3d Arcade

[ratzz]

Is anyone using this or a modified version of this for a FE?

Agreed, it is a little more complicated and dare I say it messy front-end, but it seems to be great for re-creating the whole arcade experience.

I would like to use it, and will probably slim it down so it launches into an arcade, but would really like to design my own. Anyone done this?

Cheers guys .. ratzz 

[DaveMMR]

I played around with this FE a few years back and it is great to add another layer of that "arcade feeling" to your cab.  But it's also a lot of setup, downloading, and when all is said and done, I didn't think it would get the appreciation it deserved from guests who just wanted to play a game and don't really have those same fond arcade memories.

If you have a lot of time, it's definitely worth delving into though.

[FrizzleFried]

It's nice when you only have a few dozen (at most) ROMs running...try running it with a full set though....

[ratzz]

It's nice when you only have a few dozen (at most) ROMs running...try running it with a full set though....

Yep, you're absolutely right. There are a few nice games rooms with I guess the most popular cabs, but there is a spiral room with about 3000, and it would be just impossible to use practically.

Setting up a 'favorites' arcade shouldn't be too much trouble though, and I guess you'd have to use something like MaLa for other things. Which also means setting-up 3d Arcade to run MaLa, but again, I think it would be versatile enough to do.

I showed my brother one of the better arcade rooms, and he couldn't believe it! He was gob smacked that you could hover over a cab and watch the attract preview and then click on it to play.

Anyway, I'm a little away from setting up software for my cab but these things do take a little planning.

Ratzz ...

[DrumAnBass]

3D Arcade rocks when it comes to eye candy - nothing like navigating through a virtual arcade. Takes some serious overhead to run it however. But it is great to break out when showing off your cab to friends for the 1st time.

As for setup; there is a "3D Arcade DVD" that takes some of the hassle out as long as you are ok with the default configs.

[ratzz]

Yea, thats exactly what I got [3d Arcade DVD2] which has loads of default arcades.

The 3d Arcade site also has arcades you can download at MameWorld http://3darcade.mameworld.net/.

[RyoriNoTetsujin]

I'm not usually one to complain, so YMMV in this post.  I used 3dArcade for many months while designing my cabinet...  I haven't touched it in at least a year, so I'm hoping that my experiences are no longer valid, however since I see he hasn't updated the actual FE in well over a year, I doubt it.

It's a beautiful, powerful FE, with features nobody else has... when you can get it to work.  Or, worse yet, when you can figure out how to get it to do what you want!  Those were the two deal breakers for me. 

The program is buggy, and the more you configure/customize it, the worse it gets.  I remember several times it would error out and somehow I would lose my configuration options -- meaning I would have to start over -- which gets frustrating.

What is more indicative of the problem I have with 3DArcade is the fact that the program is just a big PITA to use, especially for someone who wants custom control.  Things are nowhere near intuitive, and sometimes are just completely confusing.  And the thing is )p( doesn't really have any plans on making it user friendly.  He programmed it for his use, and that's how it's going to stay - he's said it many times on the forums there.  That's totally his prerogative. Hell, I actually respect him for sticking to what makes him happy in the first place! 

That said, I don't use 3DArcade.  And really, all I've missed is the 3d cabinet designs.  The rest I can achieve without it, and do it quickly and easily via other FE's like MaLa.  Just my 2cents.

[Popcorrin]

I'm not usually one to complain, so YMMV in this post.  I used 3dArcade for many months while designing my cabinet...  I haven't touched it in at least a year, so I'm hoping that my experiences are no longer valid, however since I see he hasn't updated the actual FE in well over a year, I doubt it.

It's a beautiful, powerful FE, with features nobody else has... when you can get it to work.  Or, worse yet, when you can figure out how to get it to do what you want!  Those were the two deal breakers for me. 

The program is buggy, and the more you configure/customize it, the worse it gets.  I remember several times it would error out and somehow I would lose my configuration options -- meaning I would have to start over -- which gets frustrating.

What is more indicative of the problem I have with 3DArcade is the fact that the program is just a big PITA to use, especially for someone who wants custom control.  Things are nowhere near intuitive, and sometimes are just completely confusing.  And the thing is )p( doesn't really have any plans on making it user friendly.  He programmed it for his use, and that's how it's going to stay - he's said it many times on the forums there.  That's totally his prerogative. Hell, I actually respect him for sticking to what makes him happy in the first place! 

That said, I don't use 3DArcade.  And really, all I've missed is the 3d cabinet designs.  The rest I can achieve without it, and do it quickly and easily via other FE's like MaLa.  Just my 2cents.

I use 3DArcade and I'll agree that it is very difficult to set up but it is very powerful and it can do basically whatever you want.

You also need a good video card and plenty of ram for it to work properly.

I do not find it to be buggy and I have been running it for a couple of years.  Seems to be very stable as long as it is set up properly and you have the necessary hardware to run it.

Just curious what kind of errors you were getting and could you post the specs of the machine you were running it on?

[Paul Olson]

I had the same experience using it a couple years ago. I spent all of my time playing with the FE instead of the games. My friends didn't even want to try to learn how to use it. Every one of them preferred Ultrastyle which was my default FE back then. I like to mess with it on my PC once in a while, but on a cab I think a more simple FE is better.

I can't even try to use a MALA layout that is too busy looking. A game list and a screen shot seems to be all that my friends want to see. Everything else just confuses people who are not passionate about this stuff like we are. I used to try and fight it, but it just wasn't worth the effort. I spent all of my time explaining it, which got old really fast.

In the end, I think they might have been right after all. I don't miss all of the fancy stuff at all.

[Diewrecked]

Just wanted to bump this thread. Is anyone else running 3DArcade in their cab? How did you find it (assuming you've got all the *REALLY* fiddly PITA config and setup sorted out)?

Specifically, is there anyone here who WAS running it but has now changed to something else, and if so, why?

I am in the process of configuring this at the moment and was wondering what the consensus of the community is on this.

Thanks guys 

[Ginsu Victim]

I know it seems cool, but you really just want to avoid that FE. There are so many better, more USEFUL FEs out there.

[Diewrecked]

I know it seems cool, but you really just want to avoid that FE. There are so many better, more USEFUL FEs out there.

Thanks Ginsuvictim, but do you mind if I ask why? And what you would (do?) use in it's place and why?

Thanks again.

[Ginsu Victim]

Anything else.

Check out the recommended ones at the top:

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

[EVEGames]

Couldn't disagree more, GinsuVictim.  3DArcade is a very underrated front-end, as the 'Front-Ends' article in the Wiki bears out (listing it under the heading of "Other").  I use 3DArcade on both my MAME cabs and my barcade MAME cab, as well as a dedicated shuttle-style portable computer (that I lug around to friends' houses to hook up to their bigscreens and projectors - I have neither of those  ). 

Diewrecked,
I've used 3DArcade exclusively on my MAME cabs since 2004.  One with a trackball and dedicated mouse buttons (helpful when you want to navigate menus or do a search or a filter) and one with a Street Fighter layout.  Since the controls are completely customizeable, you can navigate this front-end easily with buttons and joysticks only.  I have never had to add a roll-out keyboard / mouse to get it to do what I want it to do.

Historically there has been a learning curve associated with setting up the front-end, but this has become almost a non-issue with the advent of the "3D Arcade on DVD" project, mentioned earlier in this thread.  Version 2.0 is out, and 3.0 is in the works.  These bundled versions are designed with ease of installation in mind, as well as bundling of all the artwork, 3d models and virtual arcades in a single download.

Here's my 2 cents on why this front end is great.  It has nothing to do with the virtual arcades.  I never use them or the Cycle Arcade feature, where the cabinet models are arranged in a big circle.  You would no sooner use this interface to navigate through 3,000+ games than you would HyperSpin (which I am experimenting with and very impressed with).  But you absolutely would use the List Menu interface, which combines a list of games, filterable and searchable, and screenshots/videos and a spinning 3D model of the original arcade cabinet.  This is a big part of why I love this front-end, I love seeing a faithfully recreated 3D model of the original arcade cabinet, complete with the in-game video playing on the screen as the model slowly spins.  I love all the custom skins available for all the different systems, I have made a couple myself.  The flexibility to launch anything that accepts a command-line argument, with optional run-before and run-after parameters to do things like reprogram and reprogram your IPac on-the-fly when needed for un-cabfriendly emus.

This post is already too long, so I will add just one more comment for now.  As far as the learning curve for controlling the front-end, yes there is a learning curve there too, since there are multiple levels of menus that you must be able to navigate.  But if my twin daughters, who are about to turn 4 years old can do it, your friends and family can learn, too.  If you have any trouble with it, give a post over at http://3darcade.mameworld.net/, I'll help you out personally.   

-EVEGames

[Loafmeister]

although it's no longer my preferred FE, 3darcade was the first true nextgen front end. It kicked butt and although it is/was buggy, just backing up the config files got you back up and running if that bug showed it's ugly head.  Even though I'm now working off HyperSpin, 3darcade will never leave my cab, it's just too cool traverse through virtual arcades, so when someone says "what does THAT thing do", I have lots of cool stuff to show them.

[Popcorrin]

Here's my 2 cents on why this front end is great.  It has nothing to do with the virtual arcades.  I never use them or the Cycle Arcade feature, where the cabinet models are arranged in a big circle.  You would no sooner use this interface to navigate through 3,000+ games than you would HyperSpin (which I am experimenting with and very impressed with).  But you absolutely would use the List Menu interface, which combines a list of games, filterable and searchable, and screenshots/videos and a spinning 3D model of the original arcade cabinet.  This is a big part of why I love this front-end, I love seeing a faithfully recreated 3D model of the original arcade cabinet, complete with the in-game video playing on the screen as the model slowly spins. 
-EVEGames

I don't think alot of people know about the listbox option, they just assume 3dArcade is all about virtual arcades and that is it.  I mainly use the listbox option but it is nice to walk thru a couple of virtual arcades once in awhile.

Also I think people may assume it's buggy because you may occasionally get an error while running the frontend but as I found out during the long set up process, those errors are from having something improperly configured and not because the frontend is buggy.  It is actually very stable.  It's as stable if not more than any of the other frontends out there, but it is by far the most difficult to set up.

[Diewrecked]

Thanks all. Yeah that's the feeling I was getting. I'm ploughing through setup at the moment; now that I've got my head round it (it IS very compex, eh??), I'm actually quite enjoying it. I have about 120 cabs I would use in my virtual environment and have the DVD so I've got everything I need at data level.

For info, EVEgames you have actually helped me out in the past on the 3DArcade forum! 

I think I'll use this for now then maybe move across to Hyperspin (or use it simultaneously) once they have a more comprehensive selection of MAME themes.

Thanks again for all your comments, guys.

[EVEGames]

Also I think people may assume it's buggy because you may occasionally get an error while running the frontend but as I found out during the long set up process, those errors are from having something improperly configured and not because the frontend is buggy.  It is actually very stable.

Agreed, Popcorrin.  My only issue from day 1 was with getting proper focus back on the front-end after exiting a game.  This was a BIG aggravation for me in the beginning, and I almost abandoned this fe.  But Peter has since addressed that issue with specific force-focus options, as well as an option to invoke the older keyhandler code.  The force-focus option did the trick for me.

For info, EVEgames you have actually helped me out in the past on the 3DArcade forum!

Cheers, Diewrecked.  Glad I could help. 

[ratzz]

I have to admit that I still haven't given up on this yet, and am determined to get it working on my cab!