S.M.F.E. Simple M.A.M.E. Frontend
Quote from pugsy's site: "My current MAME frontend of choice, fully featured and requires no installation at all, just run the exe (so it even works with MAME straight off a dvdr with very little work). And it hasn't crashed once!" :-)
| Download | |
| Binary: | • smfe.exe [2.8MB] [0.8Mb] Version 0.12, (26/Jun/2005), tested with MAME 0.97b • you may optionally get smfe_data.dat [0.9MB] if you have trouble creating your own. |
| Info: | • No installation needed, just run smfe.exe. You must also have mame.exe (or mamepp.exe). • Check "Help->Getting Started" on how to read game data et.c • You can sort the table by multiple columns with shift+clicking on their headers • smfe creates smfe_data.dat which contains all displayed table information, and smfe.ini which contains saved options • You must remove the old .dat file when you change smfe versions • If mame.exe can find MAMEINFO.dat, it will use it and smfe will display recommended games. |
| Sources: | To compile it you will need Borland C++ Builder, Russian Extensions (RX), ADVStringGrid. |
| Misc: | A shell script (for unix) getrom to download a rom from www.mame.dk. Usage: "getrom <romname>". If you don't have the "socket" program, use netcat.Update: www.mame.dk has shut down. |
| Features |
| * Simple means simple to use (hopefully)! * Configurable image locations * Supports PNG, JPG, TIF, GIF, BMP & .ICO formats * Configurable mame.exe location * Supports network drives & UNC paths (\\hostname\sharename\directory) * Can configure various MAME options for video, audio and input options and directory locations. * Also supports using the mame.ini configuration file * Reads supported MAME games from the MAME executable * Checks for rom existence in the system (fast) * Checks for rom validity (not so fast) * Displays recommended games * Supports nplayers.ini parsing (# of players each game supports) * Supports HISTORY.DAT parsing (various game info) * Saves Table data into file to avoid rerunning time-consuming operations * Can kill the mame executable and change back screen resolution in case MAME hangs up. (Ctrl+K) * Tested only with Windows 2000 * Table columns include: ROM name, description, Year, Manufacturer, Clone Info, Played times, Rom Size, Emulated CPU, Game type (raster/vector), Resolution. * Supports multi-column sort (shift+click) * For each game there is additional info displayed which includes recommended games and other game info. * Can export all data in .XLS, .HTML and .TXT formats * Options&paths are saved in smfe.ini, and game info/availability in smfe_data.dat at the same directory as the smfe.exe. It does not use the registry. * Can run from read-only (CDROM/DVDROM) media just generate the .dat file once and place along it with the .exe and .ini |
| TODO |
| * Record audio in .mp3 format (HELP!) * Display the main form rotated. This can already be done (with the driver options) if you have an nvidia card like GeForce. * Display only available roms in the table. Note: You can sort by the first column and have your available games on top. You can have a second sorting criterion by shift+clicking on the table column. * Mail me for ideas |
| Screenshot (v0.4) |
 Click image to view the full-size capture. |
| News |
| * **26/Jun/2005:*version 0.12. Fixed bugs/typos, changed how verifysets is called, improved (hopefully) menu layout, fixed a bug which prevented games to start after a search for their name was performed. **30/Sep/2004:*version 0.9. Now working with mame 0.83, nplayers.ini support + small bug fixes **02/Sep/2002:*version 0.7. Fixed bugs with input devices. Thanks to Ric Kalford for the bug report. **23/Jul/2002:*version 0.6. 2 new menu options: 1) autosave "played" field is now optional to improve loading times and 2) "save table data now". Fixed "save colun sizes" (hopefully). Added an "Auto fill" button when setting the executable/image/rom paths. Added new column: "Game Category" **18/Jul/2002:*version 0.5. bug fixes + support for read-only media + display romset statistics + more debug output in console window **04/Sep/2001:*version 0.4. Changed gamelist retrieve timeout + minor bug fixes **04/Sep/2001:*Project progress will be delayed until 15 September due to other work. **25/Aug/2001:*8402 page hits, 1200 downloads so far! unbelievable! **19/Aug/2001:*version 0.3. First public version. Added some confirmation menus + screen resolution restoration code + minor bug fixes **16/Aug/2001:*version 0.2. First public SMFE release (with announcement to freshmeat) **09/Aug/2001:**Started writing the program. |
| Links |
| * MAME * Emuloader, another frontend, very good. * www.mame.dk arcade rom and information repository. |