Which mame frontend do you recommend?

[eggedd2k]

i know there are many different front ends, but rather than download all of them and try each one individually i thought i'd ask you opinion on which one you think is best.

i'd like whichever one i use to allow you to select games with control panel buttons, and if possible display a screen-shot of the game.

any views?

[Howard_Casto]

ALL OF THEM! 

Go download each one individually and quit being lazy.

[jelwell]

You should read SirPoonga's Frontend Review Blog. Also, I am going to start my own http://mamefrontends.com/ website. Lastly, I have a bridge to sell in Brooklyn.

I swear, all of these are real endeavors.
Joseph Elwell.

[youki]

If you plan to you your Front End in an ArcadeCabinet under Windows , or you want "Hide" windows , you can try that ones :

AtomicFE  (it is mine, so i put it first!  )     www.AtomicFe.com
MameWah
UltraStyle
GameEX
there are plenty others , but you can start by that ones!

If you prefere something more "windows" , i think Mame32 is very good.

[hulkster]

i officially recommend the......SEARCH ENGINE!!!  its awesome dude,  you can search for questions like this and find all kinds of stuff without taking up post space.  Howard, do you have  wrapper for that? 

[jhsmith321]

If it helps you in your search you should give a try to LusSpace FE, and I do also agree that you should also try other FE's by yourself and decide 

[ahmer]

don't waste your time.

Just check some pages at this forum and then you will find One of the
most popular mame frontend,users regularly asked questions about
that frontend.

have you guess it ?

[youki]

More there are questionq on a Front End,  could mean More difficult is to configure!     

[Magnet_Eye]

MAMEWAH

 

[eggedd2k]

tried mamewah - it always says it cant find any roms

[hulkster]

tried mamewah - it always says it cant find any roms

then you didnt set it up right.  its the easiest and most user friendly in my opinion.

[youki]

You should really try mine.

Just say it where is your roms folder and where is your mame and snap. And that's all.

Of course there is more advanced settings you can do. But in the simplest mode you can have your front-end up and running in 2 minutes as soons as you know what is a "folder"!.

[divemaster127]

I would use atomicFE or ultrastyle, mamewah is a pain in the rear to set up
thanks

[SirPoonga]

Just say it where is your roms folder and where is your mame and snap. And that's all.

I've been wondering why FE devs need to know this when they can look it up themselves?  Just ask the user was their mame exe is.  Then go get the ini file for that exe.  If it doesn't exists for some reason they are using defaults (or run mame -cc to create it for them).  Otherwise get the rom folder locations (yes, plural) and use them.  and the code for handling the ini file is available if you can read through the mame source.  Note dos uses .cfg file.  linux uses .rc.  And are in different formats somewhat.

My flash FE did that.  It isn't hard to implement.  All the info is in that ini file to find the files mame uses, snaps, roms.  the other things you need to ask for is flyer, cabinet pics, control panel pic, .... the graphic files mame doesn't use that are extras.

[Buddabing]

Just say it where is your roms folder and where is your mame and snap. And that's all.

I've been wondering why FE devs need to know this when they can look it up themselves?

[spriggy]

I use the same one that other people use!

[ahmer]

Current version of mamewah is simple to configure.
you can ask other people about the previous versions when it was
a pain to configure...

I think you are missing something in mame.ini or mamewah.ini
 
Start another thread and ask for mamewah help.

Listen other peoples advise as they all tell you a new frontend name.

[AlanS17]

I haven't played with it yet, but that MAMEWAH Config looked overly-complicated. Older versions were a snap to set up, though.

If you can't set a rom path, you've probably got bigger problems. That's one of the easier things to do.

I'd rather have a developer spend more time on the UI than concern himself with finding the rom path for me.

[NeeBick]

Just say it where is your roms folder and where is your mame and snap. And that's all.

I've been wondering why FE devs need to know this when they can look it up themselves?  Just ask the user was their mame exe is.  Then go get the ini file for that exe.  If it doesn't exists for some reason they are using defaults (or run mame -cc to create it for them).  Otherwise get the rom folder locations (yes, plural) and use them.  and the code for handling the ini file is available if you can read through the mame source.  Note dos uses .cfg file.  linux uses .rc.  And are in different formats somewhat.

My flash FE did that.  It isn't hard to implement.  All the info is in that ini file to find the files mame uses, snaps, roms.  the other things you need to ask for is flyer, cabinet pics, control panel pic, .... the graphic files mame doesn't use that are extras.

Ideally, you wouldn't even need to ask where the mame exe is. Just prompt the user "Scanning for MAME executable....", and allow the user to enter where the MAME executable is, and if not, scan the user's hard drive, starting with the obvious path names. If a mame executable is found, prompt the user if he wants to use that one. Then get mame.ini in that directory and get the rom paths from that.

I don't think front ends should ever need a separate rom path, it should just use MAME's rom path.

From a pure design and engineering view point a good Frontend should be as generic as possible meaning it could support any emulator.  Specialized support for mame is bloat and unnecessary redundancy.  Now support for name translation (short hand to full) is fine for mame since most emulators do not use a strict naming convention and is usually required by the user for readabilty purposes.

[Buddabing]

[quote author=NeeBick link=topic=38634.msg350573#msg350573

Specialized support for mame is bloat and unnecessary redundancy.

[NeeBick]

I respectfully disagree. A large percentage of support questions on this forum are How do I get this frontend going? or How do I get MAME to work?

Having a little hand-holding and automation in the setup process is a Good Thing.

Design and engineering are not the same. Neither is theory and practice.

Not according to my college professors  (Design is law!).

I actually did not mean to imply that they are the same thing but that avoiding complexities will benefit users with a more stable program. But everyone has an opinion on what helps the user.

I guess I think configuration should be separate from a frontend since it is only done occasionally.