Which software frontend for my needs?

[jedimason]

I'm new to mame and I'm building a cocktail cabinet with an extra third control panel on the side.

I'll be running an athlon xp 2000 with a computer monitor and will only be using joysticks and buttons as my inputs.

I also plan on using one of the mame jukebox frontends.

Should I just go with mame32?  What is the easiest for the average user who only can use the joystick and buttons to select games, etc...

I've downloaded both mame32 and mame32plus and have been messing around with both of them.  Another question I have is I know how to have mame32 start up when windows boots, but how do force a system shutdown when you exit the emulator?

Thanks,
Jonny

[jedimason]

Also fogot to add,

Which is the easiest to set up all of my games for.  Like which joystick goes with which game, orienting the screen the correct way, and all that other stuff.  I haven't found a site that really explains how to do this.

Or do I have to go into everygame at the beginning and change some of the settings.

Like for instance how does it know to use the joystick on the third control panel when playing street fighter, but use the one on the end to play galaga.

Thanks for listening to my stupid question,
Jonny

[colopioneers]

jedimason,

I'm pretty new too, but I've been experimenting with a few front ends.  I found that good ol mame32 was the easiest to use and configure.

You'll need to do some searching for most of this stuff.  It's pretty much all been discussed before, and don't get offended if someone else says to do that.  Visit each forum and read the stickys.  When I joined, I did that.  It gives you a bunch of stuff.

Hang around for a while and observe; there's quite a few guys here who know TONS about all this.  Most of them have forgotten more than I'll ever know!  

colopioneers

[Jakobud]

You guys should not waste your time trying to get Mame32 running in a cabinet.  Once you loose your keyboard and mouse it's a pain to configure.  I'd look at:

Dragon King
Game Launcher
MameWah
Kymaera
MyFE

[colopioneers]

You're right Jakobud...

I have a drawer for my keyboard, which is enabled using the pass-through switch on my KeyWiz, and my trackball interfaces with my PS/2 port.  

However, that's just my preference.  And I'm not real experienced with the other frontends.

I guess I should educate myself a little better before posting.

[Jakobud]

Well the nice thing about a real frontend, like the ones I listed (i.e. NOT Mame32) is that it looks for authentic and user friendly in an arcade cabinet.  People walk up to the cabinet and don't know that you just have a computer in there with Windows running in the background.  If you are running Mame32 they know it right away...

[NoOne=NBA=]

Check these out, and you decide.
They are examples of what you can do with MAMEWAH, off the shelf.

The nice thing about it is that you can customize it to fit what you are envisioning for your cabinet.

NoOne's UT MAMEWAH Layout

Here's the one I did for mine, showing Asteroids.
I used photoshop to overlay a digital photo I took of my cab onto some screenshots I took in UT for the background.
Then I used MAMEWAH to automatically put in the marquees, screenshots, and control panels for the games that have them.

If the game is missing one or more elements, they are replaced by the default files which are what the cabinet actually looks like.
If all three files are missing, it will look like this.

NoOne's Default Pics

[jedimason]

Okay, I've done alot of research the past day and you guys have convinced me on using the regular mame with a front end.  

Specifically what is your favorite.

I've been seeing that alot of people like mamewah for most of the same reasons.

Anybody have another favorite front end and why so?

-Jonny

[PacManFan]

I may be a little biased, But Kymaera's my favorite FE. (Because I wrote it). Kymaera canm also display skins at a 0,90,180,270 degree rotation, so it would work well for you cocktail and 1 side cabinet. Kymaera's a fairly new FE, so it doesn't have the following some of the other FE's have.

I would also suggest checking out MameWah and Dragon King, and making your own decision. See which one is easier to set up/configure/ and use for your purpose. Gamelauncher is also very good for cocktail cabinets, as well as CocktailFE.

-PMF

[NoOne=NBA=]

Unfortunately I started at the bottom of the FE list.
I tried a bunch of the can't configure them types.
I stopped trying new ones when I found MAMEWAH.

I have heard really good things about both Kymaera and Dragon King, but haven't personally tried either of them.
I did find MAMEWAH a bit difficult to configure exactly the way I wanted it INTUITIVELY.
I resorted to something I rarely ever do-- I actually READ the "readme" files for it.

Once I figured out how the layout designer was organized, it went together like a dream though.

[orntar]

i went to alot of these home pages and cannot find if these will work with winkawaks. i don't really want to download them to try it out either. does any one know of a FE that will work with winkawaks?

perhapse i should go thru the who thing of setting up mame.  
(i don't relly want to do that)

[krick]

Anyone using myHTPC...

http://myhtpc.net/

...and myGames...

http://myhtpc.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1433

the first place I saw it was here...

http://www.pyronious.com/htdocs/emulation04.shtml

...
Krick

[Howard_Casto]

does any one know of a FE that will work with winkawaks?

A couple of things here......  winkawaks runs games that mame already runs and nothing else.  It is not command line based while mame is.  So quite frankly none of the fe devs care if winkawaks works as you should be using mame.  Wk might run with lower resources and seem "cooler" to you but that kind of stuff is irrelevant as you have two or three good alternatives that support the command line.    

Now normally I would suggest you try my generic command line wrapper just for the heck of it but you said this....

i don't really want to download them to try it out either.
perhapse i should go thru the who thing of setting up mame.  
(i don't relly want to do that)

If you aren't willing to setup and try a fe then you won't have the patience to use ANY of the fes available here.  Stick to mame32 until you are willing to invest the proper amount of time in things.

[Spaced Invader]

Anyone using myHTPC...

http://myhtpc.net/

...and myGames...

http://myhtpc.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1433

the first place I saw it was here...

http://www.pyronious.com/htdocs/emulation04.shtml

...
Krick

I've messed around with it. It's great if you want to add some gaming ability to your HTPC. But for a cab it's just not a great fit. It will work, but there are three (and more sprouting up all the time) FE's that do the job so much better. MameWah is great especially for a lower end system; Dragon King is just beautiful; and Kymera does that cool wheel thing (using it in my next cab)...I've built, or am in the process of building cabs using all three and they are all great...but you gotta try 'em out.

As for the guy that said using "good ol mame32" was a good idea...that's just crazy talk!

Opinions Vary!  

[orntar]

does any one know of a FE that will work with winkawaks?

A couple of things here......  winkawaks runs games that mame already runs and nothing else.  It is not command line based while mame is.  So quite frankly none of the fe devs care if winkawaks works as you should be using mame.  Wk might run with lower resources and seem "cooler" to you but that kind of stuff is irrelevant as you have two or three good alternatives that support the command line.    

Now normally I would suggest you try my generic command line wrapper just for the heck of it but you said this....

i don't really want to download them to try it out either.
perhapse i should go thru the who thing of setting up mame.  
(i don't relly want to do that)

If you aren't willing to setup and try a fe then you won't have the patience to use ANY of the fes available here.  Stick to mame32 until you are willing to invest the proper amount of time in things.

i am willing to try some out and have much patience (and hate when people assume anything).
i have tried a few and they don't work. i do not use mame32, nor do i ever plan on using it. i will run my cabinet how i have been, as it is pretty slick already.

thanks foi nudging me a little further away from that "mame" thing and their zealous "members"

[Howard_Casto]

They all work, trust me, I keep track of all fes.  If you can't get em running then it's user error.  That's what I'm talking about right there, the attitude that we should feel sorry for you having to invest time in setting them up and if you can't get it running then automatically it must be that the fe "doesn't work".  I've been here a long time, I can spot your type a mile away.  It's nothing personal, I can just tell who is willing to invest proper time and who isn't.

About the assuming....  You posted a random question in a post about a guy wanting to migrate from mame32.  If you weren't running mame32 then you should have said so.  Or perhaps start a new thread.  You can't get mad at a guy assuming your a punk rocker when you walk into a punk rock club.  

If I've misjudged you then I really am sorry. But that's your fault for not giving enough information.  


I'm not sure what your last comment is supposed to mean, but I am not a "member" of anything related to mame.  And if you are disrespecting mame itself then you better step back.....  winkawaks, nebula and all these little third party emus are here soley because of mame.  As a matter of fact most reverse engineered the mame source to develop their own code.  They are great emus, don't get me wrong, but their lower resource requirements (due partially to inaccurate emulation)  tend to draw in nothing but fighter kiddies wishing to run a hacked version so they can play kof 2k3 or whatever.  This is not the intention of those emulators and its stuff like it that is the exact reason that dave quit developing final burn.

[Spaced Invader]

Howard...

I see you're at it again...I can't believe you have the stones to defend all this shoddy free software, and the authors who have devoted countless hous of their time to create such poorly thought out programs. It's obvious that if some newb can't figure out how to configure a FE for his system the software must be to blame.

If you can't criticise something given to you...something created at great expense to someone else...then what can you criticise?