Help me choose Front End + Mame ver.

[Agent Davis]

Hey everyone.  I've had a 95% hardware completed cab for several years now and have only ever had a couple hours play out of it.  The reason for this is it took me many, many hours to get the software configured the way I wanted it.  At the time I was using game-launcher along with mame for windows I believe.  Problem is, soon after I got everything set up good my hard drive failed and I lost everything.  So anyways, I don't want to go through all the same hassle over again and was just hoping if some of you could help me in easing the pain of getting it set up.

I would like to use gamelauncher in windows like last time if I can easily set it up.  I really liked the way it looked. The biggest reasons for going through windows was that I could play windows games (namely microsoft pinball arcade), and I because of mame.  See, I tried DOS, but dos mame wouldn't stretch to scale and fill up my monitor or it would be oversized and cut off.  When I used windows mame it scaled in the screen perfectly.  I'd really like to go this route again only eliminate all the fuss I had setting it up before.  I want it to be totally free of windows showing, meaning I don't want windows desktop to show, nor any windows to show.  That was the biggest problem I had before.

So can I use gl and windows mame and have it run seemlessly without much fuss, or should I settle for something in DOS, or a different front end altogether?  Also, what O/S should I use?  I'm going to be working initially with a relatively slow computer.  350mhz PII w/as much ram as I need (it's cheap), and a cheap slow vid card, but will upgrade it in the future.

I'm really good at the hardware side and have a really nice looking arcade cabinet that has been collecting dust for 4 years.  I just got to the point where my time was limited and got frustrated with trying to set up the software, so I just said to hell with it over 2 years ago.  I just want to set it up and have it be fun again.  I appreciate any help.

[Metimbo]

Wow, that's a lot of effort gone into letting a cab sit for that long

I JUST got my cab together and installed MAME (for windows) and I am using MAMEwah as a Front End.  Once everything was in the correct folders, etc, it was really easy to get it going.  I have a lot of tweeking to do, adding other emulators and such, but that's fun to me.

Minwah is the developer of MAMEwah and he is awesome at answering questions here.  But before you start posting questions, look here:
http://www.screenshotarchive.com/mwtutorial.htm
GREAT way to start off!!  Should get you back up and going in a matter of an hour or so if you have the roms already.

Good luck!!
~Tim

[Agent Davis]

Well, there was a little more to it than that.  I basically just ran out of time and interest and was busy doing many other things.  I'll check out the tutorial though.  I really liked the look of the gamelauncher fonts, and just the simple look of it but I'll check out mamewah, too.

[Agent Davis]

Now that I think about it a bit, I think my biggest fuss was not getting it set up originally, but it was getting it the way I wanted.  I couldn't get rid of the desktop showing upon bootup and whenever I closed Microsoft Pinball Arcade the desktop would show and a window as well.  I hated that.  It ruined the whole arcade feel.  Someone mentioned booting up a front end as a shell in winxp so that winxp wouldn't even show.  Is this possible with gamelauncher and win98se?  I'd really like to stick with GL cuz I like the way it looks.

[Howard_Casto]

Don't let just looks determine your fe choice,... looks are secondary at this point as every fe (except gamelauncher) is fully skinnable.  I suggest you try gl and see how well it works. I've heard of windows-related problems since hte big port, but I honestly couldn't say.  That's why I'm saying don't let the look of things determine the fe.  The new kymera should be able to do a "big list with a snapshot behind"  and I can definately confirm that dragon king can.  

[Thumpa]

http://www.dribin.org/dave/game_launcher/tools.shtml

this site has links to a cool looking configuration utility which should help if trying to set up Game Launcher.

Wish it was around when I was pulling my hair out getting GL set up years ago.

Do what I did and try mamewah as well and then decide what is better for you.

[Howard_Casto]

Due to graphical limitations, mamewah cannot fully replicate the "game launcher look"  that's why I intentionally did not mention it.  

[Minwah]

Due to graphical limitations, mamewah cannot fully replicate the "game launcher look"  that's why I intentionally did not mention it.  

True.  You can get a fairly similar look, but without dimming the images behind the games list the list is very difficult to see at times

[Howard_Casto]

Don't feel bad, I had the same probs in lazarus... that was one of the main reasons for the new fe.  

[Agent Davis]

So which version of GL should I go with, Windows or DOS?  Can I make it so that it launches as a shell so that windows won't show?  This is what I'm really looking for.  If I'm not mistaken I believe I use to use the DOS version of GL inside of Windows and it would launch automatically upon bootup, but the desktop would show until it loaded.  Let me know please.  Thanks.