Which Front End To Use

[thePrimativ]

G'Day

I am Just doing my first cab Using an old Street Fighter II cab,
got a pc with arcade VGA card, cab still has all buttons and screen, no power supply no biggie i re did it all and now just need software.
the PC in an XP machine 3GHz MMx Pentium, 1GB RAM.

So i know everyone has a different idea but would like to get opinions, and +/- for different front ends
Any info would be appreciated


Cheers

PS also am building a Jukebox from scratch  (long term project) will post more info later

[youki]

Almost all front end can work on your machine. It depends what you are looking for.

As you have a Arcade VGA, i suppose you have a 15khz screen.

In that case i would suggest , Mala or AtomicFE

If you want something sober, effective  , Mala is a good choice.

If you want something with lot of more graphic possibilities and effective as well , try mine AtomicFE.

You have also Maximus Arcade, but you have to pay for and i think the  customer "support" is not as good than mala or Atomic one.

GameEx , you have to pay too , very good, but i 'd say less "old school" . But good support too.

Hyperspin , very nice , but use lot of resource of you computer , therefore i don't think it is the best choice for a 15khz screen.  AtomicFe can do almost the same things graphically but where Hyperspin need a 3ghz machine with 1giga of ram (what you have, so no problem) , Atomic does similar thing with only 1ghz and 256mega.

In fact it is just a matter of taste , try them .  Have a look to Mamewah too..

All Fe have their good and bad. 

and have a look to the wiki :  http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Front-Ends

[Dazz]

Like Youki stated before... "it's just a matter of taste".  It really is...  They all have something that they are better at than the next guy.  Try them all.  Configure a system or two on each one and just give them a test run to see which you like best.

As far as my personal, I've tried many FE's.  I started with MameWAH and liked it, but I had config issues after every couple hours of the kids pounding on the machine.  I played with Atomic and a couple other FE's before deciding on Maximus Arcade because of ease of setup.  I used Maximus for a long while, but once I saw HyperSpin I knew that was something that I would like to try.  I personally love HyperSpin, but it isn't for everyone.  Learning curve is a little more than some FE's and RomList generation is lacking quite a bit.  If your roms use the No-Intro naming convention then you should be good to go.  If not you would need to convert your roms to the No-Intro sets to make all of the artwork and stuff match.  While it is a pain in the ass, the results are wonderful.   One of our users, Lashek, has created a great online system for generating game lists and it works wonderfully.  It still requires the No-Intro named roms though...   HyperSpin is still maturing, but eventually we will have a nice system in place.

[thePrimativ]

Thanx for the input guys
I knew everyone would have their fav glad to have the reasons for your likes and dislikes
I guess I was trying to short cut trying lots
but have a couple of old pcs kicking about so will try different ones

I had my cab ready to go just waiting  on choosing an FE, but now I'm building a dedicated juke box so am about to cannibalize the high power power suppply and amp and use it in the JB, so ill have more time to consider it. (half the fun is the design and construct anyway  )

[clok]

As a user and experamentor of about 6-8 different FE so far, it really does get down to 3 things (I think):

#1 Ease of setup: this is a toss up importantance to me, could be swapped with #2
#2 looks- features: will it do all the stuff I want it too?
#3 Support: many have poor support which is understandble, almost all are free, it takes time and effort to help, alot more then some think. I know just one simple question should be easy to answer, but then think of every user haveing one of those, soon its 500 questions. (yes I work in Tech support and every user thinks they are your only user, its hard for people to understand there are 1000's of them).

Look at them all, look at what people have done with them, look at system requirements. What are you going to do, run One emulator, or lots, run a do all box, or just a EMU box? How much know how do you have?

Good luck

[Cakemeister]

Please try them all and make your own informed decision. Also,


RRR   EEEEE    A    DDDD       TTTTT  H   H  EEEEE    W         W IIIII  K   K  IIIII  !
R  R  E       A A   D   D        T    H   H  E        W         W   I    K  K     I    !
R  R  E       A A   D   D        T    H   H  E         W       W    I    K K      I    !
RRR   EEEEE   AAA   D   D        T    HHHHH  EEEE      W   W   W    I    KK       I    !
RR    E      A   A  D   D        T    H   H  E          W W W W     I    K K      I    !
R R   E      A   A  D   D        T    H   H  E          W W W W     I    K  K     I     
R  R  EeEEE  A   A  DDDD         T    H   H  EEEEE       W   W    IIIII  K   K  IIIII  !

[loadman]

Please try them all and make your own informed decision. Also,


RRR   EEEEE    A    DDDD       TTTTT  H   H  EEEEE    W         W IIIII  K   K  IIIII  !
R  R  E       A A   D   D        T    H   H  E        W         W   I    K  K     I    !
R  R  E       A A   D   D        T    H   H  E         W       W    I    K K      I    !
RRR   EEEEE   AAA   D   D        T    HHHHH  EEEE      W   W   W    I    KK       I    !
RR    E      A   A  D   D        T    H   H  E          W W W W     I    K K      I    !
R R   E      A   A  D   D        T    H   H  E          W W W W     I    K  K     I     
R  R  EeEEE  A   A  DDDD         T    H   H  EEEEE       W   W    IIIII  K   K  IIIII  !

Have not seen that for a while