MAMEhub - netplay pre-internet games, keeping oldskool alive (is our aim)
category: offtopic [glöplog]
www.mamehub.info
Hi, someone i spoke to related to demo scene said to try here with our proposal, so here it goes.
We are currently thinking of introducing a 2nd GUI into MAMEhub, a full screen GUI (separate .EXE perhaps), ideal for arcade cab and TV users. We also thought it would be really cool if we could get a demo scene coder interested in writing a screen saver animation for the full screen GUI.
For example, have a gamelist, after 20 seconds, screen saver kicks in, and have a bouncing ball moving round screen. Could even have a random screen saver per scene group, if a few of you are interested.
The headache is, the MAMEhub code is written in Python, so, is it possible to provide some low level code to interface with this?
Any thoughts / suggestions?
Thx
Zambr123
(MAMEhub Team)
PS: if anyone fancies knocking up a full screen gamelist design for us, that would be cool too. We were thinking, some cool looking blue font, black background and fixed middle highlighter. Any help welcome guys :)
Hi, someone i spoke to related to demo scene said to try here with our proposal, so here it goes.
We are currently thinking of introducing a 2nd GUI into MAMEhub, a full screen GUI (separate .EXE perhaps), ideal for arcade cab and TV users. We also thought it would be really cool if we could get a demo scene coder interested in writing a screen saver animation for the full screen GUI.
For example, have a gamelist, after 20 seconds, screen saver kicks in, and have a bouncing ball moving round screen. Could even have a random screen saver per scene group, if a few of you are interested.
The headache is, the MAMEhub code is written in Python, so, is it possible to provide some low level code to interface with this?
Any thoughts / suggestions?
Thx
Zambr123
(MAMEhub Team)
PS: if anyone fancies knocking up a full screen gamelist design for us, that would be cool too. We were thinking, some cool looking blue font, black background and fixed middle highlighter. Any help welcome guys :)
Forgot to mention, if anyone is interested in helping out in any way, you can also contact me directly via our forum, i use same nick. Visit URL for forum link.
The networked play is a great idea, but I see no point in starting a completely new frontend from scratch. The feature sets are just that good in the current mainstream frontends (eg. Hyperspin, Gameex).
Based on this, my recommendation would be to focus on keeping your MAME derivatives up to date with the official builds. There are already way too many derivatives with a good idea out there, that are seldom updated (OR even completely abandoned). I doubt that anyone running these frontends (myself included) would consider switching GUIs as setting up all the emulators and such really is that much of a chore.
And for the screensaver, I much like the 'Attract mode' of my frontend of choice (Gameex). Having all the games work as screensavers is somehow so enjoyable that I often find myself leaving the cab running just for the 'Attract mode'.
Based on this, my recommendation would be to focus on keeping your MAME derivatives up to date with the official builds. There are already way too many derivatives with a good idea out there, that are seldom updated (OR even completely abandoned). I doubt that anyone running these frontends (myself included) would consider switching GUIs as setting up all the emulators and such really is that much of a chore.
And for the screensaver, I much like the 'Attract mode' of my frontend of choice (Gameex). Having all the games work as screensavers is somehow so enjoyable that I often find myself leaving the cab running just for the 'Attract mode'.
Interesting you should say that, the idea here was to allow those 2 GUI systems to call MAMEhub. The code is being completely re-written to make it easier to interface.
The idea was not to replace them, but to be plug and play with them.
We just really like the idea of chip music playing with a simple game list, with some simple animations too boot, for this netplay MAMEhub system :).
The idea was not to replace them, but to be plug and play with them.
We just really like the idea of chip music playing with a simple game list, with some simple animations too boot, for this netplay MAMEhub system :).
nice idea.
using Hyperspin here.
suggestion: there are several nice collections of chipmusic out there, so try to use one of these or just a playlist_of_your_own instead of one single module running everytime you start the hub. (make sure the first played song is random ;) )
hint_for_menu_coder: dont think it gets easy, it will even get more bad than what el-bee described already concerning setting up a front-end as an end-user ;)
having said that, i am very sorry to say i just dont have the time to do that, i really would have liked to! ;)
using Hyperspin here.
suggestion: there are several nice collections of chipmusic out there, so try to use one of these or just a playlist_of_your_own instead of one single module running everytime you start the hub. (make sure the first played song is random ;) )
hint_for_menu_coder: dont think it gets easy, it will even get more bad than what el-bee described already concerning setting up a front-end as an end-user ;)
having said that, i am very sorry to say i just dont have the time to do that, i really would have liked to! ;)
Here's one idea:
(1) Hyperspin launches MAMEhub, MAMEhub runs with Hyperspin skin GUI.
(2) GameEX launches MAMEhub, MAMEhub runs with GameEX skin GUI.
(3) Desktop users, run regular MAMEhub GUI.
(1) Hyperspin launches MAMEhub, MAMEhub runs with Hyperspin skin GUI.
(2) GameEX launches MAMEhub, MAMEhub runs with GameEX skin GUI.
(3) Desktop users, run regular MAMEhub GUI.
What i want to make clear is this, user has to setup MAMEhub first in regular GUI, roms, images, etc.
Then when ready, run full screen GUI app, either standalone or from another FE (such as Hyperspin or GameEX).
The full screen GUI will ONLY have 2 game lists, join and host, and thats it, no other options other than quit. Usre would only be able to use game controller or arcade control with it (or arrow keys).
For use with voice chat only on mumble, no typing chat.
Then when ready, run full screen GUI app, either standalone or from another FE (such as Hyperspin or GameEX).
The full screen GUI will ONLY have 2 game lists, join and host, and thats it, no other options other than quit. Usre would only be able to use game controller or arcade control with it (or arrow keys).
For use with voice chat only on mumble, no typing chat.
Zambr123 ok I understood the "2nd GUI into MAMEhub" as "we're planning to make a 2nd version of the existing GUI" :).
Double setup (roms images etc.) doesn't sound too tempting, like said there is plenty of it as-is. It might be way more worthwhile to try working with GameEx / Hyperspin devs and see if there's a way to have them support networked play directly. You know, maybe have sth like a separate menu entry for 'network playable games'.. Running games from this menu would then use the frontend library and pass rom name / params to MAMEhub (like running regular MAME). You could also have the 'looking for people to join' under this menu.
Not sure about Hyperspin, but at least GameEx can play music just fine. You just setup a directory with mp3s and that's it. Tracker modules / SIDs might be a whole different thing, but if support is missing I'm sure enough demand would equal implementation. Me, I'm fine with mp3s.
Anyway, in GameEx the jukebox mode also works over attract mode, thus both MAME executables and/or videoclips can be shown on-screen while the music library is playing. So to say, to have the bouncing ball screensaver + bgm you could just do a video loop from something like the Amiga ball and have GameEx run that. Random screensavers per demoscene group? Just .kkapture a bunch of demos or download existing ones from scene.org and configure the frontend to run these.
Not as size-efficient for sure, but way faster to implement :)
Double setup (roms images etc.) doesn't sound too tempting, like said there is plenty of it as-is. It might be way more worthwhile to try working with GameEx / Hyperspin devs and see if there's a way to have them support networked play directly. You know, maybe have sth like a separate menu entry for 'network playable games'.. Running games from this menu would then use the frontend library and pass rom name / params to MAMEhub (like running regular MAME). You could also have the 'looking for people to join' under this menu.
Not sure about Hyperspin, but at least GameEx can play music just fine. You just setup a directory with mp3s and that's it. Tracker modules / SIDs might be a whole different thing, but if support is missing I'm sure enough demand would equal implementation. Me, I'm fine with mp3s.
Anyway, in GameEx the jukebox mode also works over attract mode, thus both MAME executables and/or videoclips can be shown on-screen while the music library is playing. So to say, to have the bouncing ball screensaver + bgm you could just do a video loop from something like the Amiga ball and have GameEx run that. Random screensavers per demoscene group? Just .kkapture a bunch of demos or download existing ones from scene.org and configure the frontend to run these.
Not as size-efficient for sure, but way faster to implement :)
..and after this, I noticed this discussion :)
worthless effort then.
try another idea/project.
try another idea/project.
That's a bit harsh, hArDy!
(1) The old GameEX forum post your reading is well out of date and the project was still in a very early alpha stage back then. That was over a year ago.
(2) Hypersin (according to the main author) does not have any developers at all, only script writers for Actionscript 3.
(3) GameEX charges for the full product, so this actually goes against the spirit (and licence) of MAME. However, i do not see an issue providing 3rd party support for users who do not pay for GameEX.
So, there's the issues, politics and reasons.
Therefore, for the optional CAB GUI, we could either:
(A) try to find someone who knows actionscript 3 and Python for full integration with Hyperspin.
(B) or do a standalone 3rd party GUI that both Hyperspin and GameEx can launch. We could i guess, read from the image and rom folder settings configured from either GUI program (to save duplicate work on the user end), like an import feature.
(2) Hypersin (according to the main author) does not have any developers at all, only script writers for Actionscript 3.
(3) GameEX charges for the full product, so this actually goes against the spirit (and licence) of MAME. However, i do not see an issue providing 3rd party support for users who do not pay for GameEX.
So, there's the issues, politics and reasons.
Therefore, for the optional CAB GUI, we could either:
(A) try to find someone who knows actionscript 3 and Python for full integration with Hyperspin.
(B) or do a standalone 3rd party GUI that both Hyperspin and GameEx can launch. We could i guess, read from the image and rom folder settings configured from either GUI program (to save duplicate work on the user end), like an import feature.
Quote:
GameEX charges for the full product, so this actually goes against the spirit (and licence) of MAME.
I don't really see a point in this as the basic version is free and it's not like the full version is expensive either (17USD).
Anyway good luck with the project. I'll probably test CSMAME at some point, tons of other config stuff to work on ;). If you decide to go for a standalone GUI, one good thing to check for is launch functionality on Windows cabinets that have the frontend set as shell on boot (that is, explorer.exe isn't loaded at all). Afaik at least GameEx relies on monitoring app thread status when switching between the frontend and emulator (killing stuck threads etc).