simple FE for the masses?

[spystyle]

Hello from Maine!

My name is Craig and I'm in the process of writing a walkthrough for building an arcade machine from scratch.

My goal is to make it as simple as possible, so simple that any teenager or housewife could read it and build an arcade machine from start to finish.

I am trying to decide what software to suggest, here are some considerations so far

Windows 98 = Highly compatible, intuitive
DOS = too difficult, poor driver support
Linux = too difficult
Windows XP = too bloated

(I hope them ain't fightin' words)

I'm also going to go through "Sort Info" for ROM management and recommend "FastMAME" as it is so cool (and I am a speed freak)

So we have Windows 98, but what Front End is most simple?

I would have considered MAME32 but it dosen't seem to be 100% cabinet friendly (dosen't always maximize, sometimes it's not on top)

I'm officially asking:

What is the most simple Windows based Front End on Earth (that still looks cool and is 100% cabinet friendly, no mouse needed)

Thanks for the advice!
Craig = too many FE to choose from...

EDIT:

MaLa!

It's intuitive - so you don't need to read a metric ton of docs to run it. It looks good, it works great, and in my testing used very little resources (only 14 MB RAM)

[SpamMe]

*hands spystyle a flame-retardant suit*

[Minwah]

Fighting talk indeed 

There is no one best OS.  In a nutshell, DOS is best for really old PC's, Win98 for middle of the road PC's, XP for top end PC's.  Note by top end I mean roughly around the 1ghz 256mb RAM mark (don't quote me on that).  I agree for the sake of your walkthrough DOS/Linux are perhaps too tricky tho.

When I used Win98, I liked it a lot.  It crashed all the time, got slower over time, things kept going wrong but I thought it was fine.  Then I got XP and smelt the coffee...  Basically what you said about Win98 & XP is rubbish...let me explain: (Win98) 'highly compatible' - about 5 years ago perhaps, now just about everyone codes/tests on XP machines. 'intuitive'?  How more so than XP?  (XP) 'too bloated' - a) much of the bloat can be got rid of, and b) if you have a reasonable PC the bloat doesn't matter much anyway.

Can you guess what OS I have on my cab? 

I won't recommend a FE for obvious reasons, but I will say if you get a decent FE you don't need to use SortInfo just to sort for your control panel(s).

(waiting for HC to charge in... )

[paigeoliver]

I always thought dos was cake. I mean all you needed was mouse.com and your soundcard driver and you were in business.

[SirPeale]

I always thought dos was cake. I mean all you needed was mouse.com and your soundcard driver and you were in business.

I'll second that.  With the exception of sound drivers, DOS boxes are really easy to set up.  And by that I mean actually *finding*drivers for a chipset.  Most of the older stuff has drivers out there.  Might be hard to find, but they're out there.  The newer stuff, no one bothers writing DOS drivers anymore.

It would be cool to port some Linux drivers over, since there are a ton of them.

[spystyle]

OK DOS guys , check this out :

I was raised on DOS (I am that old, what a drag)
I am nostalgic about DOS, I think FreeDOS is *The bomb*

However, you should admit to yourselves that we who speak DOS are a dying breed, imagine if I put DOS commands in my tutorial many teenage AOL users from around the world would be frustrated to the point of kicking their computers...

Dig?

So it must be Windows.

And I had envisioned many Pentium 2's being used for the shoestring budget arcade cabinets, putting XP on one of those would be a disaster.

I will experiment tonight with 98SE, fastMAME, and Kymaera, on a Pentium II 400/256

and for those of you who post in this thread without recommending a FE, I will curse you to run out of toilet paper in public restrooms : you've been warned.


 

[fredster]

I liked Dos too, but I can't get the drivers for the computer.

I want to shut the system down by the old way, like pulling the plug and I don't want it to argue with me when it boots.

But '98 is what I used on one, but 2000 is better. It's more stable and it has more driver support on the new machines. And it tastes the same as '98.

I never tried free dos.

I don't like XP machines. They are always doing something. I don't like all that sneeky stuff they do.

I miss dos too.  I remember just shutting it off and turning it on. I worked with dos on a brand spanking new Turbo XT at a screaming 4.57 mhz clock rate, a 10 mb HDD, and a 5 1/4" floppy drive running dos.

It was slow, but it didn't give you any grief. 

[rsoandrew]

As an old DOS guy myself - I'd say if you're writing a simple tutorial for less than experienced people, they should be using windows XP. Why? Because they will probably already have a copy of it and be familiar with how it works.

To answer the main question you asked, I don't think a simple FE exists. We all know Mamewah is great once it's setup but there's a lifetime of learning involved in the setup. I posed a similar question recently and the only real response I got was to try ArcadeFX and to look at mameworld's FE list (of course you'd have to follow every link to check out the various FEs).

Well I installed ArcadeFX too. I liked most of the installation better (from the simplicity standpoint) because you're forced to use the mame directories for ROMs and artwork. It also had a decent configuration page but in the end, I just didn't like the way the games were listed and had trouble getting it to update the game list once I put all the ROMS in there.

Good luck. If you find a simple FE be sure to let everybody know. The new mamewah_config program may help but of course the beta version screwed up my partially working MameWah setup.

As it stands, my cab is running mame32 and my daughter (4 1/2) has that mastered. I'll keep mucking about with MameWah but a simple FE sure would be welcomed.

[paigeoliver]

Is the Mame32 source available?

If so, one would THINK that one could simply modify mame32 until it went fullscreen and dropped the windows widgets.

[Minwah]

However, you should admit to yourselves that we who speak DOS are a dying breed, imagine if I put DOS commands in my tutorial many teenage AOL users from around the world would be frustrated to the point of kicking their computers, trying to navigate around in DOS when all they've ever known is Windows Explorer, as they kick they will curse me, the author, those curses could accumulate into bad karma and I don't care to get hit on the head by a falling anvil...

I would agree with that.  MANY people still can't even manage to do a mame -cc from a command prompt.

And I had envisioned many Pentium 2's being used for the shoestring budget arcade cabinets, putting XP on one of those would be a disaster.

Agreed XP is a no-no on a P2, but you didn't mention this originally, and how do you know what spec PC your tutorial-followers have?  I think you should offer different options...

[seibu]

Hello from Maine!

My name is Craig and I'm in the process of writing a walkthrough for building an arcade machine from scratch.

(it can be read here : http://spystyle.arcadecontrols.com)

My goal is to make it as simple as possible, so simple that any teenager or housewife could read it and build an arcade machine from start to finish.

I am trying to decide what software to suggest, here are some considerations so far

Windows 98 = Highly compatible, intuitive
DOS = too difficult, poor driver support
Linux = too difficult
Windows XP = too bloated

(I hope them ain't fightin' words)

I'm also going to go through "Sort Info" for ROM management and recommend "FastMAME" as it is so cool (and I am a speed freak)

I may also go through "98lite" utility to speed up Windows 98 if I can confirm it would help MAME to run faster

So we have Windows 98, but what Front End is most simple?

I would have considered MAME32 but it dosen't seem to be 100% cabinet friendly

I'm officially asking:

1. What is the most simple Windows based Front End on Earth (that still looks cool and is 100% cabinet friendly, no mouse needed)

2. Sort Info ? Is there anything as capable as SortInfo yet more simple? (this sorts roms by control panel!)

Thanks for the advice!
Craig = too many FE to choose from...

You know, not that I want to be pointlessly negative, but maybe there's an inherant contradiction in what you're doing here. Building a cab is for enthusiasts and perfectionsinsts like us! Teenagers and housewives don't want a cab. They're happy using MAME32 on a PC monitor, with hardware stretch and out of vsync. Possibly with an XArcade if they're *really* hardcore. That's enough for them!

I would have thought that anyone who can be arsed to build a cab (and actually finish it) is already enough of a perfectionist not to shy away from finding the best OS for their needs and configuring it properly.

[spystyle]

OK,
I've found what I think is the most simple (yet very cool looking) front-end for Windows-command-line versions of MAME.

"ArcadeEXE" from www.arcadeexe.net

It is a single file front-end (arcade.exe)

It supprts FastMAME right out of the box, additionally it supports many other emulators (including Nesticle)

It has a few skins, one of which is blue with the screenshot on the upper left and the info from "history.dat" on the upper right.

It's cool : for example on Elevator Action it shows the snap and under history it describes the game, I did'nt previously know that the spy was code named "OTTO"

Set up was as easy as can be: just download arcade.exe,history.dat, and mameinfo.dat to the MAME directory, then add a shortcut to it under c:\windows\start menu\startup (so it starts with Windows)

Configure it once with the mouse and then you can unplug the mouse, until you add ROMs or emulators.

When you add ROMs or emulators simply click "refresh" and you are done, ready to unplug the mouse again (handy for cabs without a trackball)

So far this is the most simple Front-end I've seen

[DrewKaree]

You know, not that I want to be pointlessly negative, but maybe there's an inherant contradiction in what you're doing here. Building a cab is for enthusiasts and perfectionsinsts like us!

Like spystyle, I WHOLEHEARTEDLY disagree.  If this was for enthusiasts and perfectionists, there wouldn't be folks posting about "I'm building one for my parents", people wouldn't be posting who didn't even do the woodworking, they had someone else do it....if you REALLY want to see how this is NOT for perfectionists, look at A LOT of the wiring jobs.  A perfectionist wouldn't leave the rat's nest that is typical of many of the projects here.

In case you are reading this and feel like I'm poking fun at you, I'm not.  I'm simply saying a perfectionist wouldn't let it look like that, and there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING wrong with leaving it like that. 

Teenagers and housewives don't want a cab.

How about you tell that to the bunch of teenagers that populate this board.  Or better yet, tell atari2600chick or pcdoctor your "theory".  Even better, give my wife a frying pan and stand in front of her and tell her that.  I think letting her go Tom-n-Jerry on you will change your tune pretty quick.


Dude, there are so many new folks coming to the board due to Saint's book and COUNTLESS people who have checked out his cabinet building tutorial....I don't know how to put into words just HOW wrong you are on your theories.....just take a friggen look at all the people who post here about how "I'm not so good at _______ , can you guys help me out?"  Those are the people who are looking for a tutorial like he's proposing.

Spystyle, mebbe if you're considering doing a 98 Lite tutorial, you could also contemplate an XP Lite version as well, or explain Black Viper's "pare down" of all unnecessary options in their cab?

[Howard_Casto]

I don't think that I've been more offended by a single thread or string of "newbies" chiming in.  I'm sure you guys meant well and had good intentions, but you've really stepped in it now. 

Let me break it down. 

1.  Minwah is absolutely and completely right.  To add my two cents "mo features = mo problems"  the only way to have an extremely simple fe is to do just that, have it so simple that it doesn't do anything.  Just like it's impossible to make a computer 100% user friendly to people who've never used computers it's just as impossible to do the same thing on a similar piece of software (good fes borderline as an os in terms of features these days). 

2.  Operating systems debate.  Xp is the best for various reasons.  There is absolutely no valid way to argue otherwise.  The only reason to use lesser operating systems is when your pc doesn't have enough resouces to run it.   Dos should NEVER be put on a modern pc simply because all of that expensive hardware won't be taken advantage of.  You need a far more complex os to properly utilize gigs of ram, fast access to gigs of storage space, and gigs of processing power (which should be multi threaded, something dos doesn't really support.)  If you have a machine that runs 98, and runs 98 well (has more than enough resources)  then you'd have to be on crack not to update it to xp for the reasons minwah mentioned. Running xp over the course of a week won't give you a valid idea of how much better a dedicated cab will fair with xp on it over the course of it's life.  It's really something you have to try before you'll understand.  Xp just "works" better.

3.  With all due respect, nobody who's chimed in so far, at least to my knowledge, has any right to say one way or another who the "hardcore users"  are.  How many mame cabs hae you guys built?  How long have you been doing this?  I'm working on my 3rd and 4th personally and I've been doing this for several years.  And even I don't claim to fully understand the types of people who do this and their characteristics, however I can comment a little.  Which brings me to......


4.  The "hardcore user"  is a person who in general:

Doesn't want an overly simple fe.
Doesn't need a tutorial. 
Doesn't particularly mind if a little hard work and research is required to get things working.

5. The "casual user" is a person who in general:

Wants it all.

Doesn't want to work hard for it and sometimes down right refuses to work for it and does nothing but post to this board about how their life is miserable because they had to read some docs. 

So in essence, they aren't satisfied with mame32 and an xarcade, but that's the path that requires the least amount of work and therefore they take it. No matter how easy you try to make things for these people in terms of guides and tutorials it still requires some works and thus they will stick to mame32, but complain to us all, every week in the boards.  In case you haven't gotten my subtle hint, I would consider this thread one of those complaining sessions.     So l've decided to complain about the complaining.  Speaking of which....

5.  This is like the 5th thread this week posted about this exact subject. I address this to all the posters in general and not anyone in particular.  Is there a particular reason you all made seperate threads, wasting valuable screen space, server bandwidth and our time?  Do you feel that your post is more important than the other posters?  Do you figure that asking the same question over will heed different results?  You know, repeating the same events over and over and expecting different results is a sign of insanity.   

[seibu]

Well, that's two pretty aggressive posts I've prompted simply by expressing an alternative point of view! Don't you just love the internet?

Actually spystyle, I had no idea you'd helped so many people with your tutorial. Well done, and clearly I'm therefore wrong on the whole "casual users don't want a cab" front.

And that's what I meant by "Teenagers and Housewives" - casual users. It was disingenuous of me to use "Teenagers and Housewives" as a synonym there - no particular offence was meant to teenagers or housewives!

I stand by my position to an extent. Building a *good* cab is difficult and requires patience and hard work. Trying to make it easy risks people ending up with inferior results. I'm not for a moment saying you shouldn't make a tutorial - just that if I were doing it (and I'm not, you are!) I'd make a tutorial about making the *best* cab I could - not the easiest.

[Minwah]

Well, that's two pretty aggressive posts I've prompted simply by expressing an alternative point of view! Don't you just love the internet?

I agree actually.  Seibu quite politely gave his opinion which could have been answered to in a similar manner.

I agree to some extent with Seibu's point as well, but I think your plan definately has good intentions spystyle, so good luck with it

[spystyle]

OK,
Apologies all around.

Please advise me on the following :

If I do offer OS options what would be the official cutoff in MHZ/RAM ?

(MHZ/RAM)
* less than PII 333/64 = FreeDOS/Fraggal's boot disk
* PII 333/64 through 1,100/512  = Win98SE
* greater than 1,100/512 = XP/2K

And if I do cover DOS, which DOS FE is simple ?

[Minwah]

I don't have enough experience with enough different spec machines to answer for sure.

But I would use DOS for machines upto ~500mhz I think.  I definately prefer DOS on my P2 333 over Win98 - for starters the extra boot time is just not worth it.

GameLauncher and ArcadeOS are great simple DOS FE's.

[General Zod]

Ya do what feels right, and makes ya proud , SpyStyle !

[Minwah]

The entire OS and FE war is ridiculous. I mean isn't the point of building the cab and playing it supposed to be fun? The fact that someone fires up a game of PacMan, and plays it using DOS or Windows, doesn't make the game any less magical.

That's not the point, there's no fe/os war here really.  The point is that [insert OS here] might not be able to run sufficiently on [insert pc spec here].  So the point is that one might not be able to see the magic of Pacman and friends, if one has been recommended the wrong OS for their hardware.

So there 

[jcrouse]

I don't have enough experience with enough different spec machines to answer for sure.

But I would use DOS for machines upto ~500mhz I think.

[LordDamo]

Um, after reading this thread, im just gonna tell you my specs - hope it helps - then back out slowly . . .

Im running Win2K on a 800 Mhz with 256 Mb ram. Something not mentioned yet, and I dont see that often is the video card. I have a 64 Mb Nvidia MX 420 (with TV out).

When I was testing my hardware, getting it ready so to speak, I only used a 4mb card as I didnt have a spare 64 just lying around. The 4 mb one was woefull (as you might expect!), so its a good idea to include video card spec in your tute.

(Damo back's out of the room, making sure his hands are visable. When almost at the door, he screams "Im 27 and I can understand DOS just fine & I think XP is too bloated  :p" - then he turns and runs for his life . . ..)

(Note: the above comments are ment in fun, no flaming required - I came out well done )

[LordDamo]

Oppp's - for got to say what my FE is, then I remembered the curse.

Im using Kymaera, but another good one thats a no brainer is either Game Launcher or Tom Spears GameEX

http://www.tomspeirs.com/gameex/download.htm

[datac0re]

Personally I think MAMEWAH is overrated. No way should it be as difficult as it is to get set up properly. On my cab I use Ultramame which you can find here:

http://rittwage.com/dynpage.php?pg=ultramame

Easy to set up and works great.

[Halo]

Here in the UK, some teenagers and housewives are actually the same person. Here we call it 'how to get a free house'.

I don't know how everyone else went about it - I basically spent a few months getting MAMEWAH and all the emus 95% done and then cloned it for whoever wanted it, saving them the hassle. Those that want to learn will come here and find out how, those that don't will look for a shortcut. There's already a bundle of 'self extracting' MAME disks that literally do it for you - no tutorial needed, load / play.

But .. and here's the but. However simple you make it, anyone with a passing interest will want to change / customise / upgrade / improve / add etc - and WILL end up back here simply because of the breadth and depth of knowledge. So I guess either be prepared to constantly update the tutorials / constantly answer the 'now I want to .... so how' questions, or constantly re-write new 'beginner' tutorials. Nothing here is static - 'the only contant is change'.

Thumbs up though - anything that helps a beginner can only be a good thing

[Minwah]

Personally I think MAMEWAH is overrated. No way should it be as difficult as it is to get set up properly. On my cab I use Ultramame which you can find here:

Overrated perhaps, but not difficult to setup (for MAME only at least).  The problem is that while I am the first to admit my docs aren't great, very few people actually read the docs, even the readme1st.txt which is auto-opened on installation.  It should take like 1 minute to setup a simple MAME setup.

And as some others said, more flexibility + features = more tricky to set up.

LordDamo: if Win2k works well for you then great, but I wouldn't recommend it.  I think it is basically an unfinished XP, and the unneeded bloat can be turned off anyway.  Also, video card shouldn't be a major issue for MAME only - I think Paige recently said he got the same performance from a 2mb card that he got from a 64/128(?) meg card.

[Trimoor]

No Linux proponents?
I guess I will have to fill the void...

What I would like to see is a dedecated MAME distrobution.  Just pop the disk in, and it will automatically install the latest version of MAME and a FE, both optimised for your current system.

Updates will be achieved by simply burning the files in a \MAME or \roms directory on a cd, and it will automatically copy/merge them into place.

Since the system will run a dedecated GUI, no Linux experience is needed.
And it solves the problems of both bloat and speed.  It instally exactly what it needs, no more no less.  It might lack in drivers for the very latest hardware, but at least nvidia is smart enough to release Linux drivers.

The only drawback I see is the inability to use MAMEwah.  Unless Minwah decides to release a linux version--or better yet, the sacred source code --some other FE must be used.

This can be done.  If we can get some Linux gurus to take this up, we can finally break free of micro$oft's stranglehold.  Oh yeah, did I mention this would be free?

I would do this, but I'm barely able to get Linux running as it is.

Anyone willing to take up this challange?

[PacManFan]

The source code for Kymaera is freely available and supports Linux :
www.sourceforge.net/projects/kymaera

-PMF

[datac0re]

Overrated perhaps, but not difficult to setup (for MAME only at least).  The problem is that while I am the first to admit my docs aren't great, very few people actually read the docs, even the readme1st.txt which is auto-opened on installation.  It should take like 1 minute to setup a simple MAME setup.

I just think it would be nice for something with so many configuration options to have a simple gui front end to configure it, with context-sensitive help-text a click away. No one really wants to fool around with ini files while trying to find the details a specific setting in one of the docs (at least I don't... and I'm not lazy, I just think it would make things a lot easier, less error-prone, and more user-friendly).

Hell, not just the front-ends, but MAME itself should have a small gui configuration app to set up your ini files (what's with you people and these damn ini files anyways?!  )

[Minwah]

I just think it would be nice for something with so many configuration options to have a simple gui front end to configure it, with context-sensitive help-text a click away. No one really wants to fool around with ini files while trying to find the details a specific setting in one of the docs (at least I don't... and I'm not lazy, I just think it would make things a lot easier, less error-prone, and more user-friendly).

Hell, not just the front-ends, but MAME itself should have a small gui configuration app to set up your ini files (what's with you people and these damn ini files anyways?!

[Apollo]

I love the new Mamewah it's a breeze to set up and I don't really know what the fuss is about. Just reading the docs is usually enough info. I am only running Mame though and have not added new layouts so maybe that's why it's so easy?

[Trimoor]

More Linux info:

SirPoonga just informed me about a bootable Linux MAME that automatically configures itself.
It's called knoppixmame.
http://freshmeat.net/projects/knoppixmame/

From the site:

KnoppixMAME is a bootable arcade machine emulator with hardware detection and autoconfiguration. It works automatically on all modern and not-so-modern hardware, including gameports and joysticks. It is powered by Knoppix Debian GNU/Linux, X-MAME, and gxmame.

Now, if someone could adapt this to work with one of the major frontends and create an installer, our problems would be solved.

See how quickly a Linux version is coming together?