MagicEngine

[mightymo]

Hey D Michel, I have a question for you. Why did you choose the type of GUI where you it takes over your screen and is not windows based? I don't know what you call this, please let me know the correct term. In other words, you make the GUI like ZSNES as opposed to SNES9X, which is (what I consider) windows based. ZSNES puts you in it's own screen with it's own cursor and it totally sucks. No one likes that type of GUI. A lot of people on other forums just can't believe that it took you this long for what you've done so far. I (and others) feel that you should of put all your great work into a new ME that has a normal GUI, like VirtuaNES, Gens or SNES9X for example.

Please people, don't come back and say something childish like "he can do what he wants it's his emu, ME is great, ect ect". I understand this, yes it is a good emu, but I'm simply asking a question for Michael.

[Kaminari]

His name's David, not Michael :-)

You're talking about custom GUI versus system GUI.

You're not asking a question, you're making a judgement (cf. "it totally sucks"). "No one likes that type of GUI" is of course a very personal judgement, since in my own experience it's quite the contrary: ZSNES is certainly more popular than SNES9x, likewise Meka, NeoRageX, etc have a strong following partly because of their custom GUI. Personally I'm not fond of it, I'd prefer a system-friendly interface à la VirtuaNES, but that's the way it is.

People who registered ME come over this forum to report bugs and make constructive suggestions, if only because they poured some bucks into this project. People who didn't register usually keep complaining on the others forums ;o)

[Alexsource]

Well..... if i recall correctly, ME never had a system-like based gui, so i can't really see why you guys at some other forums are so surprised
I think it's ok, but that's just me
I'm not sure GUI can really be a deciding factor on what emulator to use.... since all the emulator that had been named have very nice guis, either system based or custom based.

[mightymo]

I know his name is David, look at the post, I put D Michel. Again, not complaining, I'm ASKING why he chose this way. Maybe he has no reason. Would it have been easier to make it using system GUI? You got to admit, it's taking him A LOT of his time to make this so called popular custom GUI.

[Alexsource]

[denzilla]

I'm a fan of Windows based GUIs myself, but the custom GUI in ME 1.0 is nice and seems to work well. Its a great deal better than the old style.

A skinable ME 1.0 interface would be sweet!

[jopinou]

Anyway hobby has no rational issue. And coding an emu is a hobby.
So David likes to code THAT GUI.
Why ? Just because he enjoys. Everyone intuits that no ?

[Tomasz]

I personally like the gui. It gives the emulator more of a video game feel. Additionally, it looks better and is more usable if you output the image to a TV screen.

Mightymo, your question is analogous to asking: "Why don't PC Games use standard Windows menus and dialog boxes?" It's easier to do that, but it just does not look as polished, isn't as immersive, and generally doesn't look as good in fullscreen mode.

But, as long as the emulator works well, and the GUI is functional, who really cares?

[generalleoff]

I find the ZSNES GUI to be the worse GUI I ever used and the Snes9x GUI is simple yet really broken. The MEKA GUI kicks ass and the ebst examples of proper system GUIs are FCE Ultra, Gens Plus, Nestopia, and KEGA Fusion. There generic but work well.

The GUI style used in Magic Engine has it;s place. It controlls very smooth and is simple and elegant to use. It's definitly not realy Windows friendly if ran in a window much like ZSNES so it kind of does fource the user to use the emulator in full screen. But I think thats the way it should be.

The ME GUI style is very ideal for use on a TV and things like that and it's also the GUI style that I modeld my HTPC front end on. That style of GUI is great for browsing through movies, music, and images using a remote controll.

Very well done GUI. One of the best.

edit:

Guess I should rephrase what I said about ZSNES. It is the worse GUI I ever used IN WINDOWS. It's a DOS GUI :)

[someguy]

Personally, I prefer it when programmers make custom gui's. Sure you may not innately know where everything is but it shows that little bit of extra effort, and that's usually what makes a program shine.

I like the ME 1.0 preview gui. It's much improved over the old beta's.

[dmichel]

I like more custom gui's. I consider MagicEngine as a game, a custom gui gives it a style, something you can recognize and that differentiate it from the others. For me a system gui is impersonal, it makes your program looks like a tool or like any other program... if all the emulators were the same it would be sad. I want MagicEngine to be more than just an emulator.

About how long it took me to do it, well, don't judge it only by what you see that wouldn't be fair, I coded a complete gui framework, it's not just a few functions to draw windows, it's much more complex than that.
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David Michel

[Specineff]

Agreed on the MEKA GUI. It's one of the most awesome-sest interfaces ever.
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Proud owner of a Dreamcast, Saturn, Turbo Duo and a registered version of ME since 2002.

[SirFratus]

Happily there's some people to think that uniformity is not a good thing. Imagine all emus having the same look that MS Office...
no thanks

[reddice]

I like the GUI. ZSNES has one of the best GUI's. Ones that look just like windows are plain.