HBMAME and Arcade 64 Questions

[mrfox122]

Hey all,

I have just finished creating my Cabinet and installing the emulators I want, and MAME is one of them. I downloaded a .226 Master (Merged) and was browsing around today while working on getting MAME up and running correctly and ran into something called HBMAME and Arcade 64. I have the general grasp of both but was curious if anyone has a more in depth description of them both. So far all i know is HBMAME has Hacks (Dont know what that implies) and homebrew games (which I also dont know what is). Next with Arcade 64, I have realized that it is a GUI for MAME, but was curious if it had any additional features that I might want opposed to just running MAME .226 with an updated AHK file.

 

Thanks in Advance and sorry if this is in the wrong forum section. You guys have been great and I wish I was making this in the height of hyperspin (Seemed to be 2014-2018)

[Spawk]

I have never used HBMame. Personally, I have no interest in hacks or homebrew. I am sure it has it's own romset.

Arcade64 is a nice little windows GUI for mame but it doesn't do anything that mame doesn't do. It uses the same mame.ahk

I think a good majority of users have now switched to Retroarch for mame! I know... "I hate RA" but the shaders being made for RA are simply better than whatever mame can do with HLSL/GLSL/BGFX. I dunno, maybe that's just personal opinion.

[Spawk]

26 minutes ago, mrfox122 said:

Thanks in Advance and sorry if this is in the wrong forum section. You guys have been great and I wish I was making this in the height of hyperspin (Seemed to be 2014-2018)

This is a sad truth. If HS had gone open source back in the hay day, the users here would have kept HS relevant... or keep it closed source and continue to develop! Their decision to do neither of those things has slowly killed this FE. How long before it becomes like Mala or Mamewah??? The longer they wait to open source, the more likely the code will never get looked at because nobody uses it! User base is key to development. And development feeds the user base. It creates a nice little cycle but you need to keep developing one way or another.

All that being said, I love HS! LOL. I think it's become more of a starting point for users new to the FE scene since it's still the best free option out there. There is a reason why I haven't jumped to LB/BB though. I have been around here a long time. It's not "hard to set up" anymore. I know my way around, I can make things look the way I want. I guess it just does everything I need (other users may expect more I guess).

[mrfox122]

23 minutes ago, Spawk said:

I guess it just does everything I need (other users may expect more I guess).

What are some features that people might want to add to HS?

[Spawk]

I am probably not the best person for that question. I grew up in a time before FE's where ever even thought of. It was a big deal for me when rom manager programs finally started allowing you to launch the game with your choice of emulator right in the UI. For years I dreamed about a simple UI for actually playing these games. And that's what HS is. I have simple tastes. All I need is unified system them, a nicely cut out wheel, and a gameplay video.

I guess if developers were actively working on it, I would ask for little things like being able to space the wheel images out a little more, they seem to overlap a little on the taller images... or possibly grey out all the wheel images except the one your currently on. The real problem with HS is the native 1024x768 resolution. It's not that it's just not HD, stuff scales ok, but it's 3:4 aspect ratio. This is ok if your building a cab with a CRT monitor, but for those with widescreen monitor cabs or "home theater" type users, you need to use some hackish workarounds if you want the HS menu to look perfect. It only affects the menu, don't worry games will run at proper resolutions.

[Mrmikey73]

I’ve been here a while and love Hyperspin. It’s pretty easy to see that it is slowly dying away. These forums are hardly as active as they used to be and I’m sure launchbox has a lot to do with that. The thing I don’t understand is if there’s not going to be updates then why not open the source code. My personal feeling is Bad boy bill isn’t affiliated with this anymore. We know Circo handles it know and have heard news from people like Sub Zero and Frostbyte that updates were coming then years go by with no word. Not blaming them at all just wishing we knew more but I think we all know the truth, Hyperspin is basically dead. I mean last time I checked nobody even fixed the last Windows update so newbies will have to search for a dll file just to get it working lol

[Aorin]

1 hour ago, Mrmikey73 said:

I’ve been here a while and love Hyperspin. It’s pretty easy to see that it is slowly dying away. These forums are hardly as active as they used to be and I’m sure launchbox has a lot to do with that. The thing I don’t understand is if there’s not going to be updates then why not open the source code. My personal feeling is Bad boy bill isn’t affiliated with this anymore. We know Circo handles it know and have heard news from people like Sub Zero and Frostbyte that updates were coming then years go by with no word. Not blaming them at all just wishing we knew more but I think we all know the truth, Hyperspin is basically dead. I mean last time I checked nobody even fixed the last Windows update so newbies will have to search for a dll file just to get it working lol

I agree with you, and actually, a big impact of this and other forums stalling compared to a few years ago is Discord. Personally I prefer using the forums, but a lot of people migrated over to that, and reddit.

As for source code, @fr0stbyt3 said HS relies on old framework and other legacy dependencies. 
Frost is also the one who, in his free time, can answer about some of your doubts above.

[Torden]

Way back when I joined this community 8 years ago, there was lots of life here, and the creativity was flowing. We were a passionate team who got things done.

But as we age life changes; more responsibility at work, children gets born, the house needs to get fixed, the wife needs attention. And then we have to juggle the little spare time we have left for ourselves. Programming for a frontend is not number one on the list for most people.

Since the source code will not be released, some younger people with less responsibilites and more time on their hands could be involved in the programming. But HS is also made in actionscript, which is not exactly common knowledge, and with flash support shutting down soon, it is basically facing death because nobody would care to study a dead programming language.

For myself, I have put way too much work into perfecting my HS setup the past 8 years to start doing the same with a different frontend. Launchbox (Bigbox) is quick and easy, and I have it up and working with rlauncher, but it just isn't the same. It doesn't have the traces of blood, sweat and tears that were put into my HS. As long as it works in windows, it will be my preferred frontend, but I understand why those who starts using a frontend today would choose something different.

 

[Asparky]

Rlauncher is going the same way. If it wasnt for agent47, the Modules wouldnt get updated.

I've personally moved over to Launchbox, which is much easier to get up and running and with the Plugin, that Krakerman is developing,which also mean's Rlauncher, will be thing of the Past.

As others have said, its a shame, the Source Code, has not been released, for both Hyperspin or Rlauncher, just think of what these items could be like now.............