Nice Frontend: myHTPC

[Pyronious]

Just thought I'd mention it here since nobody seems to be discussing it.  There is a nice frontend called myHTPC (which is designed for all kinds of different media collections). It happens to work quite well with MAME.

Here are some shots from my current setup:









More info available at my web site and at http://www.myhtpc.net.

Patrick

[liquid8]

myHTPC is pretty decent, I use it for mp3s in my car.. but I wouldn't use it as an emulator frontend. I do like the setup ya got there though how's it work for other emulators besides Mame?

LiQuiD8

[Pyronious]

So far I have it working with MAME and Visual Boy Advance.

I had to do a bit of Girder trickery to make VBA launch without a menubar and to make it quit with the ESC key but definitely worth the effort.

Next up is Gens, then ZSnes (unless you recommend otherwise for Genesis and SNES games).

What don't you like about myHTPC? What do you use?

Patrick

[liquid8]

Maybe I haven't played around with it enough, but I can't quite get categorizing to work correctly (just speaking from MP3 setup) It works, but not the way I want it to. I am working on my own frontend, basically because I want to make it look exactly how I want it to, which you can't do with myHTPC, not necessarily a bad thing because it standardizes the look some.and the program is very easy to setup! Let me know how the SNES and Genesis emus go.. I may try it out at least.

LiQuiD8

[HeadRusch]

I like it too, but man how did you get your screen configured that way??  All I can get are these words "SHOW..>SHOW>>>" on the left hand side and then a bunch of screenshots, when I click on the screenshot it gets worse: Once I "choose a game" I can't back out of that screen without hitting backspace on my keyboard.

But...its a cab..I dont wanna have to keep the keyboard out!

Perhaps you could share your config with us?

[arcadecab]

Wow, I think your HTPC frontend looks very nice.  I am really interested in the capability of it to display CD and DVD cover art and info also as a Home Theater PC.  I am wondering how do you get the pics for the CD and DVD coverart to use with the program? Is the info on the DVD/CD downloaded from somewhere? How does it connect with a DVD/CD mega player to actually start the video/cd when the cover art is selected?  From the few replies to this thread, it appears the setup of the frontend can be complicated--how difficult would it be to set it up as a DVD/CD HTPC front-end, and also for MAME and other emulators?  

[AlanS17]

Does that program run off of scripts or is it a full Windows installation with registry settings and the works?

If it just runs from scripts can you pass them along??

[anthony691]

I have it installed... but I can't get MAME working properly. I read all I could on the myHTPC forum... but found nothing. What files would we need to swap for me to have that SWEET setup of yours? Or at least tell us how you acheived it... Now I am itching to get this running.

[HeadRusch]

First you need to run the MYGAMES application, look for it in his posts or do a search over on MHTPC.
Run that program, which builds a metadata file which the MHTPC (basically a big XML parser from what I quickly, quickly looked at) reads that file and arranges images, associates them with files, and so forth.

Then you configure HTPC to use that file...

Eh, it aint simple and straightforward.  Its not rocket science, but its not a 1 step solution by any stretch.

Here's a real problem however.....this thing is a pig...you definately don twant to load ALL of mame's roms into this thing, its locked up and chugged out on me many times (1.5Ghz Athlon with half a gig of ram)....it might be nice if you keep your rom lists under a hundred, but thats not what most use a fronteend for.

I'm probably going to give MAMEWAH or Lazarus (DragonKing) a shot and see how they work out.
Worst comes to worse, I just go back to useing mame32 for the time being.  But I would like rom grouping

Fighters, puzzles, etc.

[Pyronious]

Wow! Lots of questions to answer.  I'll do my best...

Currently I have it working with MAME, Gens (Sega Genesis), Visual Boy Advance (Gameboy Advance), and Daphne (Laserdisc games).  Will probably get to Super Nintendo sometime this week.

If you are running this on an arcade monitor at 640x480 (interlaced), you will need to adjust the default font sizes used to draw the text.  To do this, launch myHTPC Config and select "Default Theme" in the tree. From there you can change the font and font size for each type of menu element (titles, captions, menus, etc.).  I'm not near the machine right now so I can't post my values, but I'll post them tomorrow.

To make the interface work without having to use a keyboard and mouse, click the Remote Control item in the configuration tree. You can then assign commands for up, down, left, right, select and back.  My cabinet is connected via a JPAC so the controls are mapped to keys.  In order to assign a key in myHTPC, just press the "key" button. Note that you might not be able to see the "key" button at 640x480.  You may need to temporarily raise your resolution for this part of the setup.

On my system the joystick moves the highlight up/down/left/right, button one is "select" and button 2 is "back". I also set the Mouse Pointer option to "hide all the time". You don't need a keyboard and mouse after you have it set up properly.

To download cover art for CD's, I just use Windows Media Player 9. Drop in a CD and it should automatically download and cache the CD cover.

To download cover art for DVD's, I currently use Collectorz.com Movie Collector. You could also just download the covers from the very nice archive at www.dvdempire.com.

As for connecting it to a DVD/CD megaplayer (I assume you mean an externally controlled device) that is beyond me.  However I'm sure there are plenty of people at www.myhtpc.org and www.girder.nl who can help you get this working quite nicely.

MyHTPC doesn't run off scripts. It has a Win32 configuration program where you add media modules.  What you need to do is add a media module for each "Player" you intend to use.  For example, in my case I have media modules for MAME, Gens, Daphne, and VBA. You then need to create a database file (called a .my file) that contains information about your collection.  There is a fantastic tool called myGames (linked in my first post) that will automatically scan your ROMs and create a .my file for you.

So to set myHTPC up for MAME, you would do something like this:

1. Open the configuration program
2. Add a media module, name it "MAME"
3. Under "grouping method" select "single metadata file"
4. Browse to the .my file you created using .myGames
5. Turn off all the "cache" checkboxes and press "build now".

NOTE: If you have < 500 Roms this will just take a few seconds to build.  If you have more then be prepared to wait for several hours as myHTPC tries to sort the data.  This is a known bug and will be fixed in a future version of myHTPC.  If you have a full set just click "build now" before you go to bed at night and it will be done in the morning.

6. Under "Player" select the "myHTPC_ExeMp.dll" Plugin DLL
7. Enter the path to the MAME executable under "executable"
8. Enter the path to the MAME folder under "current directory"

That should get you up and running! The rest of the settings you can tweak with on your own.

To get this working with other emulators may required the use of Girder. For example, pressing "ESC" quits MAME, but not VBA or Gens. So you will need to create Girder events to quit those apps upon receiving the ESC combination from your arcade controls.

While it is definitely a bit of work to get this up and running, the results are well worth it.  I now have a complete, seamless interface for all my emulation programs with a consistent user interface that does not require a keyboard or mouse to navigate.

Hope this answers the major questions.  More help can be found over at the myHTPC message boards.

Patrick

[anthony691]

It is a really good piece of code

[LMN4096]

 

very nice work
can we have more detail on your setup ? what is the "High Score Competition" options ?

or perhaps can you share your setup file?  

[Pyronious]

I have attached my "myhtpc.cfg" file for you to check out.

This will basically set up myHTPC the way I have it right now.  What it won't do:

1. It won't create your .my files / build your ROM catalog. You need to do this with .myGames, load the .my file into the proper media module in myHTPC and press the "Build Now" button.

2. It won't automatically set up your emulators to work properly. I am using a combination of Batch Files and Girder to make the emulators "Gens" and "VisualBoyAdvance" work properly. If you want more info on this let me know.

By the way, the config file specifies a freeware TrueType font called "Accidental Presidency". I like it becasue it is very narrow and useful for getting lots of information onto a low-resolution monitor.  You can download it from:

http://www.1001fonts.com/font_details.html?font_id=750

As for the High Score competition, it is simply a small set of games that people in the office are competing over.  I put them in their own set to make them easy to navigate to.

I understand in future versions of myHTPC the interface will be fully skinnable / configurable.  For now you can adjust things like fonts, colors, and background image.

Patrick

[Pyronious]

A couple of notes about making other emulators work:

1. Visual Boy Advance
You will need to make a batch file to start games in Visual Boy Advance. Here's the one I use:

"C:\Program Files\girder32\event.exe" xpHideMenubar -silent
"C:\Emulators\vba\VisualBoyAdvance.exe" %1

The 1st line calls a Girder event that waits for the emulator to start, then sends the "ESC" key to get rid of the menu bar that shows up by default on that emulator when you start it from a command line in full-screen mode.

You will also need a Girder event to catch your "Quit" key combination (I use ESC, which is what MAME uses) and translate it into an "ALT-F4" combination, which will close the emulator.

2. Gens
With Gens I think you can get away without the batch file, but I find that the sound levels in Gens are VERY LOUD compared to my other emulators. So I use a Girder event to turn the volume down when Gens Starts, then turn it back up again when Gens quits.

This helps to keep the volume levels in all my games consistent, so the players don't have to think about it.

Patrick

P.S. You don't need these batch files if you don't mind having a keyboard and mouse hooked up to manually do these things. But if you are looking for TOTAL AUTOMATION then this is the way to go.

Patrick