MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Re: MAME.exe no longer showing compile date?

> > Hey, I'll try to be as straightforward as possible. Devs don't make MAME difficult
> to
> > use because they hate users. It's difficult to use because a command-line
> application
> > happens to be the simplest application one can make. Therefore it's easy to setup
> and
> > make changes to the MAME application code. It's easy to add new features like
> shaders
> > and slot devices and the like. A more user friendly UI would make this development
> > much more difficult and much slower. This simple interface has allowed MAME and
> MESS
> > to develop quite rapidly. It's pretty amazing how many systems the emulators
> supports
> > and how well the emulator runs. It means more systems and games for YOU, the user.
> > Time is the cost for developing MAME, and so the devs have decided to spend that
> time
> > on the emulators themselves rather than the UI. Nobody's against you, it's just how
> > things work out. You'll notice Windows games don't usually use the Windows GUI
> > either. They usually have their own in-game interface. That's not too different
> from
> > what MAME has right now.
>
> I get that, but you know when there's stuff like mame.exe not producing a mame.ini
> anymore, when that's where you have to go to change that 0 to 1 and get the damn
> thing you need to finally work...but wait: before that you have to use command line
> to create it !? That damn paleolithic thing that doesn't forgive a single mistake and
> you end up pulling your hair because people tell you commands that don't work on your
> computer ?
> And it's not just mame.ini but several other things that have to be done this way too
> ? Argh.
> I'm just telling you the obvious: that sort of thing won't do. never. ever.
> For normal users faster development is not worth such steps back in ease of
> access/useability.
>
> With the many recent changes and additions you MAME devs have brought, for some time
> you have focused attention towards baseline, and I suspect people for quite a while
> will want to use it more than ever, more than some unofficial builds.
> How come do you guys expect those users 'new to baseline and unskilled' not to ask
> for more accessibility and features ? So yeah that's expected that they'll ask for a
> Win UI among other things.
>
> I'll just take an example of something that matters to me in particular: since
> multithreading was removed GroovyMAME has been down in the mud.
> Problem: the sync and lag issues this unofficial build attended to made it clearly
> superior to baseline for actually playing.
> The removal of multithreading originates from here (mamedev, baseline), and this is
> also where I am supposed to wait for its hypotetical return.
> Yes you have brought me to log in when I hadn't felt the need to post anything for
> many years, and here I am 'bitching'.
>
> I don't know if you can see my point here; but since you've taken away some of the
> interest of unofficial builds and are making baseline more the center of attention,
> how long will you keep telling more noobs and unskilled users how to create mame.ini
> ? or launch BGFX, or make some sliders appear in the ingame menu, or whatever thing
> they want...through command line...before one of you retort to cutting all of those
> user monkey heads with a lawnmover braindead/dead alive style ?

You can always make feature requests. Win32 interface isn't going to happen, but you can always ask for things like 'Can you include a script to generate a default config file?' or 'Can you make it easier to configure MAME from within the program itself, so I don't need to edit text files?' I don't know if they'd get accepted, but simple things like this are more likely to be done than telling us command lines are stupid.