Mame Front End Question

ArcadeKO

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I have been tossing around the idea of building a MAME machine but the front ends I have tried seem to be really hard to work with.

I have played around with:
MameWah
MaLa
Hyperspin

I only want to run arcade games (not all the other emus) and I want to make a dedicated cabinet that doesn't use a keyboard (or a bunch of buttons that have keyboard equivalents - I want the standard 2 joysticks, 6 buttons per player and 1+2 player start.

Anyway, so I tried to set up a few of these and I don't understand why MaLa and Hyperspin all come pre-loaded with like 8000 games in the list. I just tried to set up a mame with a handful of roms to test it out and even when I tried to choose the game from the list it wouldn't launch...

Anyway - I figured these front ends would be smart enough to read the rom directory and build a list of games from that (Like easy mame appears to be able to do) but so far i haven't had any luck.

Anyone recommend a decent looking FE that is a little more self configurable? Or maybe there is a menu building tool that I am not aware of for MaLa?
 
mala is a pain to set up. i had to create a custom list and then go through the bug list and find which version i had of the roms for the games i wanted.

BUT

once you have it set up properly, its a breeze to use

i havent used a keyboard with my mame cab in years and dont have any admin buttons
stuff like escape is a shifted command, and i have it set up to run on startup and prevent the program from shutting down. to turn it off i pull the power cord. to turn it on i plug it in and hit the power switch on the PC.
 
Have you thought about using just the MameUI32 version? It's really easy to set up and I believe you can lose the keyboard after its set up.
 
Very easy to edit Hyperspin so a wheel doesn't show up, but it also has an option in the config program that lets you only show the MAME wheel.

I think MaLa is horrible, too basic and yet a huge pain in the ass to set up...bad combination.
 
I have had great luck with Maximus Arcade. Very easy to setup, and should you want to play console games in the future, you can.

It is a pretty easy interface and setup.

http://www.maximusarcade.com/

Edit** It isn't free, but the 25 bucks it is worth the ease...
 
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I have had great luck with Maximus Arcade. Very easy to setup, and should you want to play console games in the future, you can.

It is a pretty easy interface and setup.

http://www.maximusarcade.com/

Edit** It isn't free, but the 25 bucks it is worth the ease...

+1. I love the look of Maximus Arcade and it's real simple to use.
 
Here's how I have mine setup.
Use a program called Romlister which allows you to ignore certain types of games and creates an XML file for hyperspin.
Use HyperHQ - set to use MAME Wheel only
In HyperHQ choose to ignore bad/clone roms. Also choose to allow parent roms only.

Using this combination greatly cuts down on the clutter.
 
Here's how I have mine setup.
Use a program called Romlister which allows you to ignore certain types of games and creates an XML file for hyperspin.
Use HyperHQ - set to use MAME Wheel only
In HyperHQ choose to ignore bad/clone roms. Also choose to allow parent roms only.

Using this combination greatly cuts down on the clutter.

romlister is great for making game lists for MALA as well.
 
Hyperspin is very easy to edit.
The videos and themes make it by far the best front end in my opinion.
The only issue is have a computer with at least 2gigs of ram(not that it cost more than like 25$ these days).
 
Awesome suggestions from all. I am about to convert an old 2ghz XP machine to a dedicated cabinet and I got a Jpac card for the harness! I will let you know how it comes out - thanks for all the tips!
 
I used to use Maximus Arcade as well when I had a MAME cab. I had it set where it didn't need a keyboard but what I did was get a wireless one and just put it away somewhere inside the cab, so if I DID need it (for cheats, etc) I could bust it out and use it. This is how I set mine up using the street fighter 2 layout:

Several of these are the default MAME settings when using a JPAC. (signified by a *)

*Moving up or down a single game in the game select area: P1 joystick
*Start a game: P1 start
Skipping 5 or 10 games up: Button 1 (light punch)
Skipping 5 or 10 games down: button 4 (light kick)
Skipping by letter up: Button 2 (med punch)
Skipping by letter down: Button 5 (med kick)
*Insert Coin: Hold P1 start and tap button 1 (same for P2)
Exit Game: Hold Button 6 (hard kick) and tap P1. I had to change this because the default MAME exit is Hold P1 and tap P2 but that would sometimes make Maximus Arcade fart on itself.
*Pause: Hold P1 start and tap Up (or down, I cant remember)

I used mala a few times but it just looked terrible. I tried hyperspin and while it was very pretty it was way too much for me and it also slowed down my P4 3gHz pc with 2 gigs of RAM and a 320gb HDD.
 
I use Mala and find it very simple, not as pretty as Hyperspin. But it really is easy..there are lots of different themes for it, and you can setup fave lists, most played, genre, etc.

I'm actually thinking of changing to Hyperspin but I don't feel like paying more money to download all the video previews and all the extra media you need..like wheel art and game art and all that shit gets confusing what the hell I actually need haha...
 
Try AtomicFE - powerful and easy to use. It will automatically check your roms folder and only list those games. If you add new games, it adds them automatically to the list. Plus, it has over 100 themes to download for free, most of which are animated if you like that - or of course, standard list types as well.
 
Mala is very easy to setup. I had no issue as I had a complete set of working roms and made my own custom theme that is available to download below.

Here's how it works:



NOTE: I have since fixed the slow scrolling by changing the video start delay. And, yes... I know I can hide windoze completely. Doesn't bother me.

http://johnsarcade.com/mala/johnsarcadecom.zip
 
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I use Mala and find it very simple, not as pretty as Hyperspin. But it really is easy..there are lots of different themes for it, and you can setup fave lists, most played, genre, etc.

I'm actually thinking of changing to Hyperspin but I don't feel like paying more money to download all the video previews and all the extra media you need..like wheel art and game art and all that shit gets confusing what the hell I actually need haha...

Do a search for the Emumovies torrent, if you mean just the little videos for the previews. It (the videos, not hyperspin) worked pretty well for me.
 
Do a search for the Emumovies torrent, if you mean just the little videos for the previews. It (the videos, not hyperspin) worked pretty well for me.

Yes, I have all those preview videos with MALA as shown in my video above. I paid for FTP access for a year. Makes a huge difference.
 
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