WolfMAME - not plus

sawys · Post by **sawys** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:26 am

mahlemiut wrote:Even better idea... learn to use the commandline. I even included record and playback batch files with the binary.

Even nicer would be a GUI compiling app. Something along the lines of the XFCE (X-Windows window manager) installer which simply tells what you require to build, and if you have everything needed, compile and install it at a mouse click.

I used the commandline only to validate so i think i can record without problem but it's just a problem of seeing what i want at the screen i will show you what i have until now with a screenshot of wolf 106.

The TJT · Post by **The TJT** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 1:13 pm

mahlemiut wrote:
The TJT wrote:CLI, or whatever, is like sooooooou yesterday.
Then why does practically every OS out there have a command prompt?

For like, yesterday's applications?

Chad · Post by **Chad** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 2:50 pm

where ever there is a gui, there will always be a command line. You cannot have a gui with out a command line somewhere :) It's like religion what ever you get used to you will believe. Unfortunatly for this wolfmame run 107+ you might have to get the mame32 executables to see the snapshots next to the games you are selecting to practice play and then use wolfmame to record; IF you are not going to build your own wolfmame-plus that barry may eventually make a patch for.

Post by **mahlemiut** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:38 am

http://mahlemiut.marpirc.net/symboscpc.png

New OS, nothing precedes it, and holy crap, what's that in the background? :O
And no, it does not run CP/M apps.

welby1 · Post by **welby1** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 4:28 pm

If nothing preceeds it, then why the 2000-2006? Wouldn't it just be 2006?

I have never used the commandline version. Perhaps with a couple of slow winters, I may understand it enough to give it a try. I think I'll wait for the patch; pretty sure I can figure that one out, as I do prefer the plus version. I do see where you're coming from by not wanting to patch the modded version without doing the original first, and since you do it for free, I won't complain
Fastforward would be good for some games, like cassette, which I don't play for hatred of the countdown.

Post by **mahlemiut** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 7:17 pm

It's been in beta for 6 years. This is the first non-beta release.

MSX version is also in development.

pat33999 · Post by **pat33999** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 7:40 am

Personally, I wouldn't touch an antiquated command line app/OS with a 10 foot pole, so I'm sticking with wolf106 for now. Judging by the number of wolf107 uploads at MARP, the vast majority of players agree with me.

Post by **mahlemiut** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 7:56 am

I was often amazed at the lack of commandline knowledge people in some of my polytech classes had. And these were *programming* classes at that. Most other students were older than me too. Little or no access to Windows 95 then either, most classes were MS-DOS/Windows 3.11. Only other OS access was SCO Unix, which no one touched if they could avoid it (no access to X-Windows).

For those keeping score, this was from 1994-1997.

pat33999 · Post by **pat33999** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:14 am

I can understand needing to know the command line back in 1994, but what purpose does it serve in 2006? I mean, aside from wasting my time by taking 10 minutes to do the same things I can do in 10 seconds through a GUI?

Blost · Post by **Blost** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:16 am

pat33999 wrote:Judging by the number of wolf107 uploads at MARP, the vast majority of players agree with me.

the fact the database is not updated yet must have something to do with it also

BBH · Post by **BBH** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:38 am

pat33999 wrote:I can understand needing to know the command line back in 1994, but what purpose does it serve in 2006? I mean, aside from wasting my time by taking 10 minutes to do the same things I can do in 10 seconds through a GUI?

go ask that question to the MAME team then, since they've chosen to keep the official versions of MAME command line only. Go on, ask them.

and what the heck are you doing that requires 10 minutes?

dbh · Post by **dbh** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 11:16 am

pat33999 wrote:I mean, aside from wasting my time by taking 10 minutes to do the same things I can do in 10 seconds through a GUI?

"BBH wrote:and what the heck are you doing that requires 10 minutes?

I gotta go along with BBH on this one. Personally, I find it much quicker to do recording with a simple command line batch file. In my current setup, the first time I go to record a game, I have to type "rec gamename" in a command prompt. After that, all I have to do is hit the up-arrow, then return. Using the GUI requires several mouse movements and clicks, and my desk isn't big enough to comfortably fit my Hotrod and mouse so that's actually a pain for me to do.

zlk · Post by **zlk** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 2:52 pm

I like using a GUI since it tells me what games I have played, how many times I have played them, and for how long.

Haze · Post by **Haze** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 3:38 pm

BBH wrote:
pat33999 wrote:I can understand needing to know the command line back in 1994, but what purpose does it serve in 2006? I mean, aside from wasting my time by taking 10 minutes to do the same things I can do in 10 seconds through a GUI?
go ask that question to the MAME team then, since they've chosen to keep the official versions of MAME command line only. Go on, ask them.

and what the heck are you doing that requires 10 minutes?

I run MAME maybe a couple of hundred times a day when developing something, testing changes etc.

Which is faster? me typing "mamed sonic -debug" and "mamed sonic" if i want to run without the debugger and "src/drivers/genesis.c" to edit the genesis driver (automatically launches textpad)

or double clicking mame32.exe, selecting the right sub-folder, scrolling down the list to find the game I want to work on, right clicking on the game, selecting the right propery page, finding the debug box, clicking it, closing the property page, double clicking on the game to load it, testing, quitting the game, clicking on the x to quit mame32..... opening up explorer, finding the source folder, opening the drivers folder, searching through the list for genesis.c, double clicking on it ...

BeeJay · Post by **BeeJay** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 6:30 pm

I think Haze sums it up in a nutshell... some things are just more efficient to do via a command line while other things are either not affected by efficiency or are just easier to do via a GUI.

I can see that for Mame developers it is much quicker, as Haze has shown, to run a command line version of Mame. But for the average user, and lets forget about how easy us programmers find a command line, a decently setout GUI makes their user experience that much better for them.

As Barry has already said, you could download a front-end to use with the command line version. You could do like Chad said and use the MamePlus release for your day to day practising and then use the command line WolfMame to create your recording attempts. Or you could simply continue to use Wolf106 until you absolutely must play one of the recently added or fixed games from a later release.... and there's enough to choose from in Wolf106 to keep you going for some time.

Can anyone recommend a good, small foot print front-end that takes very little effort to setup and has most of the features of MamePlus such as keeping a track of play counts and times, looks similar to the MamePlus GUI, is compatible with WolfMame and if possible has the option to select from a list which version of Mame to run a given game with.... ?