Kodi Add-on: A frontend for MAME with the UMSA twist
What's the difference to all the other frontends?
This frontend uses the information from https://umsa.info which shows all ports, conversions, remakes and sometimes clones and homebrews which are documented in MAME for the same software.
Warning: Software is still in development, expect some bugs and some not so well working features.
Features:
- Tries to choose the best machine for an entry from a MAME softwarelist.
- Simple support for different emulators which includes chd and zip extraction.
- Filter options for softwarelists, categories, number of players and years.
- Lists for softwarelists, sources, categories, publishers, years and play status.
- Saves snapshots directly to the softwarelist directory.
- Support for ProgettoSnaps artwork files and also a second artwork directory.
- Supports all different MAME support files.
- Implements a http://replay.marpirc.net/ replayer and a Youtube video search.
What you need:
- A working MAME installation, see https://mamedev.org
- The Kodi mediacenter, see https://kodi.tv
- Some MAME artwork files from http://www.progettosnaps.net (Otherwise you will only see text, most important are the cabinets.)
- Some MAME support files like https://www.arcade-history.com and https://mameinfo.mameworld.info. You can see an overview here: http://www.progettosnaps.net/support/
How to install:
- Download https://github.com/sparrowred/script.umsa.mame.surfer/archive/master.zip.
- Start Kodi, go to Settings (the icon on top in the middle), System, Add-ons and activate "Unknown sources".
- Go back to main menu, choose Add-ons and look for "Install from zip file". Search for your downloaded file and select it.
- Now the UMSA MAME surfer icon should appear, start it.
- The Settings will pop up, try to configure what you can. (Artwork: at the moment only unzipped images, like cabinets/cabinets/snes.png, are supported.)
- Finally the Add-on should start, download the UMSA database and scan your artwork and support files.
Or just clone this repository to your Kodi addons directory and activate it in Kodi.
Optional: Go to Settings, Interface, Skin and Fonts, set to Arial based and it will also show Kanjis. You need to set the Settings level at least to Standard.
Usage:
- Move around in all 4 directions.
- The enter button starts the emulation.
- The context button (key c) opens context menus or lists.
See also: https://github.com/sparrowred/screensaver.picture.slideshow, a fork of a Kodi Screensaver with support for UMSA MAME surfer.