Whats the best emulator menu / menu maker?

[DoPeFiSh]

I'm looking for the best emulator menu for use with lots of different emulators like mame and daphne and so on......, one that all I have to do is turn on the computer and it boots directly into the menu instead of windows XP


Anything like that exist :confused: ??

Thanks.....

[retroguiden]

I'm looking for the best emulator menu for use with lots of different emulators like mame and daphne and so on......, one that all I have to do is turn on the computer and it boots directly into the menu instead of windows XP


Anything like that exist :confused: ??

Thanks.....

I'm threading on unknown ground here but I *think* that you need an OS underneath said program to begin with. But once inside Windows or whatever you choose any program could be made autostarting.

[FatTrucker]

You are looking for a Front-End. There are a number of different multi-emu frontends available, the best way is to try a few and see which you get on best with.

Popular free ones are mamewah, emuloader, and Mala, you could also look at offlinelist.

Shareware ones to look at (the basic prog is free but you pay for the full version) are Maximus and GameEx.

All will provide a common front-end for your emulators and allow you to pick your games from a list featuring screenshots, other artwork, music, sounds and movies dependent on how you want to set them up.

Give some a try and when you've decided which one you want to use if you get stuck post again for support.

You can set any of these up as your Windows shell (basically windows will boot straight to the front-end instead of launching explorer and booting to your desktop), a far easier method is to put a shortcut to the front-end .exe into the windows startup folder and use software to change your windows startup and shutdown screens.

[ulaoulao]

You mean people use something other then QuickPlay?? Just Kidding unless you are building a mame-cab QuickPlay is the way to go. I have not used QP as a shell replacement but it could be used that way.


Going the community here.. http://www.quickplayfrontend.com/

[FatTrucker]

Looks a lot like OfflineList!. ;)

[TchuBacha]

EmuControlCenter (www.camya.com/)? and stick a shortcut to the program in the startup folder?

[retroguiden]

Which was just about what I said earlier!;)

[DoPeFiSh]

This will be for my multi arcade cabinet, so I wanted to try to hide windows xp the best I can, is there a way to boot windows xp without using a GUI ? it wouldn't matter to me if it's a menu to get to the emulator menus, i'm just tired of (the kids) getting into and messing up all the windows settings, they seem to enjoy putting screensavers on it that are loaded with spyware and/or viruses! Nothing worse than playing mame or any other emulator and get interrupted with a stupid advertisement :fuckyou: !

[FatTrucker]

Mamewah (and other Fe's like it) will do what you want. Just put the Front-End .exe file into the Windows startup folder and it will load as soon as windows loads so no one will have access to the desktop. You can completely define the UI controls so map the exit to windows or shutdown key to a button and mount it somewhere out of the way like on top of or behind the cab.

There's a vid of one of my Mame cabs running Mamewah here to give you an idea. I just put the .exe into the windows startup folder and changed the windows loading screen to a Mame one.

Right Click and Save As - FT's Mame Cab (http://www.bleat.org.uk/mamecab/100_0020.mov)

You can also use it for any of your other emu's. There are pics of my emulation setup on the TV Here (http://www.gamestm.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9544&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0) my setup is posted about 6 posts down the page that link takes you to.

[alcoatjez]

:fuckyou: !

Haha! Good to see you here, Dopefish :) Now show up on No-Intro :p j/k
Check here (http://www.arcadecab.com/Projects/Mamewah_installation_of_1.62b13.htm) for a (bit outdated) guide on Mamewah.
Also, be sure to check the Official Mamewah forum (http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=arcadeospc2jamma).

[DoPeFiSh]

I'm gonna check into instant sheller http://www.gameex.net/Community/InstantSheller/tabid/73/Default.aspx

I learned about it from this youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7rh6aKDzCY

looks like he has a very nice cabinet !

[retroguiden]

Ok, I thought Id Hi-jack this thread since my questions are related.

Where is the official Mamewah page? Everywhere I look it seems to point to http://mamewah.mameworld.net/ but that isn't working (anymore).

Also, I need suggestions for multi-emulator frontends for Linux.

[FatTrucker]

The .net domain that hosts most of the main Mame sites has been down for over a week.
It usually happens around this time every year when the domain is up for renewal. This year however 'Roc' who maintains the sites reckons the problem is with the hosting company ztnet so everything has been ftp'd on the off chance it doesn't get sorted and all has to be moved to a new domain.

I can sort you all the mamewah stuff if you want it emailed, not sure if your email has a limit on the size of files it will accept though. Just let me know.

Re: Linux, I'm afraid I can't help further than directing you to google.

I definitely recommend Mamewah as a day to day front-end, as once you get around the learning curve its a very fast efficient FE with a tiny footprint and lots of cool features.

For a showcase FE the current king is now Hyperspin....incredibly good looking FE but a bit cumbersom to use as your daily FE when you just want to skim quickly through your game lists.

[retroguiden]

I can sort you all the mamewah stuff if you want it emailed, not sure if your email has a limit on the size of files it will accept though. Just let me know.

yeah, the main program would be nice to start out with and feel my way around. Don't know where yahoo draws the line with big files but try to send it over and if it doesn't work drop me a line and I'll work around it.
Do you still have my yahoo address?