Recommend me a Front End.

[kelemvor]

Howdy,

I don't know anything about front ends so I'm just looking for some advice.  I don't know what the current most popular one is or what but here's my requirements.

My PC is a P4 2.4Ghz PC with 1 gig of ram.  I'm using the onboard video but could throw in a card if that'd make a difference.  I'll be running a standard install of XP.

As for the FE, I don't really have much for requirements other than Maybe having a few different themes/skins to choose from would be nice.  I also want it to have a way that I can flag certain games as "Favorites" to add them to a list so I can quickly go to them and not have to scroll through 5000 games.

For the Skin/Theme stuff, I'd like something that has existing themes from other people I can download or something that is VERY easy to design my own in case I decide to take that extra step.

Anyhow, that's about it.  The less of a memory hog the better just for overall performance but I'm open to any and all suggestions at this point.

Thanks.

[loadman]

Start here:

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Front-Ends

I would look at MaLa, GameEX and Atomic.

[gonzo90017]

Don't forget Mamewah.   

[loadman]

Don't forget Mamewah.   

MameWah is good FE as are the others on the Wiki page I posted a link for.

I don't know anything about front ends so I'm just looking for some advice.

MameWah has a steep learning curve so I would not recommend to a newbie.

Possibly you a volunteering to help him through it?

[gonzo90017]

No problem. Seems like i've been the only one answering Mamewah related questions lately. 

Edit: Hey kelemvor for someone asking about frontends you sure have a lot of posts.

[youki]

Hi,

Seeing your machine specification, all FE will fit .

As said loadman look the wiki.

And i also suggest you concentrate your choice on the four major .  Mala,GameEX,AtomicFE and Mamewah.

I don't know if it is already in the wiki but Khameleon  seems very promising too.

If you have question about AtomicFe, i'm here and i have also a english forums here :

http://spaceinvaders.7.forumer.com/viewforum.php?f=13&sid=1d92bcadf01441a7fdcab70c70b965c8

[Green Giant]

Don't forget Mamewah.   

Mamewah was nice and very powerful for its day, but time has passed it by.  As far as I can tell, there hasn't been any development with it in about 9 months.  Don't want to rain on your parade since I was originally setting up my cab to run with mamewah, but the constant work on mala allowed it to pass up mamewah in features and ease of use.

Also, can you run mamewah with the latest version of mame?  I would assume you can, but you probably have to update and modify every .ini since they have changed mame so much from .107.

Go with the big three, Mala, AtomicFE, and GameEX.

[gonzo90017]

Also, can you run mamewah with the latest version of mame?  I would assume you can, but you probably have to update and modify every .ini since they have changed mame so much from .107.

I just tried it with Mame 0.120 and it works great. I don't know what you mean about the ini files though. I just use this:

Code: [Select]

### mame.ini (mamewah v1.62) ###

emulator_title                            mame

### List Generation Settings ###
rom_path                                  E:\videogames\Winkawaks\roms
rom_extension                             zip
dat_file                                  auto:[emuexepath]\[emuexename].dat
nms_file                                  auto:[emuexepath]\[emuexename].nms
catver_ini_file                           auto:[emuexepath]\catver.ini
list_generation_method                    rom_folder_vs_listxml

### Execution Settings ###
pre_emulator_app_commandlines             C:\videogames\mame37\nodelay.exe {nowait}{autoquit}
emulator_commandline                      C:\videogames\newmame\mame.exe [name]{nodosbox}
post_emulator_app_commandlines           
general_app_commandlines                 

### Artwork Settings ###
artwork_image_paths                       auto:[emuexepath]\snap;[emuexepath]\marquee;[emuexepath]\control;[emuexepath]\cabinet;
movie_preview_path                        auto:[emuexepath]\previews
movie_artwork_no                          1
enable_fuzzy_search                       0
history_dat_file                          auto
history_dat_artwork_no                    2

### Screen-Saver Settings ###
enable_music_in_screensaver               1
select_random_game                        0
saver_type                                gamelist_slideshow
movie_path                               
movie_fullscreen                          1
quit_delay                                0
saver_commandline                         

### Additional Settings ###
music_path                               
lcd_display_file_path                     
description_display                       [description]{scroll}

### Settings used by MAMEWAH ###
current_list                              0

[TAG]

I'm running Mame .119 and several other emulators (Daphne, vivanonno, Mjolnir, Model2, etc. etc.), and Mamewah still works great.

Having said that, it's hard to go too wrong with any of the front ends that have been recommended.  I'm just too stubborn to start over again, particularly since I'm not having any problems with it.

[torcer]

I love MaLa, you can't go wrong with it.  It's versatile and easy to use.

[superart]

hey kelevmar, why not have poll?
I vote for mamewah, you can create custom skins and download them. It is very easy to use, if you can follow the directions. It has a favorites and it is fully customizable.

I haven't tried Mala

I have tried Gamex which I liked, because it looks like its alive.

Then I went back to Mamewah, because I like it better.

[kelemvor]

I'd make a poll but there are so many it'd be incredibly messy.  But since it seems to be narrowed down to the big 4 and most people say they can do mostly the same things, I'm just going to try one and go from there.

[torcer]

I’ve used MameWAH and Mala, and they are both good.  I prefer Mala due to its ease of use, it is updated more often, and I have fallen in love with the Tree structure option.  If you are new, go with Mala, if not, I have a MameWAH write up for 1.62B that I could post?