader Vertical Arcade V.1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuVGNjg76pY#ws)
D
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I second Gamelauncher for ease-of-use. Used it on one of my cocktails. Only suckage (at least for the version I used circa 2005) is that the background MP3s can only have like 6 characters in the name or the whole thing blows up. But get that sorted and it's the simplest FE I've used yet.
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You could make your own xx in 1 with simple touch FE and pictures of various mame games. Use a simple command line mame launch for each game and you have a screen based mame game launcher. If you do not want to use a mouse a joystick to mouse program could be used.
Just an idea.
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My 3 year old figured out Hyperspin pretty quickly on her own once I showed her how to exit a game and select a new one. The fact that the menu is essentially navigable in one dimension, and with any control device on the panel helps too (track ball or joystick). I just populated a favorites list for her shrunk down to a handful of games with simple controls.
Of course if it's not running well on your hardware that's another issue. That having been said, 2 gigs of ram, a faster proccessor and motherboard can run you as little as $150, assuming you use your
existing hard drive, power supply, and case if you have one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186155 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186155)
Foxconn M61PMV AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231098 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231098)
G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103844 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103844)
AMD Athlon II X2 255 Regor 3.1GHz
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I've never seen one.
You may be able to pull off something kinda similar by having Mala display screenshots in place of names.
I know you can do that with marquees, so I assume you can do it with screenshots.
They will all have to be in one column though.
You could do 3 screenshots at a time with the center one "highlighted" by a frame that's part of the background image.
You could even put the video window over top of it, so it comes to life when highlighted.
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I use Gamelauncher. Nice and simple. Works with Windows or DOS. The background changes to the game screenshot when you scroll down to each game.
(http://www.dribin.org/dave/game_launcher/screen_shots/mame.gif)
D
There is also the exact same version of this available as a MaLa skin. I love this one. Very fast and slick without being overly busy or slow. After the "wow" factor of the animations and stuff wore off in other front ends(didn't take long for me), I just wanted the fastest and least intrusive menu possible.
This one is perfect. Nice big text and full sized screenshots dimmed in the background.
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gamelauncher looks interesting, i'm downloading it right now to try it out. i did just make a mala layout that is similar to that, but the text just seems too hard to read. i like how gamelaucher allows for outlined fonts.
as for hyperspin, i dont want to have to upgrade my pc just to run a front end, when it plays the games just fine. there is no doubt that it looks fantastic when set up right, but it is just too flashy for my taste.
the problem is, none of these options are really what i am looking for. i really want a front end where i can have large screenshots(or videos) of the games and just browse through them with the joystick, with the name of the game appearing somewhere on the screen. i thought about trying to do this with MALA, but it only allows for a gamelist to be a single column, i can't even do it in a row horizontally, which is pretty limiting. i'd love to have it set up similar to the Namco Classics Collection vol 2 rom that is in mame. it only has 3 games, but they are there with a large video of the game in action, with the name of the game below it, and you press left or right to go to the next one, which is partially visible on either side. it is just a very slick interface.
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You could make your own xx in 1 with simple touch FE and pictures of various mame games. Use a simple command line mame launch for each game and you have a screen based mame game launcher. If you do not want to use a mouse a joystick to mouse program could be used.
I think Bob's approach above has the best chance of doing what you want. Simple Touch FE is very nice and very flexible for selecting games (or any apps for that matter) through large images on a multi-page interface.
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I also use GameLauncher but ran into its limitations. It has a limited number of categories, and possibly limit of # of games in a category, and it was no longer being updated by the programmer (this was 6 years ago)
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well, i may have to play around a little more, but i couldn't get game launcher to run properly on my cabinet, it would just scroll vertically really fast, like there was a vertical sync issue or something, not sure what was up with that. using a CRT TV connected via component video, running at 640x432.
i'll look into simple touch...thanks guys
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MaLa with the Game Launcher skin... Again, it looks like Game Launcher but all the benefits of a great, modern front end.
I've been running this on my vert cab for 2 years with no problem
http://malafe.net/index.php?page=layouts&subpage=gamelauncher (http://malafe.net/index.php?page=layouts&subpage=gamelauncher)
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i was recently at a local pizza place and they had a multi-game arcade cabinet set up. i was in a hurry, and didn't have time to play any games, but i liked the interface. it was pretty simple, with 6 screen shots of the games and you just used the joystick to select the one you wanted to play. (they may have been animated/videos, i can't remember)
after a little googling, here is a pic of what i'm talking about.
(http://www.atlantaarcades.com/images/uploads/arc-MsPacMan60in1/MsPacMan60in1_3.jpg)
my question is: are there any mame front ends out there that can replicate this? i've tried a few different front ends, but havent found anything like this. i am currently running mala, which i am relatively happy with...however i think i'd like to have something set up more like that cabinet, which i'm assuming is a 60-in-1 board.
any ideas?
I like this kind of layout too, and I have done it in Mala. There are a couple caveats however:
1. You don't mind doing a fair bit of work especially if your gamelist is large (although some Autohotkey skills can reduce the amount of work considerably)
2. You will not be able to easily add or remove games from the list, so make sure it's what you want before you begin.
My explanation is going to be very convoluted, but the results will be exactly what you want, so bear with me.
I took a minute to make a sketch up in Paint of the kind of layout you'd want to make - see attached.
The gamelist is simply Mala's regular gamelist, you'll just want to squish it down so that only the currently selected game is shown in the list.
For the definables, you'll need to make a template of the row of three snaps. An easy way to do this is to load up 39in1 in Mame and take a screenshot of the menu image and then cut out a row in Paint or whatever program you use for this sort of thing.
You'll need snaps that fit into this template for all the games in the list. Both in color and black and white.
For simplicity sake, let's say the first 6 roms in your list are named rom1, rom2, rom3, rom4, rom5, and rom6.
In the template, put in the black and white snaps of rom1-rom3, save that with a different filename, then open the template again and put in the black and white snaps of rom4-rom6.
From the rom1-rom3 file, you're going to make 3 more files, each with one of the snaps in color. So simply paste the color snap of rom1 over the black and white one, save it with the name rom1, and then repeat this for rom2-rom6.
Save rom1, rom2, and rom3 in your definable 1 folder, save rom4, rom5, and rom6, in your definable 2 folder.
Now, you need to think about how the screen should look with each game selected. When rom1 is selected, the top 3 should have rom1 in color (you've taken care of this by saving rom1 in the definable 1 folder), and the bottom 3 should be all black and white. So you need have a file named rom1 in the definable 2 folder that is the bottom row in all black and white. For rom2, you'll need to have a file in the definable 2 folder that is again the bottom row in black and white - it's a copy of the file you're using for rom1, just named rom2. You'll do the same for rom3, and then the same for rom4-rom6, only of course the definable 1 folder will contain files named rom4-rom6 that are all a copy of the top row of 3 in black and white.
Again, I know this is really convoluted, but it works beautifully. If you want clarification on any of this, let me know. :cheers:
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I did an extremely clean setup in Advance Menu that's similar to the 60 in 1 look.
It shows about a dozen game titles at the top in 1 inch letters, at the bottom it runs respective movie files in mng format. Player 2 start cycles you to another list of games, Player 1 start begins the game. After about a minute of idle it goes to a screensaver of the mng files. While in the screen saver, Player 1 start begins the game of the movie playing. Anything else kicks you back to the menu.
I also did a modification of it that kicks immediately to the screensaver and nothing works besides Player 1 start. Basically the cabinet cycles through the games roughly every 30 seconds each and you can only start the featured game. This was pretty neat in practice, too.
If you're interested, I'll dig around for my files. I ran it all in DOS. No MP3 business in the background, either.
sounds interesting...i'd be interested in trying that if you can find the files.
Nitz: that sounds like it would be perfect..except for the massive ammounts of work required to do it. i have about 75 games in my favorites list, i'm not sure i want to take the time to do that.
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I don't blame you. ;) I did it because I wanted a front end menu like that, and when I want something and I'm sure it's possible, I get stubborn and I do it. Methinks I may have more free time than brains! :lol
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...when I want something and I'm sure it's possible, I get stubborn and I do it.
That is a pretty good dating philosophy.
I started with hyperspin but switched to Atomic FE. I like it. It is pretty customizable. I like the idea you are going for severdhed. I also like the idea of a touch screen with little app/game buttons like on the iphone or ipad.
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Added 4 games to Simple Touch and got the following result. It should take about 5 minutes to make a full page of games and you have about 10 pages available with the standard setup.
For each game all you have to do is add the executable, parameters and a picture
eg c:\mame\mame.exe
dkong.exe -nowindow
drag and drop the picture to the setup window
That is it. ;D
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You can use the config to set it to 3 x 3 and the number of screens (configs) to another number. Very customizable.
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Advance Menu is what you want. Works in vertical or horizontal orientation. It has quite a few different layouts preconfigured and one of them is very similar to what you are looking for.
Here is a link so you can check it out for yourself. http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/menu-snapshot.html (http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/menu-snapshot.html)
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Good call on Advance Menu, I have never used it and did not realize it displayed so neatly.
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I'm also using advance menu (dos version), on a pentium 4. I like it cause its simple, but had good features and has an old school 'arcadey' feel to it. Heres a vid running on my machine:
Advmenu in dos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9WBp7nAJAI#)
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don't forget to put the menu music playing in the background, its the best bit!
;)
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I'm also using advance menu (dos version), on a pentium 4. I like it cause its simple, but had good features and has an old school 'arcadey' feel to it. Heres a vid running on my machine:
Thats a nice setup shfifty. I like. :cheers:
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it looks like i will need to give advance menu another try. i downloaded it a while back, but i couldn't get it to run on my windows 7 laptop, i guess i should try it on my mame cabinet (xp)..it looks to be almost exactly what i want.
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Hi shfifty:
Nice Advancemenu setup. Can you share your config file for Advancemenu? I downloaded the latest version of the app, and can't get ANY emulator to load. (I'm at a loss with this program. :dunno)
Any information is greatly appreciated!
- John
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Hi shfifty:
Nice Advancemenu setup. Can you share your config file for Advancemenu? I downloaded the latest version of the app, and can't get ANY emulator to load. (I'm at a loss with this program. :dunno)
Any information is greatly appreciated!
- John
If you haven't already, read the doc on this. You actually have to be less clever to successfully set it up.
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Interesting thread.
My first 4 cabs had GameLauncher on them. GL is a little tricky setting up the first time, but I liked the way it feels and looks.
I have went back and put Mala on two of the 4 cabs.
The number 1 gripe I had about GL was that you could only have 16 emulator lists.
I did write two programs specifically for GL. GLauncher, starts GL on boot up then shuts down computer when you exit GL.
And Menumaker for GL. This allows you to make favorites lists from your game list, using the arcade controls, P1 start button, P1 joystick, and ESC.
Only drawback to these programs is that they require windows, they wont work in DOS. Also each favorites list you build takes up one of the 16 emulator list spots.
If anyone using GL on windows based computer wants these programs, PM me you email address and I will send them to you.
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Hi shfifty:
Nice Advancemenu setup. Can you share your config file for Advancemenu? I downloaded the latest version of the app, and can't get ANY emulator to load. (I'm at a loss with this program. :dunno)
Any information is greatly appreciated!
- John
attached is my config file. Hope it helps you understand the syntax. If you cant get any emu to load, look at the top two lines of my file, they are the most important: specifying the emulator type, location and rom locations. i'm not a guru but ive spent enough time configuring my setup to be quite familiar with the program, so if you have any questions, i should able to help.
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Hi shfifty:
Nice Advancemenu setup. Can you share your config file for Advancemenu? I downloaded the latest version of the app, and can't get ANY emulator to load. (I'm at a loss with this program. :dunno)
Any information is greatly appreciated!
- John
If you haven't already, read the doc on this. You actually have to be less clever to successfully set it up.
Thanks for the info, Gray_Area. I'll take another look at the docs, first chance I get. (Currently at work.)
- John
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Hi shfifty:
Nice Advancemenu setup. Can you share your config file for Advancemenu? I downloaded the latest version of the app, and can't get ANY emulator to load. (I'm at a loss with this program. :dunno)
Any information is greatly appreciated!
- John
attached is my config file. Hope it helps you understand the syntax. If you cant get any emu to load, look at the top two lines of my file, they are the most important: specifying the emulator type, location and rom locations. i'm not a guru but ive spent enough time configuring my setup to be quite familiar with the program, so if you have any questions, i should able to help.
Hi shfifty:
Thanks for the info, and sample config file. I'll take a look at the file later today.
- John