Front End Question.... *whines*

[cjyanks]

Ok, ive read and read.... and then i stopped... and i started reading some more.... and i kept reading..... but for the life of me, i can't figure this out. Now i know that frontends help like sort and start games on multiple emulators, and that comes in handy for building your own machine. Can anyone who is using one answer this please... Do frontends like start-up when your computer starts? Or how do you start them? Im thinking that when i get my cabinet built, it wont really be ideal to have to grab the mouse and try to use windows to start up the front end... so what happens? Also, any suggestion on Front Ends to use? Thanks for any help you can offer... i know this has probably been asked a lot, im just going stupid, im sorry. Thanks again.

[shmokes]

I think they are just like any other program.  Put a shortcut to the .exe that starts the front end in your startup folder.  The easiest way to find your startup folder is right-click on the start button and click 'open'.  Double-click the 'Programs' folder.  Double-click the 'startup' folder.  Anything you copy into this folder will run whenever Windows starts.

There are other ways of getting to the start menu, but this is nice as it is the same regardless of which operating system you're using.

If you're using Windows 2000 or XP there are multiple 'startup' folders -- one for each user.   You can find it in C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\[USER]\START MENU\PROGRAMS\STARTUP  (substitute [USER] with whichever user's startup folder you want to affect minus the brackets).  You may want to get into the 'ALL USERS' folder rather than any individual user's startup folder so the front end will start automatically regardless of who's logging in.

[MattMaan]

Front ends don't start up automatically when your computer starts, but they can be set up to run when windows boots, just like any other program.  

On Windows 9x, I think it was as simple as putting a link to the program in the "startup" folder in the Start menu.  If you're using DOS, its a little more complicated, but still pretty simple... you have to run it in your autoexec.bat.  Not sure about XP, but it's likely not hard.

Hope that helps...
-MATT

[edit]
oops, shmokes beat me to it  
[/edit]

[Impostor]

You can also drag the shortcut to the FE into the Startup folder in XP/Pro.  If you're using XP/Pro and getting crashes or errors in your FE, try setting the compatibility mode of your FE .exe file to Win98.

Impostor

[IG-88]

Hey, I know where you are coming from when deciding what FE to use. I've been reading up on them for a while now and I think I'm gonna end up using Game Launcher. I like mame32, and I want to run about 6-7 other emu's, but then again I can't seem to find out whether or not GL and mame32 work (well) together. M.E.S.S. looks pretty good too tho, and so does arcadeOS, then again I like mamewah, or maybe mewl?....see! Decisions, decisions.
     I just cringe when documentation starts talking about DOS & command lines & ini files ect... I'm no comp. guru by any means. Nor do I want to be one. Mame32 was a big pain in a** for me to set up, and it's supposed to be easy.  ...sigh... but anyways (this was a whiners subject right?) I have read throughout the forum numerous times to just go out and try them, although downloading and reading more "read-me" files and setting things up only to see if they work does NOT appeal to me in the least. But I guess if you want something nice you have to work for it! What eaxctly are you wanting to run for emu's? I'd be real curious to see what you get set up. When (read if) I get mine done I'll post here too.

[DinoRoger]

I have my FE as my OS shell.  Meaning you never see the start button, desktop, or anything load except for the FE.  Its the cleanest way to start you FE IMO.  Search google for "[Your OS] + Change Shell".

[southpaw13]

I have a ton of good luck with AdvanceMenu for both horizontal and vertical.  BUT, yes there is a good amount of initial setup to get it going.  I am going to switch to EmuTron as soon as the bugs are worked out of the vertical orientation.  It looks to be the best option right now.  Yes, I would love to start it up without a mouse, but have not found an easy way yet.

[Jakobud]

You should NOT use Mame32 with any frontend really.  Mame32 is a wierd hacked version of Mame with it's own built in frontend.  You should just to the commandline versions of Mame from www.mame.net

[Cue-Ball]

You should NOT use Mame32 with any frontend really.

Exactly what do you base this statement on?  Mame32 accepts command line arguments just like Mame.exe does.  I run Mame32 on my cabinet using Emulaxian as a frontend and the only difference i've noticed between the two is that Mame32 shows a "windows-like" screen when loading large roms and mame.exe shows a small DOS window.  Other than that, they behave exactly the same (as long as they're given the same parameters).  I prefer to use Mame32 because i can graphically see which roms i have, which ones i'm missing, and which ones are parents/children of each other.

[)p(]

I run Mame32 on my cabinet using Emulaxian as a frontend and the only difference i've noticed between the two is that Mame32 shows a "windows-like" screen when loading large roms and mame.exe shows a small DOS window.

use runmethod|normal| in cfg\emulators\femame.cfg to hide those boxes...

the problem with mame32 is that a lot of users expect that the options they set in mame32's interface will also work when it is run from the commandline. But the regular build does not. Or at least it did not the last time I used it. So we as fe authors get a lot of questions saying our fe's do not work ok with mame32...that said if you do know how mame32 works when ran from the commandline there is no reason not to use it...

peter

[AceTKK]

Hey )p( I use rummethod|hidden| to get rid of the loading screens.  Did you change is so that the normal option does the same?

-Ace-

[)p(]

Hey )p( I use rummethod|hidden| to get rid of the loading screens.  Did you change is so that the normal option does the same?

-Ace-

uhm, soory my mistake...still sleepy... ofcourse rumethod|hidden| is correct