Specific frontend for ZINC 1.0

[KHAN]

i am trying to setup zinc .but looking for a good frontend for it,having
some great features like mameWAH.

[screaming]

i am trying to setup zinc .but looking for a good frontend for it,having
some great features like mameWAH.

 This begs the question:  Why don't use you MAMEWAH then?

-Steve

[grueinthebox]

Can't speak for him, but I've been having a hell of a time getting Zinc to run with Mamewah...  Coincidentally, it's what I've spent the last ~1.5 hours trying to do (after spending an hour or so manually rezipping the roms for Zinc so they'd even work with the program, since it wouldn't recognize my Mamezipped versions).

Best I've been able to get is a brief black screen, then dumped back to the frontend.   There's an older post on the Mameworld forums about it, but the advice given there didn't help (was related to older versions of Mamewah and Zinc).  Tried a few other things as well to no avail.  Maybe I'm just missing something obvious - wouldn't be the first time.  I would welcome any help/info on how to get the two to play nice together.

I can't help but wonder why Zinc is designed to run only with numbers, rather than anything actually related to the names of the roms...  Seems like it makes things unnecessarily complex.

[screaming]

Well I'd say first get it running from the command-line.

  If you can't run it from the command-line in MAMEWAH's directory, then it's hardly MAMEWAH's (or any other FE) problem.

-Steve

[grueinthebox]

Zinc was working fine via command line, the problem was with Zinc's inability to accept rom names rather than it's built-in numbering to specify which game to load.

Inspired by the instructions for using Daphne with Mamewah, I was finally able to get Zinc working in Mamewah by writing a batch file that takes the rom filename output by Mamewah, converts it to the correct number and passes that to Zinc.  So Mamewah uses zinc.bat as the emulator executable with the rom filename (output "zinc sfex"), and the batch fille executes zinc.exe with the correct number ("zinc 1").

Now I just need to get my zinc.nms file together so I have something nicer than just a list of rom names and I'll be set.  Yay!  

[screaming]

Zinc was working fine via command line, the problem was with Zinc's inability to accept rom names rather than it's built-in numbering to specify which game to load.

Inspired by the instructions for using Daphne with Mamewah, I was finally able to get Zinc working in Mamewah by writing a batch file that takes the rom filename output by Mamewah, converts it to the correct number and passes that to Zinc.  So Mamewah uses zinc.bat as the emulator executable with the rom filename (output "zinc sfex"), and the batch fille executes zinc.exe with the correct number ("zinc 1").

Now I just need to get my zinc.nms file together so I have something nicer than just a list of rom names and I'll be set.  Yay!  

  Good work on figuring out that batch file!  

   It's a little late here, but Howard has wrappers specifically for Zinc.

-Steve

[tshizzle.com]

oooh, I might need that.  I was gonna try getting Zinc running in MAMEWAH tonite

[KHAN]

i am trying to setup zinc .but looking for a good frontend for it,having
some great features like mameWAH.

 This begs the question:  Why don't use you MAMEWAH then?

-Steve

[DaemonCollector]

i still don't see why you don't use MAMEWah, that screey shows nothing.

[tshizzle.com]

you need to do something to allow Mamewah to run it is the problem.  Hence he made the batch file.

Zinc doesnt use ROM names, it has hardcoded numbers representing each game.... IE

zinc 47

runs Tekken 2 (i think it was 47 , point is the number)

Mamewah runs zinc tekk2 (or whatever it is, too lazy to look at rom name), and zinc doesnt do anything with it

[Goz]

If you can launch the games via the command line then you should be able to create shortcuts for each command line. There are only what 20 playable games? create a shortcut (.lnk) like you do with PC games and see if that works for you? Just name the .LNK files with names of the games instead of 1,2,3,etc...

This should work.

-Goz

[screaming]

i am trying to setup zinc .but looking for a good frontend for it,having
some great features like mameWAH.

 This begs the question:  Why don't use you MAMEWAH then?

-Steve

  I think Zinc would fall under the "multiple emulator support is also now supported" clause.   Use MAMEWAH and Howard's generic command-line wrapper.

-Steve
 

[grueinthebox]

oooh, I might need that.  I was gonna try getting Zinc running in MAMEWAH tonite

Posted the files over at MameWorld, but if you don't visit there, I've got the zip with the batch file and other support files at
http://www.red42.com/arcade/files/zincbat.zip

Contains my batch file, my NMS file (to make the names look nicer, rather than just rom filenames), and my INI files. INIs obviously go in the Mamewah INI folder, the batch file and the NMS go in the same folder as Zinc. Edit the paths in zinc.ini and you'll be set. Be sure to leave the emulator executable name as "zincbat.bat", of course.

You'll want to have a separate folder with just your Zinc roms in it (not just pointing to your MAME roms folder), as this method uses the roms directory for it's game list.

[DanteBK]

If you go to www.aldostools.com Aldo has released a new ZINC front end for the latest version.

[KHAN]

If you go to www.aldostools.com Aldo has released a new ZINC front end for the latest version.

aldos frontend ...

but it is limited....

MameWah looks better for it.

[tshizzle.com]

mamewah with grueinthebox's zinc.bat works PERFECT for me.

Im using the Winterblast Controller Plugin 1.6 for my X-Arcade, heres a controller.cfg for Zinc if anyone else has one:

[combos]
1=b3
2=b6

[all]
test=k3D
services=k3C

[player1]
coin=k4
start=k2
right=k4D
left=k4B
down=k50
up=k48
btn1=k1D
btn2=k38
btn3=k39
btn4=k2A
btn5=k2C
btn6=k2D
btn9=k1D
btn10=k38
btn11=k39
btn12=k2A
btn13=k2C
c1=k39
c2=k2d


[player2]
coin=k5
start=k3
right=k22
left=k20
down=k21
up=k13
btn1=k1E
btn2=k1F
btn3=k10
btn4=k11
btn5=k12
btn6=k1A
btn9=k1E
btn10=k1F
btn11=k10
btn12=k11
btn13=k12
c1=k10
c2=k1A

Thanks alot guys - got it working GREAT!

[dabone]

Ok, I'm a LOT confused, how do you get standard mame key mappings into zinc?

I can do it thru the zincgui program, but when I use the batch file zincbat.bat to run them thru mamewah it defaults to the original key settings.



Thanks,
later,
dabone


EDIT:

I would like to apologize to the board for not RTFM.

(First time dealing with zinc and the plugins.)

Now I feel like an idiot.

Problem solved.