Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Software Forum => Topic started by: DarkSoul1 on July 23, 2003, 07:55:50 am
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I'm in the process of deciding whether to use Game Launcher ( http://www.dribin.org/dave/game_launcher/ ) or MameWah.
It will be used in a cocktail cab with vertical pc monitor, PII 233 system etc. Will use Windows, not DOS. Currently use EmuLoader on my pc.
All I need on the screen is one background picture, with a list of games to scroll through (is this what people mean by cascading??). Similar to above web page and Game Launcher.
Reading posts here, poblem seems to be that there is no vertical support for MameWah, would have to be done thru software or the vid card, with additional problems of having all the games as you scroll through then fit on the vertical monitor. I'm not that technically minded to start coding etc.
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Game Launcher apparently supports rotation and appears on screen in exactly the format/style I want.
Does anyone use it here, are there also problems getting the vertical support to work correctly? Can anyone give me another suggestion for a Windows front end to match what I need.
I'd really appreciate some advice here guys.
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GL is good but limited. I don't think Dave D.(the creator) has updated it in quite some time. But it works for the "all I want is a menu and a pic" crowd.
Either way it's gonna take some time to learn the ins and outs of any front end. I recommend learning/using either Mamewah or Dragon King since those are still being developed and supported. FWIW I use Dragon King.
EDIT: Just saw your cpu specs again...perhaps you should stick to GL. The newer FE's are more resource intensive (I think).
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I've been following the forums more than posting, but I do know a few things. Minwah's Mamewah program is very good, and seems to be the most popular. I believe his ultimate plan to take over the world will come to bear soon. In short, Mamewah is a great frontend.
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I've been following the forums more than posting, but I do know a few things. Minwah's Mamewah program is very good, and seems to be the most popular. I believe his ultimate plan to take over the world will come to bear soon. In short, Mamewah is a great frontend.
it is...but for hassle free vertical orientation Game launcher is better suitable I think...personally I would with that system go for advancemenu for a vertical layout...
peter
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I use GameLauncher and it works very well, and it is more flexible than some people think.
I have not used the vertical rotation though.
Dave has not releaesed an update recently, but he still does support it through a yahoo based e-mail group.
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I use it. And yes it is more flexible than people realize. I have Game Launcher set up to run MAME, VirtuaNES, ZSNESW, gensFE, jukewin, and PC games (thanks to batch files and a program called Batchrun). I'm sure you could set it up with many more emulators, but those were the only one's that interested me.
Be warned, though. I literally spent MONTHS trying to get it to launch PC games. I ended up having to teach myself how to write and run batch files. But for me, it's simple interface and low system requirements make it a good choice.
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I
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I have sworn by Game Launcher for a long time. It IS difficult and tricky to get setup at first. But it is very flexible. It doesnt have all the bells and whistles like other frontends. I love it though. Its just perfect for an arcade cabinet. People want to walk up to the arcade cabinet and choose a game from a list and see a screenshot and then play. It's perfect for that. Its a simple yet slick looking design.
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Great. Thanks for all your opinions. It's appreciated.
Yeah, I think with the cocktail cab I'll go with Game Launcher then since I'll be using a low end system to play a few classics.
I have another design I'm just penciling out for a stand up cab and will go MameWah with that.
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I love gamelauncher its great i woudlnt use anything else.
I have it setup for my mame cab and its great altho i have over 3000roms that are playable i have sorted them all into categorys and it makes gamelauncher easier to search.
Im gonna make a NEOGEO only cocktail cab and use GL as the frontend.
Its GL all the way for me ;D
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I use GL in my cocktail and it is great....simple and not too hard on the lowly PII 350 I have in there.
Just so you know, GL only rotates in one direction, which I found out after I put my monitor in the cabinet. Not a huge deal, I switched the monitor around and everything was fine.
Good Luck.
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There is another frontend that I have been messing with lately called Lemon Launcher. It looks VERY similar to Game Launcher in looks, but underneath the shell its quite a bit different. It does Mame only (not multi-emu like GL), so it's much much easier to setup. But the best feature about Lemon Launcher is that it supports an unlimited number of menus and submenus that you can organize all your games in. It's pretty slick and handy. The last (and only i think) release of Lemon Launcher is a very early version of it. You should give it a shot too. I'm thinking about switching from GL to LL simply because of the unlimited custom-definably submenus...