Choosing a Front End

[markrvp]

I am a portrait photographer and have my own studio.  I am about 2 weeks away from finishing my cabinet and will keep it at the studio and allow high school seniors to play games while waiting for their portrait appointment.  I have been using MAME32 but I think that would not be the best thing for people unfamiliar with it.

I recently saw an Arcade Classics machine powered by ULTRACADE.  This frontend (proprietary I'm sure) worked very well for selecting games and then showing instructions as to which controls to use.  This type of frontend would work very well for people who don't already know how to load games and which controls to use.

Which frontend program would best provide this type of selection/instruction ability.  I have seen MAMEWAH and Emulaxian on the web but haven't used either one.

Anybody have some suggestions?

[Lilwolf]

Are you talking about the data in the history.dat file?

[markrvp]

Yeah, I wasn't planning on charging anything to play.  I have an X-box set up now in my waiting room for the high school kids to play.  I just thought it would be cool to have a "real looking arcade" for them to fool around with, and the arcade games don't take as long to play as the X-box games do.  Sometimes I have to wait for the kids to get through a level before they will quit for pictures.

If this is considered "NOT COOL" by the MAME team then I definitely WON'T DO IT!  I am a real newbie here, and don't want to do anything wrong, so I appreciate any guidance you guys have.

[mms332]

MameWah works very well for me. It's very stable and reasonably easy to set up. Dragon King looks neat but it is too buggy. It has problems reading it's own configuration and game list files. Sometimes a simple ini change will make it crash.

[Gunstar Hero]

MAMEwah would be pretty easy to set up for that use as you can make the menu inacessable from the CP by mapping to to an unused key.

You can even make a layout that uses your business in it, and maybe a matching marquee.

Also, I don't think anyone would have any problems with what you're doing, seeing as you're not charging any money.

[PacManFan]

Check out Kymaera, http://sourceforge.net/projects/kymaera

It's a great front end, It supports Windows, DOS, movies, multiple emulators, mixed emulator gamelists, and a bunch more.

I'm a little partial to it because it wrote it.

-PacManFan

[Jakobud]

I don't see how his cabinet would be considered a money maker if he isn't charging money for it.

I have my Mame cabinet at my office and any employee is free to play it in their spare time.  Does this mean that I am using my Mame cabinet so my company can make more money?  The cabinet allows employees to have some fun, making them happy, which makes them better workers, which makes my company money?  Therefore my Mame cabinet is being used to make money?

[Howard_Casto]

MameWah works very well for me. It's very stable and reasonably easy to set up. Dragon King looks neat but it is too buggy. It has problems reading it's own configuration and game list files. Sometimes a simple ini change will make it crash.

Dragon King is by far the most stable fe out there.  It just doesn't have any error checking, so if you make a "stupid" entry in the settings then it won't correct it for you.

When a user improperly sets something up and it crashes, that's not a bug, that's user error. 

[Howard_Casto]

Just something else I'd like to add.  Mame uses stolen roms and therefore, it should never be setup in a public place, especially in a high school.  It not only puts the mame project in danger (If enough mame cabs are found in the public, arcade manufacturers will put the hammer down.)  but sets a bad example for your kiddies. 

Mind you, they probably woulnd't see anything wrong with it, but aside from starroms, there isn't any legal way to use mame. 

Also another oddity is the coin op inudstry.  In many communities, the same people that furnish your vending machines also have arcade machine routes.  If they catch a running mame cab in your facilities they could be angered and blacklist you, which might get your vending machines removed. 

And xbox is a nice, safe, legal way to entertain your kids.   On the side of caution, you probably should skip the mame cab.

[Paul Olson]

I would agree that it is not a good idea to use illegal roms at your place of business.  You could get a few legal roms from starroms, you don't need a huge selection to keep the kids busy.  I think all of the FEs that are discussed here will work for you.  If you want something like Ultracade, Ultrastyle will be your best choice.  As the name implies, it really looks a lot like it.

Paul

[Layer01]

Check out Kymaera, http://sourceforge.net/projects/kymaera

It's a great front end, It supports Windows, DOS, movies, multiple emulators, mixed emulator gamelists, and a bunch more.

I'm a little partial to it because it wrote it.

-PacManFan

Kymaera would/will be awesome once the bugs get weeded out. i tried it loved it but was driven crazy by the constant crashes. but i see a bright future for it once it gets a few more releases...only thing is can it launch batch files? because i couldnt find out if it did or not...

Back on track--->
you might also want to try out Maximus arcade, you do have to pay for it ($20 after the 30 day trail is up) but it is very easy to set up looks great and is easy as pie to use.

[PacManFan]

Not to hijack this thread, but what do you mean Kymaera crashes a lot? I haven't run into a single crash bug in Kymaea in a long time. The KymaeraConfig program has a few issues, but not the frontend. Can you tell me where it crashes?

-PMF

[Howard_Casto]

Not to hijack this thread, but what do you mean Kymaera crashes a lot? I haven't run into a single crash bug in Kymaea in a long time. The KymaeraConfig program has a few issues, but not the frontend. Can you tell me where it crashes?

-PMF

Agreed... kymaera  is very stable.  I think this might be another case of user config error. 

[markrvp]

I would like to thank all of you for your advice.

[Samstag]

Not to hijack this thread, but what do you mean Kymaera crashes a lot? I haven't run into a single crash bug in Kymaea in a long time. The KymaeraConfig program has a few issues, but not the frontend. Can you tell me where it crashes?

-PMF

I get crashes on some of the marquee files (the commonly available ones).  While I accepted your answer that they were bad files, it's still better to catch the error and display nothing than crash.  I had a heck of a time finding and removing the bad files.  They don't show any obvious sign of corruption in any picture viewer or editor so I had to find them by trial and error.

It's been working flawlessly without a crash since then!   

[mms332]

Dragon King is by far the most stable fe out there.

[Minwah]

Dragon King is by far the most stable fe out there.  It just doesn't have any error checking, so if you make a "stupid" entry in the settings then it won't correct it for you.

Not to start a 'my FE is more stable than your FE' debate, but the latest release of MW is also very stable IMHO - it even has comprehensive checking for user error.

[Lilwolf]

Mark, you kinda are making money on MAME.

I dont' personally think its a big deal myself...  Because its on the edge.  But if you posted your statement above at the official mame board they would trounce on you.

Here is why.

You are using MAME to help increase your buisness (keeping customers happy). 

Its like a bar adding it... even on free play.  They are hoping to sell more beers.  You are hoping to get kids to have a positive feeling when waiting...  So hopefully they will come back.

That was the fine line I was talking about. 

I'm just trying to let you know that you should probably not talk about it much.  And the idea of looking at starroms for legal roms (about 100 bucks for a full set) is a great way.  I don't believe anybody has problems with people buying all they can legally... and having a few extras around because there is no other way.


And my frontend is WAY more stable then any of yours out there... For about a day... Once its stable I like to break it massively to add something new!

[iwillfearnoevil]

i don't think you have anything to worry about as the majority of posters here are using roms illegally themselves although they may feel better asking you to buy your roms. anyways sounds like a great plan and i don't think you have anything to worry about since it's not in your main area.

[Lilwolf]

The difference is most of us have our cabinet in our basement... not at our work where customers come in.

Again, I'm not against it.  I know that the mame guys are...  They see it as people making money on their sweat.

I'm saying don't talk about it (yeah yeah... I'm talking about it more then he is...

But remember... you have one cops son walk in.  Or a lawyer come in and start asking questions... and you can be hosed.   But buy a few roms for it from a company and your fine in all cases.

[GGKoul]

But remember... you have one cops son walk in.

[Howard_Casto]

Dragon King is by far the most stable fe out there.

[Howard_Casto]

Not to hijack this thread, but what do you mean Kymaera crashes a lot? I haven't run into a single crash bug in Kymaea in a long time. The KymaeraConfig program has a few issues, but not the frontend. Can you tell me where it crashes?

-PMF

I get crashes on some of the marquee files (the commonly available ones).

[markrvp]

I loaded Atari's return of arcade CD-ROM last night (which I had bought years ago and forgot about).  This CD has a basic front-end that lets you choose 5 or 6 games including Missile Command, Asteroids, Tempest, Pong, and a couple of others I can't remember.

Would anyone have a problem if my Cab had NO MAME LOGOS on it and I had it set up to run this legally purchased CD at my studio?

[Minwah]

And minwah... I meant no offense by it....  haven't used mamewah in a while but it's always stable as well. 

None taken   I haven't tried DK in a good while either...

I think people have it pretty good FE-wise atm - there are a number of good, well supported & still developing ones to choose from

[Tiger-Heli]

I loaded Atari's return of arcade CD-ROM last night (which I had bought years ago and forgot about).  This CD has a basic front-end that lets you choose 5 or 6 games including Missile Command, Asteroids, Tempest, Pong, and a couple of others I can't remember.

Would anyone have a problem if my Cab had NO MAME LOGOS on it and I had it set up to run this legally purchased CD at my studio?

ASFAIK, there is nothing wrong with the license that would be a problem with running Return of Arcade on the cab (on free-play).  Would be about the same as having it on your PC at home and letting friends play it.

I think you could leave the mame logo's as long as it wasn't running MAME, but the dev's probably wouldn't like it (if nothing else, they wouldn't want MAME to be confused with Return of Arcade  )

My personal feeling is that if you only put 6 to 10 games on it at a time, you wouldn't have much to worry about (Starroms or not).  The devs and a strict interpreation of the law would disagree.

If you have 5500 games available, it's a little hard to say it's not running MAME.  With six to ten, you could tell everyone that you have a Jamma converter and a software switcher to select between the game PCB's.  Anyone who knew that wasn't working would have a hard time convincing anyone to get a search warrant to investigate it.

[youki]

Hi,

I come on little late on the U.S Scene.  But you should give a try to my Front End too.

He is very easy to configure for newbies , and very powerfull for advance users. And very flexible.

Lot of skin (layout) are already available.

Don't think it is a brand new front end and unstable.  It is already the 11th version of the front end, i have thousand of very happy users in Europe.  The 11th version is the first version which is available with English Translation.

I think you will like it.

cheers,

Youki