MAME Cocktail Frontend


11/5/2008: Version 3.0.6 released!
  • Added volume controls for sound system.
  • Added support for Win98 by adding the ability to compile under MinGW.
  • Added option to just shutdown without any of the Windows popups.
  • Added option to launch a program on exit.
  • Added option to keep the selection line in the center of the display and just scroll the games up and down.
  • Changed sound system init to match Fmod EX best practice to attempt to avoid problems.
  • Improved the image cache performance.
Download it here:
Binary: Download v3.0.6 here.
Source: Download v3.0.6 source here.

Please email me if you have questions, can't get it to work, have any new feature ideas, etc.


9/3/2008: Version 3.0.5 released!
  • Added the ability to have a static background image or a background image that changes per game (such as the flyers/screenshots).
  • Added support for displaying either gif, jpg, or png files. When loading images, the system now finds the first file that matches the game name and uses that.
  • Changed from using the FMOD library to the FMOD Ex library. The music player now supports everything that FMOD Ex can play (see http://www.fmod.org/index.php/products/fmodexdetailed). Change the music tags so they work better and change as the song changes on streaming songs.
  • Added the ability to automatically shutdown the computer when the program closes.
  • Added image caching that will greatly improve performance.
Download it here:
Binary: Download v3.0.5 here.
Source: Download v3.0.5 source here.

Please email me if you have questions, can't get it to work, have any new feature ideas, etc.


8/22/2008: Version 3.0.4 released!
  • Added centering of game list text - Justification in the ini file should be set to either Left or Center.
  • Added support for more filtering of controller types and hopefully fixed that once and for all. Fixed a lot of other stuff involved with controllers - gamecache.xml needs to be deleted when upgrading to this version (should happen automatically) and ControllerTypes in the ini file needs to be set to 0xFFFF to see everything.
  • Fixed some memory leaks.
  • Added RequireParentForClones to ini file - if set, a clone's parent must exist for the clone to display.
  • Added Gameoptions section to the ini to provide more control over game names and removal of a particular game if it is unwanted.

1/15/2007: Version 3.0.3 released!
Fixed a problem that made some games - frogger for instance - from displaying.

1/5/2006: Version 3.0.2 released!
  • Updated all the libraries to their most recent versions.
  • Fixed mameinfo.dat to support current versions.
  • Added function to make enter button (RotateScreen in .ini file) rotate the screen 90 degrees. Added RotateScreen key mapping to .ini file (maps to 13 = Enter by default).
  • Fixed the xml game parsing to support some of the recent changes that have been made to it.
  • Fixed a bug that caused crashing in the menu.
  • Added support for versions of Mame prior to those that only supported -listxml (-listinfo is used for versions 0.83b and lower).

12/05/2004: Version 3.0.1 released! Fixed a couple bugs, added --keytest option to quickly identify what keys are mapped to.
11/22/2004: Version 3.0 released! Now supports the new versions of MAME. Also added new features such as:
  • MP3 player
  • Support for up to 24 joystick buttons
  • Overhaul of the whole thing resulting in a much more stable app

It has the ability to rotate its display 90, 180, or 270 degrees making it ideal for cocktail cabinets. Also, as it was built to use in an arcade cabinet, all input is done through the keyboard using mame's default mappings. Download it, edit the .ini file, and go to town.

Here's a list of the important stuff it does:

  • Rotates 90 degrees for use on cocktail machines (main goal of having it)
  • Works just fine with the windows version of mame on 98/2000. It probably works just fine on 95/nt as well, but I haven't tried it.
  • Completely customizable fonts and sizes. Any truetype font will do.
  • Completely customizable foreground, background, highlight, etc. colors and sounds.
  • Displays mameinfo.dat info about games.
  • Customizable through a menu in the application (except for colors and other stuff that I couldn't figure a good way to choose from a list with a joystick and 2 buttons).
  • If being used on a cocktail machine, the screen will flip to face whichever player is running the controls.
  • Ability to filter games on:
    • Orientation
    • Whether they are clones or not
    • Whether they are present on the filesystem or not
    • Whether they are neogeo or not
    • The number of buttons they require
    • The number of players they support
    • The number of coin slots they have
    • Whether the game is vector or raster
    • What type of input the game uses (joystick, spinner, etc)
  • Fully remappable keys.
  • Joystick support (remappable).
  • Individual rom specific options can be passed to mame.
  • Displays manufacturer, year, etc in the status bar when a game is displayed.


A few caveats:
1) It only handles .png files. Since most collections I've seen of arcade art are in png format, that shouldn't be a problem. It loads the images at the scale they are in the files. If they appear too big or too small, either change the bpp of the image files or raise/lower your screen resolution.

2) It is not capable of reading images from zip files. To get it to display snapshots, for example, you will need to extract snap.zip into its component .png files and point the ini to that directory.

Give it a whirl and let me know what you think.

Binary: Download v3.0.1 here.
Source: Download v3.0.1 source here.

And also get this to mirror one directory to another (in case you keep your roms on one machine and want an easy way to get a complete mirror on another machine).

Some screenshots can be found here. (Remember, everything in these screenshots works in all resolutions at any rotation. The colors, fonts, image sizes, etc are also all customizable.)