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What do you consider to be the best frontends for Mame & Mess?


rxd

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That actually does make some sense. I wonder how much of it is true. MAME and MESS and emulation in general are hard enough to use for the average Joe that it's probably not worth the effort for the game companies to go after.

 

I'm also curious, when game companies release these game compilation discs, virtual console games etc...how much to they rely on the open source emulators out there?

 

Not alot. They always write their own stuff, so they can copyright it. In fact, they'd be against using the open source stuff. Reviewers would be quick to point out that it's available for free. And don't the licenses and distro terms say that a fee can't be charged?

 

Depends on the license. Stella and many other emulators are released under the GPL, which have no say in what you can charge. They're only concerned with what you do with the code. So, if you make modifications to the code, you have to release it. But you can still charge for it.

 

In fact, there's at least one company (which I forget right now) that sells their original DOS-only software with ScummVM bundled to run it. This is completely legal by the GPL.

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Well, not to kiss ass here but I find Stella to be an awesome emulator with a great GUI.

 

I didn't mean to start a sh*t storm here but I find this frontend stuff annoying, especially when both Mame and Mess had functional GUI's in the past.

 

But like you so, they are free software and beggars can't be choosers....

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Ohh don't worry about making a shitstorm! I do that when I get buzzed and high. Happens all the time.

 

I've always found throughout the years that emulators are programmed better on the inside than on the outside.

Whereas with Windows and many commercial apps, these things are better on the outside than on the inside.

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How do Mess frontends even work? Mess breaks things down by system and then games on that system. Do Mess frontends work the same way? I've never even seen a Mess frontend...

 

Instead of a single bulk rom set, MESS uses a concept call Software Lists. These provide a breakdown of ROMs available for each type of system. It's up to the UI as to host why want to display these lists. Fore example, It could be viewed as a single list showing all ROMs or a filtered list per system.

 

As software lists are relatively new in MESS, many of the older UIs simply allow you to start the emulator in a specific mode (i.e. 2600, C64, etc...). You would then load your ROM manually through the default MESS UI.

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If it'll help at all, here's how to use MESS without a front end.

 

- Run the MESS executable

- Search for and select the system core you want to emulate

- MESS will automatically 'reboot' and load the system core

- Pass by any messages which appear

- Press TAB to open the option menu

- Use the File Manager to select the ROM you want to run

 

That's pretty much it.

 

Mame can be run in a similar way. Instead of being shown a list of cores to emulate, it will simply allow you to select a ROM to load. The interface will only display a dozen or so ROMs at a time, so you will need to search for the game you want to play.

Edited by goldenegg
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The whole concept of a "front-end" that you have to install in addition to a "back-end" and elsewhere, "frameworks" is utterly uncivilized.

 

 

No, this is actually the Right Way to do it. Not everybody needs or wants a front end, and those who do will have wildly varying needs. It only makes sense to separate the function from the presentation. This minimizes the duplication of work on the core, and minimizes work for ports and custom applications.

 

This is actually the way all apps should be written. Put the core functionality into a cross platform library, and let front end writers do whatever they want. Wouldn't it be great if you could just load up a 3rd party front end to something like Microsoft Word and get exactly the interface you want?

 

And really, when you think about it, the operating system is the one true universal front end. You can launch anything from it.

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The whole concept of a "front-end" that you have to install in addition to a "back-end" and elsewhere, "frameworks" is utterly uncivilized.

 

 

No, this is actually the Right Way ™ to do it. Not everybody needs or wants a front end, and those who do will have wildly varying needs. It only makes sense to separate the function from the presentation. This minimizes the duplication of work on the core, and minimizes work for ports and custom applications.

 

This is actually the way all apps should be written. Put the core functionality into a cross platform library, and let front end writers do whatever they want. Wouldn't it be great if you could just load up a 3rd party front end to something like Microsoft Word and get exactly the interface you want?

 

And really, when you think about it, the operating system is the one true universal front end. You can launch anything from it.

 

We are clearly not understanding eachother.

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Well, I think Hatta is living in a dream world or a drug induced haze. Microsoft Word with a customizable frontend? Are you serious? How would anyone ever be able to figure anything out then? I get so many calls "How do you do this in Word?" Imagine if everyone customized there Word frontend. Or even worse had a different frontend. Madness. It would be utter chaos. Why do you think Linux gets nowhere? It's so fragmented and unstandardized. Who has time for this shit? People just want things to work. Same thing with these frontends. It not only makes things much more difficult to setup and much more complicated to maintain but totally fragments the user base. "How do I do this?", "Well, what frontend are you using? Oh I dont use that so I don't know" rediculous.

 

All I needed to do before was install the latest Mame or Mess exe (update my roms if I wanted) and rescan my roms. Bam Done.

 

And why is everything "Old" bad? Mame had an "Old" gui. Really? I thought it was totally clean, logical and functional. Look at all these frontends. None of them are as clean, functional and easy to use as Mame's gui. Oh some are prettier but are a total hassle to configure. Others are easy to configure but are actually a step back visually and functionally.

 

"But this is a good idea!". Yea right. The Mame team is so full of good ideas. Just ask actually Mame users about some of the Mame teams great ideas... :mad:

Edited by rxd
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All I needed to do before was install the latest Mame or Mess exe (update my roms if I wanted) and rescan my roms. Bam Done.

 

And why is everything "Old" bad? Mame had an "Old" gui. Really? I thought it was totally clean, logical and functional. Look at all these frontends. None of them are as clean, functional and easy to use as Mame's gui.

 

I don't think you were using base Mame builds. Sounds like you were using Mame32 (which is now called MameUI), which is not part of the main Mame project. It's a 3rd party front-end, which is bundled with the main Mame binary. Mame itself never had a 'clean, logical and functional' interface.

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Yes, I used Mame32 and now MameUI,

 

But now they're being fazed out and harder to find. I can't even find the Mess GUI 64 bit version anymore...

 

I'm not sure why you're having a hard time finding the emulators. They're both in development and haven't been fazed out yet. The first Google result when searching for MameUI and MessUI will get you to their home pages.

 

http://www.mameui.info/

 

http://messui.the-chronicles.org/

 

64-bit binaries are available on both sites.

 

EDIT:

 

Just wanted to add that while MameUI is no longer getting further development, they will continue posting new builds along side Mame. All this means is that the UI itself will not see any changes.

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Well, I think Hatta is living in a dream world or a drug induced haze. Microsoft Word with a customizable frontend? Are you serious? How would anyone ever be able to figure anything out then? I get so many calls "How do you do this in Word?" Imagine if everyone customized there Word frontend. Or even worse had a different frontend. Madness. It would be utter chaos. Why do you think Linux gets nowhere? It's so fragmented and unstandardized. Who has time for this shit? People just want things to work. Same thing with these frontends. It not only makes things much more difficult to setup and much more complicated to maintain but totally fragments the user base. "How do I do this?", "Well, what frontend are you using? Oh I dont use that so I don't know" rediculous.

 

"But this is a good idea!". Yea right. The Mame team is so full of good ideas. Just ask actually Mame users about some of the Mame teams great ideas... :mad:

 

I'm still waiting for them to fix the Liberator 13/16 pokey sound bug that crashes upper levels. So I said the hell with it and reverted to an older version where it is NOT broken, for this one game. This bug is like so old my gramma looks young!

 

Absolutely, couldn't-A said it better myself! Especially the Linux comment. Nobody likes Linux for that exact reason, no consistency. It's fine for folks that wanna sit around all day tweaking and optimizing. Linux is a technical operating system. Or a one-task-only deal for embedded things like GPS and any number of consumer products. But when it comes time to get something done, pffaggh... Give me Windows.

 

There was even some half-assed attempt at putting Linux on iPods. And there was a time when I was stupid and believed that there was something special about Linux on an iPod. SMACK!!!

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All I needed to do before was install the latest Mame or Mess exe (update my roms if I wanted) and rescan my roms. Bam Done.

 

And why is everything "Old" bad? Mame had an "Old" gui. Really? I thought it was totally clean, logical and functional. Look at all these frontends. None of them are as clean, functional and easy to use as Mame's gui.

 

I don't think you were using base Mame builds. Sounds like you were using Mame32 (which is now called MameUI), which is not part of the main Mame project. It's a 3rd party front-end, which is bundled with the main Mame binary. Mame itself never had a 'clean, logical and functional' interface.

 

So that explains some of it. Some stupid gay-ass 3rd party front end.. Ahhh...

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I'm still waiting for them to fix the Liberator 13/16 pokey sound bug that crashes upper levels. So I said the hell with it and reverted to an older version where it is NOT broken, for this one game. This bug is like so old my gramma looks young!

 

While I don't think it's fair that a whole project should be prosecuted over a particular game either not working or regressing in behavior, it might be a comfort for you to know that there has been recent improvements, fixes and lots of work done on "pokey" in the last couple weeks. The bug you mention appears to have been addressed and resolved:

 

http://mametesters.org/view.php?id=501

 

Why not try version 0.146 from http://mamedev.org and let us know how it works out.

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  • 1 year later...

If it'll help at all, here's how to use MESS without a front end.

 

- Run the MESS executable

- Search for and select the system core you want to emulate

- MESS will automatically 'reboot' and load the system core

- Pass by any messages which appear

- Press TAB to open the option menu

- Use the File Manager to select the ROM you want to run

 

In case anybody wants to know, I used the BIOS from this thread then followed the instructions above and got a demo working without using a frontend. I then downloaded MESSUI and it was actually harder to figure out how to run the demo using that frontend, but I eventually figured out that I needed to click on Device View to find and play the demo.

 

Thanks.

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