› ›

Mame-esque Frontend For Emulators?

HoraceLeavesAMessageHoraceLeavesAMessage
edited December 2006 in Emulators
Hi All

Other than GamebaseZX that doesn't seem to be updated very often, has anyone thought of creating a new frontend for the emulators which could look very much like Mame but link to WOS or Infoseek so that it is constantly up to date.

i'd have a go myself but being somewhat inept i have no idea where to even begin, but i'm happy to help out wherever i can with links and things like that.

also apologies if someone else has posted a similar thing... i've not been around here for a while.
Post edited by HoraceLeavesAMessage on

Comments

  • DunnyDunny
    edited December 2006
    HoraceLeavesAMessage wrote:
    Hi All

    Other than GamebaseZX that doesn't seem to be updated very often, has anyone thought of creating a new frontend for the emulators which could look very much like Mame but link to WOS or Infoseek so that it is constantly up to date.

    i'd have a go myself but being somewhat inept i have no idea where to even begin, but i'm happy to help out wherever i can with links and things like that.

    also apologies if someone else has posted a similar thing... i've not been around here for a while.

    But MAME doesn't have a front end!

    D.
  • icabodicabod
    edited December 2006
    Not quite a "front-end" for WOS/Infoseek, but Dunny implemented an Infoseek search into Spin a little while back - allows you to search and download games... you'll need to search the forums for a link to the latest version, tho'.
  • mheidemheide
    edited December 2006
    HoraceLeavesAMessage wrote:
    Other than GamebaseZX that doesn't seem to be updated very often, has anyone thought of creating a new frontend for the emulators which could look very much like Mame but link to WOS or Infoseek so that it is constantly up to date.
    Yes, it's called Infoseek. :lol:

    Depending on what you mean with 'new', various people have created front-ends in the past.
    The most recently updated one is Claus Jahn's ZX-Explorer, which uses an extract from the Infoseek database. There's also a Windows version for SGD in the pipeline, cleverly named WinSGD (from Martijn Groen), although the release date lags a bit due to problems finding a host.
  • HoraceLeavesAMessageHoraceLeavesAMessage
    edited December 2006
    thats pretty much all i needed to know.

    I remembered when XP came out SGD became quite "luck of the draw" if it would work or not anymore.

    So WINSGD will be welcomed.

    cheers
  • piterspiters
    edited December 2006
    Dunny wrote:
    But MAME doesn't have a front end!
    D.

    ????

    I know at least 3 ones. In Linux world. PDA Mame has too.
  • DunnyDunny
    edited December 2006
    piters wrote:
    ????

    I know at least 3 ones. In Linux world. PDA Mame has too.

    MAME does not have a front end. It's a command-line driven interface, including the newer 32bit versions.

    D.
  • piterspiters
    edited December 2006
    Dunny wrote:
    MAME does not have a front end. It's a command-line driven interface, including the newer 32bit versions.

    May I say that there are front-ends for Mame?
    That there is Windows version of Mame with complete GUI. Mame32 is name of that beast :D
    Use some search...
  • NickHNickH
    edited December 2006
    Here's one of those "interesting ideas that I personally would never use, but other people might like":

    Artwork displayed whilst playing a game - sorta like a 100-pixel border to the Speccy emulated display (a border to the BORDER) which could be anything, from artwork made from adverts, in-game graphics, anything which anyone can come up with.

    Pure eye-candy which I would never use, as I say, but might be nice for Speccy demonstrations at meets, shows and exhibitions.
  • DunnyDunny
    edited December 2006
    piters wrote:
    May I say that there are front-ends for Mame?
    That there is Windows version of Mame with complete GUI. Mame32 is name of that beast :D
    Use some search...

    Yes, but none of the frontends are "MAME", are they? Mame32 is not MAME either for that matter - releases lag behind the official build, as it's a fan-modification of the MAME source.

    I would venture to say that MAME itself will never have a front-end built in, as it isn't written to allow you to play the games - that's just a side-effect. MAME is there for documentation only.

    D.
  • piterspiters
    edited December 2006
    Dunny wrote:
    Yes, but none of the frontends are "MAME", are they? Mame32 is not MAME either for that matter - releases lag behind the official build, as it's a fan-modification of the MAME source.
    I would venture to say that MAME itself will never have a front-end built in, as it isn't written to allow you to play the games - that's just a side-effect. MAME is there for documentation only.
    D.

    Thread started with 'frontend for the emulators'...

    Why should Mame have built-in front-end? It is common in Linux world to have cmd-line app separated from GUI.
    Mame is not written for playing games - it is written as 'demonstration tool', how games looked in those old times. And side effect too is that if you want see how games looked, you must type in 'OK' at first start, and (damn) play them...
    Something like sites with cracked SW and note that it must be deleted in 24 hours...
    Again OT...
  • DunnyDunny
    edited December 2006
    piters wrote:
    Why should Mame have built-in front-end? It is common in Linux world to have cmd-line app separated from GUI.
    Mame is not written for playing games - it is written as 'demonstration tool', how games looked in those old times. And side effect too is that if you want see how games looked, you must type in 'OK' at first start, and (damn) play them...
    Something like sites with cracked SW and note that it must be deleted in 24 hours...
    Again OT...

    Why have you just told me exactly what I told you?

    D.
  • rich_chandlerrich_chandler
    edited December 2006
    Piters, don't contradict yourself, in one post you say Mame does have a front end and then in another you say why should it have a front end...
    I wanna tell you a story 'bout a woman I know...
  • piterspiters
    edited December 2006
    Dunny wrote:
    Why have you just told me exactly what I told you?

    D.

    Because I said it much nicer :D
  • lv426lv426
    edited December 2006
    I think Offlinelist is excellent, displays screenshots, has quite good search functions, easily updated, can be used like ClrMamepro for verifying files and can be set up with emulator.

    the only downsides is I think it can only accept one file per zip, and would take a lot of work to set up

    Here's small example

    http://uk.geocities.com/rjdm229/files/Offline.JPG
  • ewgfewgf
    edited December 2006
    I agree that the poster probably meant Mame32, which has a great built in front end.

    Regarding the (emulated) Spectrum, I still use SGD, as it's great and does almost everything you could wish for. The only real limitation is that it's DOS, and so doesn't handle long filenames or work too well under Win2000/XP, but I use it under Win98 so it's fine for me. Oh, it doesn't interface with newer emulators either, as it's preset to only work with the older, mainly DOS emulators, but again this doesn't bother me as I tend to use X128 as it suits my needs.

    A universal Windows front-end would be brilliant, though, especially if it could use SGD's .dat files, as they are so comprehensive already. I'd use such a front end when I use EmuZWin and Spin for the things X128 doesn't do. It would be even better if the front-end could access and display the loading/in-game screenshots for each game (provided that the screenshots were on the hard drive/CD ROM.
  • InsertFaveGameNameHereInsertFaveGameNameHere
    edited December 2006
    There is a section on Arcade@Home for Mame Front-ends so I suppose people believe MAME does have a front-end, at least colloquially, even if it doesn't technically have one. :)
  • RefrenzRefrenz
    edited December 2006
    InsertFaveGameNameHere wrote:
    There is a section on Arcade@Home for Mame Front-ends so I suppose people believe MAME does have a front-end, at least colloquially, even if it doesn't technically have one. :)

    Unfortunately the frontend (and MAME binaries for that matter) haven't been updated on that site since 2003 or longer. The best site for MAME stuff, including links to the latest frontends is www.mameworld.net. My own frontend recommendation would be EmuLoader. http://www.mameworld.net/emuloader/
  • CKayCKay
    edited December 2006
    Mame32 is usually only hours behind an official update, I`ve lost the link at the mo, but it really is six and two three`s with what you prefer... The u update releases between official numbered releases is different, but I did once find a site where these were covered straight away too...
  • piterspiters
    edited December 2006
    Actually, I don't see much sense for hunting newest Mame versions. Most of games will run fine on older versions. And latest Mame executables are enormous large - some 40MB! Compile can take over 1 hour - just to have emulation of something what you never will see.
    Simple, if old version runs well your stuff, don't even download newest ones.
    Ver 0.36 is pretty good for >20 year oldies.
Sign In or Register to comment.