Utilities

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Revision as of 07:30, 16 March 2012 by Arzoo (talk) (→‎LED Software)
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ROM Managers, Renamers & Dats

A popular ROM management program. Designed to help you maintain and organize your emulators roms collection for various gaming systems.
Another popular ROM management program.
Another ROM manager.
A program that can sort ROMs based on flags in the filename Eg. Sorting all US (U) and Japanese (J) ROMs.
It's a simple program that makes it easy to control what types of ROMs you keep on your PC. MCM lets you easily rename or delete all MAME ROMs and data files by category - Adult, Quiz, Mahjong, Puzzle, etc.
Use this tool to locate MAME ROMs that will play on your machine.
Do you have 100000s of roms that have been renamed using TOSEC and Good Tools? If so then you probably have GBs of extra roms such as bad dumps, overdumps and unwanted translations. Use this free app to delete them from your collection using filters.
This program makes it very convenient to convert a large amount of GoodMerged 7-Zip archives into formats that emulators can read.
GoodTools is a common name for set of Rom Renamers for a wide variety of systems. Created by Cowering, they are distributed as .exe files with a built in database. The GoodTools are some of the oldest rom renamers still in existance.
What "No-Intro" does is fill some .dat files, to be used with ROM-Managers, with information about the known ROMS released.
TOSEC is an acronym standing for "The Old School Emulation Centre", and is the name of an organisation dedicated to creating a database project, cataloguing the complete software libraries of old computer and console platforms.

Input Mapping Software

Automate your applications. Maybe used for these games, that have trouble to get working in a cabinet (most wrappers seen to made in this utility)
Powerful scripting application that can be used to write wrappers. Can compile custom scripts to executables.
Program to simulate keypresses from joystick inputs (useful for some emulators)
PPJoyKey is an application to convert keystrokes into Windows joystick input via the PPJoy Virtual Joystick interface.
VJoy Virtual Joystick is a software application and virtual driver system that allows keyboard input to be translated to joystick input.
Great software for keyboard and mouse emulation. (By Jonathan)
This is a Mame analog joystick map editor. Loads/Saves Mame ini files that can specify analog control map for specific games. Some example ini files included. Save the ini files to the Mame's ini folder (create one if it's not there). Name the file [ROM].ini. (By HeadKaze)
This is a application to auto quit your emulator under a amount of idle, which you define in the ini file.

List Generators

LCD text file generator for creating *.lcd files to send to a LCD attached to your PC's com port, typically used in a Mamecab in conjunction with Mamewah or other frontend. (By Silver)
This utility uses a free SQL engine (SQLite) to create an internal table from MAME's -listxml output that can be used to generate MAMEWah game lists. It also can be used to generate batch files for Cakemeister's MAME Movie Maker. ListGen is a fast, open source way to filter game lists. (By Cakemeister)
A windows GUI based application that also uses MAME's xml output file to allow you to create custom filtered lists of games based on your input criteria. (# of buttons, joystick type, monitor orientation, etc) The program can create numerous output files for many popular front ends as well as generic formats like XML, CSV, and batch files. Open source and freeware. (By NOP)
MultiMAME is a command line application which makes multiple emulators and/or subset of games look like a single emulator. (By Lilwolf)
Utility for generating MaLa game lists for emulators other than MAME. (By Spiderstyle)
Create Custom Mame Cfg Files Automatically. (By Morpheus)

Video Tools

Program to change the screen resolution (inc. from a commandline)
UltraMon is a utility for multi-monitor systems, designed to increase productivity and unlock the full potential of multiple monitors.
Program for setting custom resolutions. See Custom display modes (Windows) - Powerstrip
Tool for generating cfg files with resolutions to match closest authentic resolution for games. (By MinWah)
Another tool for generating cfg files with resolutions to match closest authentic resolution for games. (By Gavin Benson)
A simple tool programming videocard drivers to support 15 Khz AND arcade resolutions. Supports ATI Catalyst, NVidia ForceWare, Matrox PowerDesk and various 3Dfx Voodoo3/4/5 drivers. See Soft-15khz. (By SailorSat)
iRotate uses the hardware rotation capabilities of the video card to rotate the screen.
softSpin's screen orientation support utilizes the rotation capabilities present in most of today's graphics card drivers.
The mng2avi is a utility which converts MNG video files into AVI video files. It does this by first breaking down the MNG file into a series of pngs, then running a VirtualDub script to create the AVI file. Optionally, mng2avi can be used to create demo loop movies directly from MAME's MNG output. (By Cakemeister)
Another mng2avi program. (By Silver)

Audio Tools

Control volume with your spinner/trackball/joysticks/buttons. (By Ahofle)
This little utility lets me map a single button/control on my control panel for Volume up and down that works regardless of emulator.
Run this utility before and after you run an emulator and it will restore the volume last set for it. (By HeadKaze)
Run this script on system startup to lock the sytem volume at a given level. (By Kelroy)
Ambience runs in the system tray to play audio samples randomly or in order. While designed to play the Arcade Ambience samples it can play any samples on a primary or secondary sound card. (By TheShanMan)

Control Panel Software

Johnny 5

Johnny5 is a label layout program, controls viewer, and artwork generator. You take your own background image and add where you want your labels to go, such as Up, Fire, etc. Johnny then takes information from controls.dat to populate the labels and creates a psudeo-interactive display from it. Optionally, Johnny can just save the display to a file via command-line. J5 can also display instruction cards, control panel images and supports the command.dat. Johnny also includes a GUI. (By Howard Casto)

You can find full information about Johnny 5 controls viewer on at http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/johnny

CPMaker

CPMaker is a label layout program, control panel layout program, controls viewer, and artwork generator. The CPMaker GUI, which was released in February 2006, allows the user to easily create his or her own control panel out of artwork pieces. (By Cakemeister)

CPViewer

CPViewer is a label layout program and controls viewer.
jcrouse says this about what CPViewer is:
"CPViewer is an add-on for Mame. More specifically for the front-end you use to launch your Mame games.
It uses a file called controls.ini (part of controls.dat) to lookup the controls for a particular game. 'It then displays them on the screen so you know what buttons and movements perform what actions in the game that is currently highlighted in your front-end.
Did you ever sit do to play a little and decide to try a new game? Then ask yourself, "What buttons do what?"
Well if the game has been documented in the controls.ini file, this won't happen again. Simply press a hotkey (one of your control panel buttons) and a graphic of your control panel will be displayed with all of the character movements or button assignments displayed so you know what buttons perform what actions. It's that simple." (By John Crouse)

CPWizard

CPWizard is a control panel editor, control panel (controls.dat), game info (listinfo.xml/Catver.ini/nplayers.ini/HallOfFame.xml), game history (history.dat), mame info (mameinfo.dat), special moves (command.dat) and hiscore (story.dat) viewer.
CPWizard is a CP editor and viewer with a graphics library designed to build a custom CP. It runs resident in the icon tray and can be invoked by pressing pause in Mame without the need for command line options. It can export CP as images or bezel artwork that can be toggled on or off inside Mame. It also supports emulators other than Mame. (By HeadKaze)

LED Software

Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor. Supports LED-Wiz, PacLED64, PacDrive, and U-HID lighting and output controllers. (By Arzoo)
LEDWiz SDK. (By RandyT / MikeQ / HeadKaze)
PACDrive & U-HID SDK. (By HeadKaze)
LuminAudio Engine™ is a "light organ" application for the LED-Wiz and LED-Wiz+GP Lighting and output controllers. (By RandyT)
Scripts to help integrate the LuminAudio Engine™ software for use in Front Ends. (By AlexDog69)

Front-End / Jukebox Plugins

MaLa LEDWiz plugin (By Loadman & Edge)
MaLa plugin that plays wav files (By Loadman)
Mala plugin for UltraStik 360 (By FatFingers)
Arcade LED Control software and Animation Editor (LWAX format). Supports LED-Wiz, PAC-Drive, and U-HID lighting and output controllers. (By Arzoo)
GameEx plugin that supports LEDWiz, PACDrive, BetaBrite, BPP-440, CrystalFontz, PJRC, ProLite hardware devices. It also supports Speech and Sample event driven effects. (By HeadKaze)
GameEx plugin for UltraStik 360 (By HeadKaze)
Other MaLa Plugins
Other GameEx Plugins
Jukebox Plugin System. See Jukebox Plug-Ins (By Unclet / Space Fractal / HeadKaze / Loadman)

Screen Savers

Emulator Screensaver (By Howard Casto)
Mame Screensaver (By Tom Speirs)
Randomly loads a new random MAME ROM for a specific amount of time (which you specify). Useful for arcade cabinets in which you want to randomize your game selection (e.g. have your games run a new random game for each different day). (By emb)
TB_ScreenSaver is a Windows 2000/XP/Vista picture screen saver that displays pictures from a user-specified directory using one of nine formats. TB_ScreenSaver supports MAME by displaying MAME pictures then running the games. (By Kenneth W. McKirahan)

File Renamers

Program to rename files using text editor type functions like Quick find, Replace, multiple Undo/Redo, Macros and of course normal editing. (By Oscar)
Bulk Rename Utility is a utility which allows you to easily rename files and directories, based upon extemely flexible criteria. Add date-stamps, replace numbers, insert strings, convert case, add auto-numbers, process folders and subfolders....plus loads more! (By Jim Willsher)
Batch rename multiple files in a single click! A great time saving tool for managing your file collections, such as digital photos, mp3 music, movies and so forth. (By Dan)
A neat little program written by Howard_Casto (author of the Dragon King Front End) that allows you to easily rename files. A great program that will attempt to rename screenshots by cross-referencing with a given list of game filenames. (By Howard Casto)
An easy to use tool to help rename png/avi files to match your rom/zip files. Uses fuzzy logic to match names that are similar.(By NOP)
Image renamer. Immediate Progress Report on Fuzzy Matching, folder selection as opposed to list copy-pasting, treeview of results for easier match picking, software-controlled file renaming. (By Fatone85)
Image renamer. Run Skinny Match, and you will be asked to browse to your rom, and art paths. You can use the 'Add Path' button to add additional art paths. The first art path that you enter will be the primary path that is used for matching. Any additional paths will have the art renamed, if the names in the secondary paths match the names in the primary path. (By Tempest)

Run Files as a Service

This utility lets you start and stop any program as if it were a Windows System Service. This is especially useful for starting programs in the background even if you have Windows set up to boot directly into your Frontend. (By Xiangyang Liu)
Another program for running apps as a service. (By Dieter Schmeer)

Emulator Wrappers

Wrappers are small utilities used to "wrap" an emulator to automate it's launching and exiting.

Misc Tools

Program to create virtual drives (useful for mounting CD images)
FE to help compiling Mame and applying diff patches. Supports Mame 32/64 and MameUI 32/64. (By HeadKaze)
Hiscore diff's for all MAME versions without hiscore support (107u2 - current). (By MKChamp)
Hide Windows boot up screen, cursors, desktop and boot straight into a Front End. See Hiding Windows (By Tom Speirs)
Hide Windows boot up screen, cursors, desktop and boot straight into a Front End. See Hiding Windows (By Lave Laar)
The MameInterop SDK is a collection of source code projects to help with writing applications that communicate with Mame using it's built in output system developed by the MAME Team. (By MAME Team / HeadKaze / Howard Casto)
Program to control hardware through the COM/Parallel ports including LEDWiz, PACDrive, IO Warrior and Keyboard LED's using a scripting engine. It can communicate with Mame and other software as well as display artwork on a secondary monitor. (By Howard Casto)
Play video files using Windows Media Player in fullscreen. Will exit when ESC is pressed or the video has finished playing. (By HeadKaze)
Attach a webcam to your cab and take snaps or video's of visitors. Play them back later in your Front End. (By HeadKaze)
A hard disk usage visualization tool. An extended pie chart displays all major files and folders. (By Steffen Gerlach)
Several useful joystick utilities are located at this site including Clear Calibration Utility (clear the calibration of your joysticks), DXTweak 2 (Tweak various settings such as deadzone), JoyIDs Utility (change the Id's of your joysticks), Poswdm Utility (Allows you to see axis and button data).

See also

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