Maximus Arcade- Worth the money?

[Red]

I'm fairly new to MAME and was looking for a good front end that's easy to use and set up and was wondering what y'all think of the Maximus Arcade front end?

I'm also considering using MAME32 front end.  Thanks.

[btp2k2]

I use it on all my cabinets and I love it.

It supports a huge selection of emulators, I currently run MAME32, DAPHNE, Visual Pinball, Fusion32 (for Genesis, Sega CD, 32X and Sega Master System), Nesticle, SNES9x, Magic Engine, plus I have batch files for Madden 2007 and Tiger Woods 2007 that the front end can launch.

It is a super easy to setup frontend and works well with just about every setup I have thrown at it

[youki]

Honnestly why pay for a sofware when some exists for free that are better or at least equivalent.

Lot of good front end Exists  , see the wiki list here :

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

the 4 major  in alphabetical order still under development are :

AtomicFE (free)
GameEX  (shareware or "kind of")
Mala (free)
Mamewah (free)

But others could fit your needs too. 

[Green Giant]

It supports a huge selection of emulators, I currently run MAME32

Why are you using a frontend to run a version of mame with its own frontend?

[BORIStheBLADE]

I would say you would be very happy with Mala.
Its easier than MameWah but just as customizable.

[ARTIFACT]

I love Mala...

One thing I like from the videos I've seen of Maximum, is the console system selection ... Big graphic of each system on the screen... looks pretty cool

[FrizzleFried]

MAMEWAH is better suited for my needs for my two stand up cabinets.  That said, MALA works just fine on my cocktail.

[mccoy178]

Does anyone have experience with all three?  Maximus, Mala, and Mamewah?  I'm thinking about giving up the ghost of mamewah, and I was wanting to get someone's opinion of Maximus vs. Mala.

[SGT]

Does anyone have experience with all three?  Maximus, Mala, and Mamewah?  I'm thinking about giving up the ghost of mamewah, and I was wanting to get someone's opinion of Maximus vs. Mala.

Mala is a free download and just takes a few minutes to setup.  Why don't you give it a quick test drive?

[mccoy178]

I will, I'm just wondering if anyone has compared both.  I have about a dozen emulators to setup, so before I take the plunge, I was just wondering.

[ARTIFACT]

I love mala... i AM curious to try maximus though - i believe they have a free trial

[Neilyboy]

I wanted to try it but for 25 bones.. come on I mean its just a front end.. You have written a clean and quick program for launching other programs haha... If it was 10 or 15 bucks I would have picked up a copy by now but for us who are broke.. I cant afford 25 bucks for something that I can get for free that works just as well and does the same thing.

Neil

[Bloodwyn]

I have used all of them.

They all work great.

For me.. it is a matter of specific features that I wanted and whether the frontend could do it.
I did NOT want a text list of my games, I wanted an image list.
So far out of current working frontends, only Mala and Atomic can do image lists.

Out of those 2, I chose Mala for my specific needs.

I would make a list of what features you want on your cabinet/frontend

Examples:
Mame only cab or Multiple Emulators
Multimedia features needed or just for games.
Is the frontend going to be used by you only , or do you have children that access it.
Do you need plugin capabilities for LED lighting or other features?
Do you want animated backgrounds or scrolling text on the front end?

Once you get your list done, install all the frontends that could meet your needs and test each one.

The authors of Mala, GameEX and Atomic are constantly taking user input and improving their front ends.
They all do a fantastic job of updating us all on their progress on this message board as well as their own.

Bloodwyn

[Green Giant]

I love Mala...

One thing I like from the videos I've seen of Maximum, is the console system selection ... Big graphic of each system on the screen... looks pretty cool

Using the mala tree, you can easily set this up.  Just create the tree and rename the pics of the consoles to the list you want.  Check the wiki for exact descriptions.  http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Mala_Tree

[Katana Man]

I've set mine up to do this.  I'll release my Mala layouts and individual images when I'm done.    I used some nice high res images too. I've spent many hours finding high res pics, then removing the backgrounds for perfect transparency.  I'll release the full photoshop .psd versions as well.

[mccoy178]

 

[specialmoose]

It's what I got on my arcade machine right now. It's easy to config and does almost everything I want.