Author Topic: My first post! (Read 2862 times)

JoesArcade · « **on:** April 13, 2005, 08:02:23 am »

Hi, i have been watchin the board for a few days after i thought of building an arcade cabinet (i thought it was an original idea lol still cool tho) i tried to use winwah but i just cant get to grips with it , probably because i dont know how to use DOS or command promts or anything. anyways to the question: is there any way to spice up the look of my Mame32 front end? i can change the font colour

but thats all
thanx

youki · « **Reply #1 on:** April 13, 2005, 08:24:06 am »

Hi,

Did you try my Front End : Atomic Fe ? , http://www.atomicfe.com

If you need help i'm here to answer all questions and help you as best i can. You even ask by mail.

JoesArcade · « **Reply #2 on:** April 13, 2005, 08:39:10 am »

Thanx i will try it out

screaming · « **Reply #3 on:** April 13, 2005, 11:28:40 am »

Quote from: JoesArcade on April 13, 2005, 08:02:23 am

Hi, i have been watchin the board for a few days after i thought of building an arcade cabinet (i thought it was an original idea lol still cool tho) i tried to use winwah but i just cant get to grips with it , probably because i dont know how to use DOS or command promts or anything. anyways to the question: is there any way to spice up the look of my Mame32 front end? i can change the font colour but thats all
thanx

MAMEWAH Config can go a long way to help you configure MAMEWAH.

-sab

Tiger-Heli · « **Reply #4 on:** April 13, 2005, 11:49:30 am »

Quote from: JoesArcade on April 13, 2005, 08:02:23 am

Hi, i have been watchin the board for a few days after i thought of building an arcade cabinet (i thought it was an original idea lol still cool tho) i tried to use winwah but i just cant get to grips with it , probably because i dont know how to use DOS or command promts or anything. anyways to the question: is there any way to spice up the look of my Mame32 front end? i can change the font colour but thats all
thanx

I'm biased, but an arcade cab won't look right running MAME32.

See http://www.mameworld.net/easyemu/mameguide/mamew32setup.htm for help setting up command-line MAME.

Post back if there's more help needed.

JoesArcade · « **Reply #5 on:** April 13, 2005, 05:56:52 pm »

thanx for the replies.
that is far to complex for me, i can get my head around it but its just so much trouble, i'd like a ''what u see is what u get'' kinda front end, allowin me to add images and such. also i want no keyboard or mouse use at all, only joystick and a few buttons.
thanx in advance.

tommy · « **Reply #6 on:** April 13, 2005, 06:52:36 pm »

If you have still have trouble with the frontends mentioned try GameEx you cant not figure it out.

markrvp · « **Reply #7 on:** April 13, 2005, 06:54:20 pm »

You can select a background image for MAME32 that will give you a more custom look.

markrvp · « **Reply #8 on:** April 13, 2005, 07:00:06 pm »

Change the font size and color for a different look.

oldsage · « **Reply #9 on:** April 13, 2005, 07:02:09 pm »

Quote from: markrvp on April 13, 2005, 06:54:20 pm

You can select a background image for MAME32 that will give you a more custom look.

JoesArcade · « **Reply #10 on:** April 14, 2005, 08:03:24 am »

thats more of what im looking for. i tried to add a background but it doesnt do anything, all it does is put the bitmap file into the background folder but doesnt show any effect on mame itself. i have snaps for my fav games they show up fine. i tried to edit icons with PSP but its would not let me.

thanx for all the help, im very graitful.

JoesArcade · « **Reply #11 on:** April 14, 2005, 08:24:06 am »

Damn! i got a new mini problem. i made mame fullscreen while tring to get a background image up lol , how do i get it back to normal?
thanx

JoesArcade · « **Reply #12 on:** April 14, 2005, 08:27:08 am »

i looked in mame config and figured that one out lol still cant get an image up tho

JoesArcade · « **Reply #13 on:** April 14, 2005, 08:34:57 am »

ok im getting somewhere, sorry for the serial posts. i have a background image that i downloaded, its all looking pretty good, but is there any ways to make them horrible grey boxes and backs change colour? or even remove them completely?
thanx for the help guys!

Tiger-Heli · « **Reply #14 on:** April 14, 2005, 08:36:17 am »

Markrvp - That's pretty cool. I didn't know Mame32 could look that good, but compare it to the MameWah shot in this thread http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,30538.0.html and see how tightly Mamewah integrates with the rest of the cabinet, and you'll see why it's so popular. Of course knievel (sp?) did such an awesome job with the whole cab (one of my new favorites) that it just goes along with it.

Quote from: JoesArcade on April 14, 2005, 08:03:24 am

thats more of what im looking for. i tried to add a background but it doesnt do anything, all it does is put the bitmap file into the background folder but doesnt show any effect on mame itself. i have snaps for my fav games they show up fine. i tried to edit icons with PSP but its would not let me.

thanx for all the help, im very graitful.

I wasn't able to add a background either, but I don't use MAME32.

You shouldn't need to edit the icons - Get them from either the MAME32 artwork site http://www.classicgaming.com/mame32qa/down.htm, or Mamu's site (http://www.mameworld.net/icons/) But I can't get that to work either.

If you WANT to edit the icons, try the following:

   Icon Conversion
   Formati 11 (freeware) - http://jansfreeware.com/. I picked this program because it is freeware and can convert Icons to .gif format with transparency and vice-versa. The program only allows saving in 32x32 pixels and 16 or 256 colors maximum, but this is fine for use with Emu Loader.
   HINT: You will get much better results if you scale your image to 32x32 in another image editor and only use Formati to convert the final image to an Icon.
   Irfanview (Freeware) - http://www.irfanview.com is a more fully featured graphics program and will save to .ico format, but it does not handle transparency. However, Irfanview is not locked to the 32x32 pixel image size and is the preferred program if you are not using transparency in your images.
   Microangelo ($40) - http://www.impactsoft.com/. If you don't mind the price, this is a very simple to use and powerful icon creation/manipulation/conversion program. The program supports features such as coloring individual pixels (including coloring with transparency), a preview window, icon size and color-depth selection, a color palette display, a color finder, image rotation, item selection, image flipping, and exporting and importing images from .ico to .gif formats.

JoesArcade · « **Reply #15 on:** April 14, 2005, 07:58:20 pm »

cool. thanx for all the post, im goin to sleep now but i will get on some of the stuff u have recommended as soon as i get time
thanx again.

the3eyedblindman · « **Reply #16 on:** April 14, 2005, 08:04:22 pm »

I went tp set background image in mame 32, selected one, and clicked ok, and nothing happens, the background remains white. How do you change it?

rosborn · « **Reply #17 on:** April 14, 2005, 09:59:44 pm »

the3eyedblindman · « **Reply #18 on:** April 14, 2005, 10:57:46 pm »

now im pissed cuz i could have my mame32 looking like that and I cant figure it out.

the3eyedblindman · « **Reply #19 on:** April 14, 2005, 11:17:09 pm »

I go to set different background image, select the one i want, and click ok, then it flashes to mame32 like its changing it but it just stay white, it wont change!

markrvp · « **Reply #20 on:** April 15, 2005, 02:08:50 am »

I've tried to get the same background image error, but I can't. I'm going to OPTIONS - BACKGROUND IMAGE and then selecting the .bmp or .jpg file I want for the background. The background images are located in the bkground folder in the MAME directory.

Be sure that under OPTIONS - INTERFACE OPTIONS you don't have SELECT RANDOM BACKGROUND IMAGE checked.

The window below (OPTIONS - INTERFACE OPTIONS) is where you can make the border around the snaps smaller and also change its color. There is also a check box to stretch the snaps larger as mentioned above.

markrvp · « **Reply #21 on:** April 15, 2005, 02:18:13 am »

Tiger-Heli:

I LOVE KNIEVEL'S NEON MAME. I nominated this cab for the HOF a few weeks ago. I think it is one of the best for total overall integration of artwork, FE, and BLING.

I want to use MAMEWAH, but I have yet to figure out how to easily create a FAVORITES folder so that I only have a couple of hundred custom selected games listed at a time. How do I do that?

I've been using Ultrastyle on my cab as it has an incredibly easy setup for creating a favorites folder. Does SCREAMING'S new MAMEWAH config program do something similar?

Tiger-Heli · « **Reply #22 on:** April 15, 2005, 10:40:15 am »

I can't seem to change the background in MAME32 either. Maybe it's a Win2K problem.

Quote from: markrvp on April 15, 2005, 02:18:13 am

I want to use MAMEWAH, but I have yet to figure out how to easily create a FAVORITES folder so that I only have a couple of hundred custom selected games listed at a time. How do I do that?

I've been using Ultrastyle on my cab as it has an incredibly easy setup for creating a favorites folder. Does SCREAMING'S new MAMEWAH config program do something similar?

Well, as I posted at the end of this thread (with some other cool stuff) - http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,32747.560.html, I use EmuLoader, so can't tell you much about MAMEwah. (Mainly b/c I started using it years ago and am now a Beta tester for it, and wouldn't have the heart to tell the author I was switching. It's very Windowsy-though, so I would use MameWah on an arcade cab.

If there's no direct way to do it, I know you could probably do it by deleting the roms that weren't favorites (off the macine, not permanently), but that's a little drastic.

Actually, I didn't know Screaming had a config program, although he seemed to know the in's and out's of it pretty well.

What you might want to do is ask that question in a new software forum thread (after doing a search) and then post a link in this thread so people answer that question in that one.

SOAPboy · « **Reply #23 on:** April 15, 2005, 12:20:15 pm »

Quote from: markrvp on April 15, 2005, 02:08:50 am

I've tried to get the same background image error, but I can't.

markrvp · « **Reply #24 on:** April 15, 2005, 01:05:57 pm »

Here is John_IV's (Mame32 programmer) official website:

http://www.classicgaming.com/mame32qa

The latest official release of Mame32 is .95 I am running .94u5 in the examples I posted earlier.

Tiger-Heli · « **Reply #25 on:** April 15, 2005, 03:05:53 pm »

Quote from: SOAPboy on April 15, 2005, 12:20:15 pm

What Mame32 are you using.. the one i have, 0.62 which seems to be the "newest" on the so called official site.. is there another version or something im missing?

Actually, I was testing with NoNameMame32 0.80, but I just had it installed to help someone else out, I normally run command-line MAME through a front-end. . .

skim36 · « **Reply #26 on:** April 20, 2005, 11:00:22 am »

I originally started with mame32.....but it was to windowsy....but don't you have to change the name of your background image to bkground or something? I seem to remember that....I also changed the look of windows itself to make the whole program look better...think I used high contrast large or something....turns everything black with dofferent colored text....but you can tweak it from there....

rescue161 · « **Reply #27 on:** April 20, 2005, 01:55:19 pm »

I hate "windows" looking aspects when running MAME. I also have a vertical mounted monitor, so Windows sucks when looking at it sideways.

I use "glaunch" for my frontend and it works GREAT!

I have it set to use just the controls on the CP. I don't even have a keyboard hooked up at all. The snap of the game is in the back ground (behind the names of the games).

It also supports other emulators.

Have fun!

JoesArcade · « **Reply #28 on:** April 20, 2005, 09:34:34 pm »

hey guys u all been a great help, im afraid i am not going to be able to build a cab just yet, money problems, i did find out how to change the mame32 background tho,
what i did was use Paint Shop Pro and convert a pic into PNG format, i have no idea what that is but its works for me, still cant get rid of the ugly grey boarder but maybe thats something a Windows Theme can fix.
well guys thanx a lot i'll be in touch just got a slow build a head of me.


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Author Topic: My first post! (Read 2862 times)

tommy