POLL: What FrontEnd do you use? (most)

[highland04]

I was just curious...

[SirPeale]

I have a real problem with choices for this poll.

1) Dragon King/Kymaera are in one thing.  They're two completely seperate FEs!  Seperate lines, please!

2) Where is ArcadeOS?

[highland04]

you're right peale... i didnt see that you could add options, i thought i was stuck with only five... i added those and a few others... hope this is more acceptable.

[elvis]

AdvanceMenu and Wah!Cade.

Windows is evil, and should be burned.

[youki]

Where is AtomicFE in your List? 

[Howard_Casto]

yeah let's be fair.... stick em all on there now

[danny_galaga]

add ultrastyle and mame32 default...

[GGKoul]

Yep.. I use MAME32

[Lilwolf]

And add a wrote my own also

[Buddabing]

If you run out of choices, just add "other".

But you really need to add Atomic, Ultrastyle, MAME32, EmuLoader, and Other.

[GGKoul]

So I dont think alot of people are going to vote as you dont have all the choices listed

[highland04]

i'm not familiar with all of those... this was actually intended to include graphical frontends only, i dont believe mame32 is...

if someone wants to redo this, go for it...  i found the info i was after, i'm not going to mess with it.

[Howard_Casto]

Well if the "info you were after" was that these forums are mostly full of mamewah users, I could have told ya that one. 

You see:

most popular <> best

best <> most popular

best <> best for you

These polls are useless, but I was giving you the benefit of the doubt the other day.  But today is a new day

[headkaze]

heh He could have just asked "whats the most used frontend" and everyone would say MameWah (we could have told him that without the poll). MameWah has been around for a long time, and the author frequents here. But like Howard said.. most popular != best for you.

[brophog]

Mamewah is far from the best. But it satisfies the condition that most are looking for, and that is something simple to list games from several systems and hide Windows.

[RayB]

Well if the "info you were after" was that these forums are mostly full of mamewah users, I could have told ya that one.

[SirPoonga]

Howard, what language uses <> instead of !=  ?

basic, php, perl, anything not java or c++ for the most part.
Though php and perl will take almost any known syntax for conditionals.  I know php can be either way.

[Howard_Casto]

What he said.....

"<>" is more understandable to the non-programmer so I use it. Math syntax, not coding syntax. 

[highland04]

thanks so much, casto, for the "benefit of the doubt."  you're a hero.

[jelwell]

It seems pretty clear that except for developers using their own "homebrew" frontends everyone is using Mamewah.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's cool that people let other's download their "homebrew" frontends that aren't really meant for mass appeal.

Gamex seems to be an exception, there appears to be a few users on that one. I wonder if that's because it's focus is more Home Theatre - which Mamewah doesn't advertise.

Anyways, it's always been quite apparent that one of the main reasons Mamewah is successful is because Minwah puts in a lot of time and effort to help people - as well as continued development. And (most importantly), unlike some developers, Minwah comes off as a kind person on the boards.

Joseph Elwell.

[brophog]

It seems pretty clear that except for developers using their own "homebrew" frontends everyone is using Mamewah.

While I, myself, use Mamewah, your statement couldn't be more wrong. It seems that way because Minwah is so kind as to provide support on this board. Look around the net at large, especially on some of the cabinet examples, and I think you'll find that your statement is dead wrong.

There are well over a dozen frontends for Mame, each of which seems to have a loyal following.

[Howard_Casto]

Agreed.... I don't have exact tracking figures, but hundreds to thousands of people download dk, and it's one of the least popular ones. 

I hate to say this statment because it will be taken the wrong way but....


In the past my other two front ends (raging dragon and lazarus) got a TON of press on this site.  Even though they were very popular, a big reason they were mentioned so much was because they were buggy and people were confused as to how to set them up. 

Dk is quite stable and easier to setup, so I get far less email and posting about it. 

Minwah adds a butt-load of features to his fe every release, it may just be that all these new features are confusing and thus people ask questions about it.  In turn it is seen on the boards more often and noobs see it and think "man this thing must be great if everyone is using it"  and try it.   Since mamewah is a very good fe, many people are satisfied with it and never even bother looking into other fes. 

I think this may be part of it's popularity, I know because it's a case of "been there done that" for me. 

[Necro]

The main reason I started using mamewah was because of the above mentioned reasons tied to everyone saying 'use mamewah for your cab/htpc'.  That and I have a slower (Celeron 1.2ghz) PC running the show so...need something as light as possible. 

DragonKing I havent tried.  I was kind of intimidated by the website (I couldnt find the information I wanted and just said screw it).  That being said, I've come to realize it's not what I originally thought.  My personal opinion is add more screenshots of various possible setups (I first thought it was hard coded with the dragon...it's not right?) and make the website sections easier to find - i.e. put screenshots for the FE's in the same section as the FE's .  Just my unwanted 2c's hehe.

GameEx is great - and I would be using it except I have the old computer guy (and I'm only 27...god I'm getting old) mentality in that 'if it has extra crap I don't need, it's bloated'.  With the slow PC I have to think about that.  Even with that however, I'd use it but the inability to skin to even a MameWah level kind of kills it.  (Need to be able to move around art, add art, etc.).  I may change my mind on this, though .  Once Mamewah's totally setup, I'm going to start messing more with GameEx and DK.

The others?  For a cabinet/htpc anything that looks like a Win32 app is out immediately (which I dont think any are listed).  ArcadeOS is DOS based and not worth it over MameWAH, IMHO.  MaLa looks cool, ArcadEpic just looks a bit 'older' which scares me off, and Game Launcher kind of has the same older/unskinnable feel that I'm not sure about.

I think...it boils down to needing a ton of customizability because my setup is an HTPC, on a slower PC, etc.  If I was using a cabinet, some of the others (particularly the 'simpler' ones) may actually be better choices.

Ok, now I have no idea why I wrote all that...