Home Page Forums MAME MAME BletchMAME 2.0

https://www.bletchmame.org

This release does not offer any new features, but rather is the result of an overhaul of the application itself. Most notably, BletchMAME was transitioned from wxWidgets to Qt.

Nice one! It's cool too see the progress you have made, I really think BletchMAME has huge potential to be a proper 'realtime interface' to MAME and not just another bloated dumb front end.

I think MAME has reached a point now, where it really needs a better way to get systems hooked up without getting lost and or relying on 'Mary's blog or some guy on reddit or some forums even here from 7 years ago etc etc'.

There are so many awesome old systems to tinker with that work good enough or are pretty much perfect and I wouldn't be the only one who finds it clunky and off-putting to workout how too connect anything up with a big long commandline, plus I worry about missing out on what's really available rather than default etc. A perfect example is, setting up a 486 or Mac etc. Basics such as Network, Sound Card (what works now, what's the best?) even a HDD from scratch, CDROM, MIDI, Serial etc + connecting things 'outside' the emulator box..

I really think half of the battle is won by having an a proper GUI that you can set things up and specifically with Bletch interact directly with MAME, I really think it it's the bridge lol. (you need a better name too, Bletch seems a bit awkward?).

Also, I don't know what it is and i'm interested in other opinions, but Qt always for me seems a bit laggy and it has these annoying interface things that make it not feel like a proper windows app. Just comparing your older version and the new one, I noticed searching and re-sizing windows are not as snappy. But other things are ok Qt fonts looks better now, I suppose more cross compatible now. But yeah Qt apps always seems a bit flickery/clunky with the interfaces, one of my gripes with QMC2 has something about it. But hey should be great to add a 'Dark theme' pretty quick haha.

Can't wait to see this progress!

The major thing with the switch to Qt is that BletchMAME now also compiles on Mac and Linux (I've been following along with development on this port and feeding changes back to Bletch).

There's a linking issue on Linux that hasn't been resolved, but BletchMAME does run and work on the Mac (I installed cmake and Qt from Brew to make that happen).

Well, if we don't call it BletchMAME, what do we call it? I couldn't think of a better name.

I will say that not everything about Qt is an improvement. It does feel a bit more heavyweight, my executable is now double the size, and the UI feels (from a Windows user's perspective) slightly more "foreign" for lack of a better world. However, it is become clear to me that Qt has far more momentum. Plus, BletchMAME seems to be much more portable in practice now.

hmm I think a cool name like XIMAME or MAMEXI meaning interface somehow. MAMEICS (interface controller system lol).

Those are lame names. Bletch’s name is a reference to the apex of New Zealand cinema.

Yeah, nah, the letters XI make me think of the leader of a certain place where millions of illegal xxxx-in-1 knockoff consoles are made, not a good look for MAME.

haha fair enough guys.. wait, MAMEHooker what about that Heihachi is that better?

What about these?

MAMEControlBox
MAMEFuse
FuseMAME
MAMEInteractor

Meh... I'm inclined to stick to my tribute to New Zealand cinema.

MAMEHooker exists, it's some output device (like cabinet force feedback and LEDs) utility thingy.