Topic: Frontends
Let us know here what are you using for Groovy MAME / Groovy UME and also for everything else, please. Relevant set-up spec. (system resolution, control method, etc.) is interesting information for the matter.
Re: Frontends
Currently, I'm particularly interested in something unusual for 15 kHz -- a Groovy UME frontend for mouse operation and 480i. I don't need per-game screenshots nor videos, just something simple and easy to configure and create folders which lets me use small fonts.
Any suggestion as of now?
3 2014-10-14 10:10:39 (edited by EvilDindon 2014-10-14 10:15:04)
Re: Frontends
Hey,
I plan to use Groovy UME under Hyperspin (and Hyperlanunch 3) on a mini cabinet I built for my son.
In the cabinet, I use a scart RGB connection on a 15" CRT TV to output from my HD4350 that I just flashed with ATOM 15 utility.
The cab is under Win XP 32 bits, calamity drivers 9.3. Everything works great. (all the stuff is on a cheap 60 GO SSD).
I Installed Hyperspin with default themes@640x480 for Mame, Genesis, SNES, Atari 5200 and Daphne. Everything works great, at native 15 kHz resolutions ! All games look better than the originals !
At begening all was buggy in Hyperspin ; I discoverd that it was mp4 video snap's fault : So I Converted all of them to FLV with emumovies little tool. Everything is so smooth now.
My controls are interfaced with a joystick encoder, so, I installed Joy2key in order to control Hyperspin (joystick support is buggy in Hyperspin) ;
For the moment I use UME only for Mame games, but I plan to use UME for all systems above, except Daphne.
I just have to discover how to configure properly UME for other systems above in Hyperlaunch 3. (I guess I have to use the Mess AHK, but I'm not sure). Also, I doon't know where to put bios roms.
Re: Frontends
I believe Recap doesn't have plans to use a cabinet, but a normal PC instead connected to a CRT TV. In his situation I believe the QMC2 frontend would be the best option: http://qmc2.arcadehits.net/wordpress/
But have no experience myself with that one.
Re: Frontends
Yeah, there's a TV set which, despite being 29'', I can easily flip for vertical orientation, but there's also a 22'', 31-kHz Compaq which I'm not sure if it'll keep a dedicated computer or if I will just use one only computer for both displays. I'm contemplating all the possibilities now I'm buying new stuff.
Thanks for the link; I didn't know about that one. Dindon's reply fits here anyway -- if you post a link to the frontend's website whenever you mention a new one, the thread can get pretty useful at some point. Hyperspin is well known but not everybody is used to frontends, so anything is welcome.
6 2014-10-14 14:13:28 (edited by EvilDindon 2014-10-14 14:15:41)
Re: Frontends
If Recap use a PC monitor, then, what's the use of GroovyMame ?
On my desktop PC, I use normal mame with EmuLoader frontend (+ mamu's icons). I Use this setup for years cause I like the clarity of this FE, along with nice icons from Mamu.
Re: Frontends
You read it wrong. I use indeed a 15-kHz monitor (it's a "TV" because I wanted de-interlace features and big size, and you only find that in TV sets). The PC monitor which I also use for gaming is a CRT too, anyway. You can get much use of Groovy MAME with that, since not every game is 15-kHz. In actuality, Groovy is better than the official build even for flat panels, but that's digressing.
8 2014-10-20 13:37:26 (edited by albert_c 2014-10-20 13:40:26)
Re: Frontends
Asus A8N-SLI-Deluxe mobo
AMD Athlon X2 4800+
2GB DDR
Windows 7 32-bit @640x480 Windows resolution
Hacked ATI FireGL 128mb for full 15khz output (bought from eBay thinking it was a real AVGA card. Card selected from list during driver setup was Ultimarc AVGA2)
CRT_Emu XP 32-bit drivers
2x Zero Delay Encoder PCB's for joystick control
Sega New Astro City w/Nanao MS8 monitor (horizontally positioned)
HyperSpin Front End using HyperLaunch method
GroovyMAME 0.154
MAME 0.154 full rom/CHD set (have 0.155 upgrade rom/CHD set and will upgrade once GM 0.155 is ready)
Joystick control only. No keyboard whatsoever. This was setup just before the 64-bit CRT_Emu drivers became available. Works fine so unless system crashes, I am just going to leave the cab as a 32-bit system.
9 2014-10-20 13:50:59 (edited by albert_c 2014-10-20 14:25:47)
Re: Frontends
Recap wrote:
Currently, I'm particularly interested in something unusual for 15 kHz -- a Groovy UME frontend for mouse operation and 480i. I don't need per-game screenshots nor videos, just something simple and easy to configure and create folders which lets me use small fonts.
Any suggestion as of now?
Actually, use HyperSpin. Would be perfect for that purpose. Don't downoad any of the additional artwork. And you can delete the animations that come default in HyperSpin (CTRL+F your HyperSpin folder and delete all *.swf files. And delete any of the images (*.png files) that you don't want to see. Disable the sounds. What you'll end up with is just the wheel where only the text is displayed. You can use a mouse to navigate, but a joystick works just fine.
Using different fonts is hard because you would have to create images for the fonts. If you can accept the default fonts, you can adjust the size of the fonts in HyperSpin. As far as easy to setup, can't help you much there, HyperSpin can be complex. But it isn't all that hard actually. I made a tutorial that users have given me good feedback that helped them to demystify the process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__j-kp9rUgE
Check it out.
Re: Frontends
Thanks. With an engine using ".SWF" files and whatnot, how is this frontend regarding the usage of the system's resources, particularly during the emulation itself? I heard it's not exactly the best at that?
Re: Frontends
It is system intensive since it is Flash-based. But since you will be disabling the Flash effects, system overhead should drop considerably. Can't tell you by how much since I run HyperSpin with all the bells and whistles. Also, if you look at the system specs I posted, you can see it is about 8 years old, low on RAM, weak on GPU power, and isn't quite what you would call a "screamer" PC.
Re: Frontends
Attract-Mode is a graphical front-end for command line emulators such as MAME, MESS and Nestopia. It hides the underlying operating system and is intended to be controlled with a joystick, gamepad or spin dial, making it ideal for use in arcade cabinet setups. Attract-Mode is open source and runs on Linux, OS X and Windows.
Re: Frontends
Attract Mode is absolutely brilliant and works flawlessly with UME. However it doesn't have mouse control, or I'd have mentioned it already.
Re: Frontends
Yeah, well, the idea is to have compiled here all the good ones regardless of particular requirements.
I actually should have mentioned that my priorities are, more than mouse operation, low tech and non-invasiveness, something to just launch and properly configure UME and easily group and select the games, much like the old MAME 32.
Re: Frontends
You can use M+GUI - http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.p … 391.0.html
Re: Frontends
That's interesting. Does it support unlimited favorites lists?
Re: Frontends
I created about 47 favorites lists and all seems to work
