New version of Big Blue frontend

[bulbousbeard]

Features:

    FREE! Source code available on request; let me know if you find problems or want to make improvements
    Fully playable mini-game built into the frontend; George and R9-A fight each other for control over the game selection
    Supports any program that you can run from the command line; if you can run it from the command line, you can launch it from Big Blue
    Easy and simple game list configuration that won't have to be changed continually with each new version of an emulator
    Runs at any resolution or aspect ratio (320x240 all the way up to 3840x2160 have been tested)
    4:3 letterboxing for widescreen monitors
    Theme that changes depending on the time of day
    Pixel shader effects
    Full sound and music
    Built-in screensaver with a configurable timer
    Ability to shutdown or restart computer when exiting the frontend
    Configurable frontend controls
    Left and right rotation for vertically-oriented monitors

What's unique about this frontend is that the frontend itself is a video game. Player 1 and 2 can fight each other to determine who gets to select the game.

I've also added a pixel shader so that the background scenery changes depending on the time of day.

Here's a video showing it running with letterboxing enabled and a 2 player game:


320x240:

640x480:

2560x1600:

Running at sunset with image scaling disabled at 2560x1600:

Running at night with image scaling disabled at 2560x1600:

You can download it here:
https://sites.google.com/site/bigbluefrontend/

[Yeltsew7]

Just a question, howbis the game list made?  I have a split set, so will it show all the clones of the ROMs?

[bulbousbeard]

The games list is completely arbitrary and isn't tied to any specific program.

You can edit games.xml to choose which games you're going to launch and what you're going to launch them with.

Here is a typical game entry. You specify the title you want to show in the list, which directory you're going to run it from, the exe you're going to launch, the name of the thumbnail image (in PNG format) that's associated with it, and any args/parameters you're going to pass the exe.

mame.exe takes at least one arg for the name of the ROM, so the arg to run 2020 Super Baseball would be "2020bb":

<game>
      <title>2020 Super Baseball</title>
      <dir>d:\mame</dir>
      <exe>ume64.exe</exe>
      <thumbnail>2020bb</thumbnail>
      <args>2020bb</args>
</game>

Say you want to run the PC game DOOM from Big Blue. DOOM is in your c:\DOOM folder, and its exe name is doom.exe, and you want to run it with a wad file. In the command prompt, you'd enter c:\DOOM\doom.exe -file mywad.pk3.

In Big Blue, you'd configure it like this:

<game>
      <title>DOOM</title>
      <dir>d:\doom</dir>
      <exe>doom.exe</exe>
     <thumbnail>doom</thumbnail>
      <args>-file mywad.pk3</args>
</game>

The beauty of Big Blue is that it can run anything. It doesn't matter if it's the PC version of Street Fighter 4, a game in MAME, DOOM, or anything else. You can run anything that you can run from the command line.

This has the nice side effect of not having to update any frontend configuration when a new version of MAME or whatever comes out.

Note that these <game /> tags can go in any order, and the order you enter them into Big Blue is the order that they will appear in the games list. This gives you the ability to group games in a series even though it's not technically alphabetical order. For example, in a typical frontend, Metal Slug X would follow Metal Slug 3 even though Metal Slug 3 came later. In Big Blue, you can make games appear in their "proper" chronological release order.

[Smudge418]

Bulbousbeard

Have you got the street fighter background video for download

thank you

[bulbousbeard]

Bulbousbeard

Have you got the street fighter background video for download

thank you

Background video? What are you talking about?

[gonzo90017]

He might be talking about the layout??

[bulbousbeard]

I can give you the raw graphics that the frontend uses. They're spritesheets, though. You'd have to stitch them together to make a complete image.

[bulbousbeard]

By the way, check out this crazy ass shut down sequence I added to the frontend.

[Smudge418]

bulbousbeard
 
yea that would be good

thank you

[thatsgottahurt]

Big Blue is aiming to match and exceed Mala. It supports themes with an arbitrary number of layers, objects, and animations now. It supports image-based lists now, too.



Animation demo:



It got support for filtering games by speaking into a microphone around a month ago too.