Sad news, the end of MAMEUIFX

[PantherUK]

Posted on the MAMEUIFX forums earlier, a sad day for all of us that use this great frontend version of MAME... Understandable, but the end of an era...

Hello, guys.

I’m very unhappy to announce that MAMEUIFX development is going to finish.
After 14 years of fun, in every sense, I have to quit. No, this time is not due to another MAMEDev useless attempt to make FX disappear from the scene. It’s something more serious.
The Hotel where I worked in these last 10 years as receptionist and part-time waiter, will cease its activity after the end of August. So, in few words, I’m going to lose my job.
My expectations for the future are now not good, the first thing I will have to do will be go back to Milan where my mother lives and go back to her house with few money and without a work.
I’m 41 years old and even if stay with her for a while will be a pleasure, I will have to re-build my life again… Find a new job (not so easy as it seems) and a new house.
So you must imagine that the time I will be able to dedicate to MAMEUIFX in the next months will be very very small if not completely null. I will be busy with a lot of other things.
Though this is not the only cause even if it’s the most important one. I’m no more interested in MAME and arcade emulation in general. It’s at least two years that I have this feeling. I continued to follow the MAME Development mainly to keep alive and updated my MAMEUIFX but if I have to be sincere, the games I was interested in are “perfectly” emulated from at least 5 or more years. Plus, the computer/consoles I’m interested in like COMMODORE 64, AMIGA 500, ATARI 2600, ZX81 SPECTRUM are badly emulated in MAME and there’s plenty of better dedicated emulators out there. I don’t see anything appealing in what is happening to the MAME project from a global perspective: with their obsession to make it universally compatible with every Operating System available on the earth they created a giant software that become slower and slower on every new release. Soon nobody with a 32-bit OS will be able to compile it and probably neither use it. It’s up to you decide if this is only my personal opinion or it’s a real fact.
Now two words about MAMEUIFX. The GUI code is, without any arrogance, perfectly working and from my point of view, completed. There’s nothing left to do, I think. Yes, of course other features/improvements could be added and made, like for example support for 4K resolution monitors, but due to the fact that the project is going to finish, my objective is reached. As it is now, FX is perfectly compatible with old Windows XP and ready for Windows 10. And most important thing, looks like there are no more GUI bugs to fix.
The modified hacked drivers in FX are not cause of any extra bug, despite what MAME Developers are convinced of. On the contrary, some official MAME bugs are fixed.
The forum and the website will stay online until my free web space provider will decide to put it down. The forum’s new registrations will be closed because I will not be able to continue to check the new accounts and delete/disable the fake ones. Also the vast majority of threads will be locked. Though I hope I will not disappear completely because I imagine there will be replies to this post that I’ll have to read and answer. The source code is still available and will stay in this status for probably a long time, so if someone will desire to continue the project at his own risk, he will be free to do it. It should appear obvious though that MAMEUIFX is dead, so you will be alone. I cannot assure I will be able to help you in continue my build and you will have to choose a new name for it.
I have to thank a lot of people I encountered and known in these 14 years, there’s no need to make a list…
I guess you know who you are.
Take care of you all.
Bye.

Giulio (Mamesick)

[Hierophant]

Dammit, man, that's devastating.

http://mame32fx.altervista.org/forum/vi ... ?f=1&t=307

It was sad when MAMEPlus! slipped off the radar a while back (last version was 0.159), but it wasn't so bad with MAMEUIFX still happily chugging along. Now it's like, meh. What's currently left for GUI users to choose from besides stock standard MAMEUI?

[Incito]

I will mention this on the stream tonight. Good find panther. sad news indeed. I wish him the very best.

[Voljega]

It's sad that mame devlpoment has been hijacked by emulation fundamentalists...

Meanwhile FBA is starting to add more and more systems, but it already suffers from the same slowly degrading performances problem which each new release.

Very sad news for MameUIFX and Mame itself bu I'm not sure I will ever need to download a new mame version again

[Seraph]

What stream you talking about? Do you all still use Teamspeak or something?

[PantherUK]

I believe he was referring to the Twitch stream...

[Seraph]

Oh ok, that would be nice if we had something like that to communicate with members. Anyway, I told my twin bro about the news. He couldn't beleive it. What will we all do now? Hopefully Cabinet talk, recommended games talk, etc. keeps it alive.

[sabrinal75]

It's sad that mame devlpoment has been hijacked by emulation fundamentalists...

Meanwhile FBA is starting to add more and more systems, but it already suffers from the same slowly degrading performances problem which each new release.

Very sad news for MameUIFX and Mame itself bu I'm not sure I will ever need to download a new mame version again

I think that it is due to the frequent updates and they do not follow any more in the end.

[Incito]

They do update a lot. Like every month.