AdvMenu and Mame32 problems

[PkingRoch]

I'm having a problem with AdvMenu with AdvMame messing up Mame32.

I get AdvMame working, then I try to add AdvMenu.  Just copy it into the AdvMame folder and run gives me a couple of errors; problems with generating the XMLlist and a couple of OS -1 errors.  This isn't so bad by itself, but after this happens, MAME32 no longer starts any games!!! It runs, but it won't play a thing when I doble click or select play from the menu of the pop-up context menu.  No ROM checking, nothing.

This is the second time I've tried to get AdvMenu to run with the same result.  Rebooting the machine doesn't help - the only thing I've found I can do is reinstall the OS.  I have a MAME party tonight and I don't really want this to be the solution.  Any ideas?  

[JayTea]

Try copying your rom files, artwork, snapshots, and other folders with a lot of info in them to a temp folder.  Next, uninstall MAME32 (or just delete it) and re-install MAME32.  Move all of your copied files from the temp folder back into your mame32 folder and try just running games from MAME32 instead of ADVmenu.  This will solve your temporary problem of having to have a working MAME machine for your party.

In the long run, you may want to download the windows version of MAME and run advancemenu with it.  It'll be a lot smoother than trying to run mame32, which is a different breed of MAME because of it's built in GUI and other "features".  I am a Mame32 user and I am beginning to play around with switching to advmenu with the windows port of MAME.  I've also noticed MAME32 is somewhat of resource hog on slower CPu's /RAM.

[PkingRoch]

Copying the files didn't work - I had tried that already.  I just reinstalled Windows and got evrything working again, then I deleted AdvanceMenu.  Most of the party we used AdvanceMame from the command line after using Mame32 to tell us what the name of the ROM was on a game we wanted to play.

Something wierd happens that screws up Mame32 bad when AdvanceMenu generates it's errors.  I'm trying to get to using AdvanceMame full-time, but using AdvanceMenu screws me up everytime I go back to it - I'll find a different frontend.  I'm sure I'm doing something wrong with it, but this is twice I've screwed myself trying to use it.

Any other suggestions for a FE to use with AdvanceMame?

[JayTea]

I like ArcadeFX.  It doesn't have a lot of glorious options (you can configure mame32, load the roms through Arcadefx, thus bypassing the arcade fx configs), but it is clean, it has 4 custom folders, a top 25, customizeable keys for game / group selections, and it has all the major categories pre-programmed.  The biggest plus is that it works with mame32 seamlessly (rename mame32.exe to mame.exe).  I am sure you could run advancemame with it, too.  It doesn't have multiple emu support ( i don't believe), but it is clean, comes with a few skins and skin template, and is relatively plug and play.  The download link is under front ends on this website.

OT -- You can also run .mov files on the startup... i have a few intro movies on my website just for this purpose.  Dave Dries also does some sweet animated 3-d movies.

http://www.licoricepizza.com

[PkingRoch]

Thanks for the pointer, I'll check out ArcadeFx.