Re: CAbinet done but do not play..cause not efficient

Subject:

Comments:
: : Ok heres a few things..I have yet to try ArcadeFX I tried RD and i hated : : it. The thing is I do not want mine to use a mouse at all want it simple and not Windows like. Want it to auto boot into it and seem like it has its own OS. : : Well, with windows98 that is easy. Right now I don't have a machine to test this, but I remember hacking 98 so it didn't look like 98 started. : Anyway, one thing you can do is make a logo.sys file (which is just a bitmap file) for windows startup. Then put the program in the startup folder so it starts up isntantly when windows starts. The desktop will flash really quick, but you can use TweakUI to get rid of the icons on the desktop and hide the taskbar so you won;t see that. You could even get the litestep replacement for explorer and completely customize the desktop to hide it. : I know there was a way to change your system.ini file to not use explorer but to bott to a program. : Like changing shell=Explorer.exe to shell=myfrontend.exe. I know someone has done that with a car mp3 player he made. He didn't need windows in his car, just startup winamp with no extras. : But that is a use at your own risk. have a backup of the original ini file on a boot disk so you can go back. : Teh onyl other way to make it look like you got rid of the os is to use linux. But i'd go with windows 98. There are so many ways to hack it to do what you want. It just takes research. That's how crappy of an OS it was. : ArcadeFX and RD do use joystick and buttons. Mouse is an otional thing. You may NEED to use it in advanded menus to set it up, but that's about it. You aren;t going to get away from that, amme, and making a frontend for mame are too complex to make a simple utility to setup a customizable frontend. : First, try PartyOn. It doesn't auto detect roms but it goes full screen and doesn't look like windows. Only uses mame keys. Now i doesn;t autodetect roms. But it wouldn't be that hard to write a script that makes the categories file for it. It is a use at your own risk program. The guy offers no support. But it is nice. That's what I use right now until I get my frontend done. : http://www.critters.org/noontidenight.com/partyon/ : There are other tweeks to 98 to make itseem like 98 isn't booting. : Wait a month or two. I have a frontend that is coming out that is going to be cool. But I have to warn you it is a use at your own risk. First off, you won;t be able to customize the graphics. Sorry, don;t have time to put that in, making it pretty much for myself. : This was the frontend's goals: : Only use a joystick and three buttons. We achieved this. For the most part it only uses the joystick and one button, the other two buttons or just for page up and page down. : Second, it had to handle large amounts of roms. We do that by storing available roms in a database so it is fast.With the ability to handle alot of roms you need to navigate it easily. we did that by allowing 20 categories, user editable favorite lists, and a search feature. : It had to be full screen. I didn;t want anyone know I had windows running when they saw my cabinet. We used flash to do that. The nice thing about flash is that we get to put alot of cool little animations in to make the frontend come alive. : It also had to rather powerful in use. Well, being able to have favorite lists and search helps. Currently the frontend is in its early stages of autodetecting what roms there are. We also allow multiple mame exes. To make a rom use a different exe, like asteroids to use 36final to get the right sound, you will have to set that up in the advanced section (all navigatable by keyboard or mouse). Though for the first edition advanced stuff will only use a mouse, but one won't be in that section that often. another thing in advanced updting your available roms, total mame available roms, categories, etc.. : Now, this frontend, as I said, is mainly being developed for my needs. It has a pacman theme because I love pacman. You can see a debug pic of it at http://kevin.jonas.com/images/yapfe1.jpg. That is an actualy screenshot using the keyboard's "Print Screen" key. : As I said that is a debug pic. We plan on having a pic of my cabinet(sorry, as I said, made for me) with screenshot (that look like they are on a monitor, ie glare and such), marquees, and flyers. : Since this is made for me when I put it on my website it is a use at your own risk. There isn't going to be much support for it. There may be in the future one that uses "generic" arcade graphics instead of pacman, but who knows.

Optional Link address (start with http://):
Link Title:
Optional Image address (start with http://):