Thoughts on Dragon King

[shmokes]

I just want to get an informal idea about how people are liking Dragon King.  I know it's new and naturally a bit buggy, but for my purposes pretend that all of those little wrinkles are ironed out (as they probably will be by the time I go FE-shopping).  Are there any standout features?  Is there anything to be aware of like, "if you're using a TV for a display steer clear" (Just as an example, of course.  That's not anything I've heard or anything).

What, if anything, do you dislike about it?  I'm not above spending a significant amount of time on setup.  I believe that sort of investment generally pays off.  I'm more concerned with features, aesthetic, intuitive layout, stability, etc.

There is a chinese restaurant in my small town (pop. 30,000) called Dragon King.  It's owned and run by a mexican family  

edit: spelling

[Frostillicus]

After working through some small and non-program related bugs (just winzip issues) with HC,  I gotta say I am excited.  It's up and running now.  And combined with the skinning possibilities and ability to launch bunches of other stuff in addition to mame - it should be the one for me.  I know other FE's do this but overall I like the options available in DK. If I had to name one: the one thing I like about DK the most is the straightforward configuration - even I could figure it out - including the skinner!    

I can honestly say I've really put in the time on other FE's, but there's always something that is limiting (whether it be number of gamelists, lack of sensible skinning, confusing configuration{to me}, etc).  I'm not knocking any other FE's at all, mind you, and I, as a user, really appreciate the time all you folks put into programming.  They sure beat Mame32

[Howard_Casto]

I'm glad you are understanding the skinner.  In the past most people hated it, so I totally re-designd the way skins work so that the skinner is drag and drop and the skin format itself has changed so that you can open up the theme.ini and actually understand what the heck all those numbers are for.  I really need feedback on it and other options myself.  

 

[CM]

I dove in and started photoshoping up some various seamless background textures as the scrolling backgrounds and overlays, and

WOW .. GOOD STUFF !  

Thanks Howard!  I was just dabbling with the effects and I am already amazed with the results.  I can't wait until I can set up a few hours to really crank out a quality skin ... or even better .. see what other people produce as well.

[rampy]

Question, HC...

Did you get to include any/some of the datcontrols project functionality in?

Rampy

[spectre]

I'd LOVE to use it, but when it creates the list when i'm installing it...it freezes...

[Superdude]

Soooo when are you going to add non interlaced modes?  IE 640x288 or 320x240?  Us arcade monitor people like graphics too!

[jakejake28]

hey, i have been using either mamewah or gamelauncher for a while now, and am looking at the skinning feature of dk, but i have limited prog. experience (only know java) and cannot stand a lot of configging. is this fe requireing a lot of coding or configging, or is it pretty easy?

[Howard_Casto]

That's a hardware issue.  It'll run whatever windows reports that your video card will do.  I think there is a tutorial flaoting around the net for adding custom resolutions to the windows registry.  That should fix it for people using powerstrip or other hacked modes.    

[Howard_Casto]

I'd LOVE to use it, but when it creates the list when i'm installing it...it freezes...

Did you try 0.7 ?  Also searching through big gamelists (read the entire mame gamelist)  takes several minutes and when it searches for vidrs it appears to "freeze" when it's really just working hard.  It takes a while, be patient.  

[Howard_Casto]

Question, HC...

Did you get to include any/some of the datcontrols project functionality in?

Rampy

No as the controls parser will be a externally called app.  I was thinking though what might be cool is to add a feature to the viewer so that it goes through the entire list and generates graphical images of each games control layout.  Then all the fe has to do is display the images.  

[Aceldamor]

I just wanted to add my 2 cents.

I've only configured DK to run Mame and created a master list for all my games, but just by doing those basic things, I can tell you that i'm a big fan of DK. I also wanted to say that I was a huge fan of the config boxes that popped up when you run the fe for the first time.

I'm going to play a little with the skinner, try to make custom lists, and add emus tonight.

Great work Howard!!  DK was worth the wait  

[crashdmj]

Does this FE support multiple Favprites lists? Sorry if it sounds like a newb Q

[shmokes]

Thanks everyone.  When I first posted this it got ignored for a while...I was away all day today and when I came back there were twelve posts!  That's enough for me.  I'm sure I'll give it a shot.  It sounds like you churned out something pretty impressive HC.

[spectre]

prolly "working hard" when i get the pc ima use in my cab i'll run it on that and let it  sit... THANKS

[Rocky]

Posted by: spectre  Posted on: Yesterday at 05:43:29pm
I'd LOVE to use it, but when it creates the list when i'm installing it...it freezes...  

I had the same problem. I'm using Win98SE. It still does this in ver 0.7

I found a "fix", though.  When it hangs "not responding" message after the app in the "Close Program" box (Cntrl / Alt / Del), I found an app called oldwinap and closed it, then the list generator sprang back to life.

I'm still doing something wrong, though.  After the initial sound and video, I get a blank screen. I can exit with ESC, but nothing displayed.  (This happens on 2 machines with different hardware, so it's probably my setup.)


Rocky