Emu Loader: Multiple Systems Frontend

October 27, 2021 [version 8.9.4 released]

"This is not the splash screen you're looking for!"
After years of suffering, I finally found a way to make the splash screen not to show up on top of other applications. While games lists are being created/scanned, you can do something else without that annoying splash screen popping up constantly. Not yet fixed for a clean install though.

I have created a new RGB Color Picker dialog from scratch, named Color Picker Ex. It's fast, lightweight and easy to use.
It even comes with a HEX edit box so you can enter a color in HEX format. It replaces the jurassic Windows color picker dialog.

Search bar edit box locked and inaccessible at startup, is now fixed. Another bug, making the games list not focused at startup, is also fixed.
Both bugs were caused by a function that removes Delphi 7's hidden form trickery. Moving this function from the main form's OnActivate() event to the OnShow() event, fixes it.
I spent 2 weeks debugging the frontend's startup code to find the little devil that was causing these issues. But I also ended up optimizing the frontend's startup code in the process so, it's a win-win.

September 01, 2021 [version 8.9.2 released]

One more. :)
Some bug fixes and new stuff for MAME. A bunch of console/computer system icons were updated and they all got a 256x256 resolution icon.
This is the last big pack update, I promisse...
Contens of mameinfo.dat and messinfo.dat are handled separately. This fixes wrong game info being shown in Game Documents feature.

Support for new MAME game info, read from -listxml output. They might be useful for a future frontend improvement... or not. You need to create a new MAME games list so they can be used:
cocktail mode
cocktail status
driver protection tag
requiresartwork tag
lan tag
ramoption tag

I forgot to support some mame.ini settings in MAME Settings screen:
Directory To Share With Emulated Machines (-share)
Path To Loose Software (-swpath)
Path For LUA Plugins To Store Data, Read/Write (-share_directory)

New Machine Slots / Media Info panel in Custom Parameters screen. You can see a list of supported MAME machines for the softlist game being edited. Select one of those machines to view a list of supported slots and supported media options.
This feature is really handy when creating custom parameters for a softlist game.

I think I've done all the improvements I wanted to. It only took me 4 months of non-stop work.
Now I can finally rest and go back playing my PC games, cough... Resident Evil Village ...cough :) :)
Have fun!

August 13, 2021 [version 8.9.1 released]

A few oopsies... I made.
Some minor bug fixes in this build, and I forgot to include the updated logo.png for standard resolution. I tweaked the colors a little bit and added more sprites in there. :D
Tweaks were made to better handle requirements detection for MAME softlist games. In a computer machine, the frontend was trying to load a device set as a cartridge instead of enabling that device in the machine's slot1, and a couple more bugs in other console machines.

I think it might be time to choose a new theme for the splash screen, this apocalyptic theme is getting old, no ? Not that it's not a good one...

New MAME feature: custom parameters.
You can create custom parmeters for a softlist game, a software list or MAME machine. Do things like, attach a cassete tape, a special cartridge, a floppy drive or another device. Enable a special feature in a computer machine that you cannot do with MAME settings .ini files.

Added support for another Apple II emulator, microM8 Apple II Emulator. Interesting emulator, this one.
In the Apple IIgs front, emulator GSplus" Apple IIgs Emulator is now supported.

Emu Loader is ready for MAME v0.235 with the new BGFX backend options: Direct3D 12 and Vulkan. I guess you're gonna have to wait a few more weeks to try these renderers...

The full pack still have all 4K content in it, but this time you can grab the update package if you already have v8.9. It will take me more time to sort some things out and update the downloads page with all updated content, including Photoshop's .psd files with all my work. Have fun!

August 04, 2021 [version 8.9 released]

I'm back! Lots of stuff happened since February. I've been working hard on Emu Loader for the past 4 months, non-stop. I even stopped playing PC games since March 2021 to focus on this project... what did I miss ?
You'll need to download the full package this time around since all files have been updated (icons and images). Upgrading from previous build can still be done. In future builds, part of the 4K content will be distributed separately to make the full package smaller (not everyone uses a 4K monitor/TV).

First things first. I recommend to delete the entire app_path\resources\ folder if you want to prevent leftover files (this is not required). You can overwrite your current install with this build and execute it without worries. All require updates will be done once at startup.
To actually fix some of the crashes I had to update the format of a few files (non MAME/arcade related stuff). You can make a backup copy of these folders/files before running this build, just in case. The following will be updated:
- games files in \console_computer\games\ folder
- played games files in \console_computer\played_games\ folder
- games extra info files in \console_computer\games_extra_data\ folder

The star of this build is support for 4K screen resolution with the new 4K layouts (minimum 3840x2160 resolution equired).
Be aware that you must disable screen DPI scale for EmuLoader.exe in order for it to work. If your Windows screen DPI scale is already at 100% you don't have to do a thing. Forms, fonts and controls will resize to take advantage of the 4K resolution... and it looks so beautiful! :)
There's even a new 4K splash screen. Some of the sprites were updated with higher resolution versions and others scaled up (no upscale filters were used). The regular logo got some minor updates as well... I really need to re-create the splash screen with a different theme. This apocalyptic theme is getting old!
Light mode is starting to fade away as Emu Loader can turn all elements to the dark side now, even if your Windows 10 is not set to use a dark theme. Who still uses the frontend's light mode anyway !?

All icons and images have been updated, and most of the icons got 68x68 and 128x128 size versions, for the 4K mode. You can enable PNG compression tag in .ico files now, this is finally supported by the frontend thanks to the PrivateExtractIcons() WinAPI. Due to PNG compression, the file size of all .ico files have reduced considerably.

While implementing 4K layouts, I was able to find and fix tons of internal bugs and tweak lots and lots of functions in the source code. I was able to improve stability even further.
Both Supermodel3 and Demul were updated to support latest SVN builds. You'll need to re-create the games list to actually use the new stuff. Not doing so will not prevent you from playing their games.

A special thanks to Fabian Leonel for creating system type icons, they look amazing!
(systemtype_arcade.ico; systemtype_computer.ico; systemtype_console.ico; systemtype_handheld.ico)

WARNING: As of this version, Windows XP is no longer supported and Emu Loader will not run on that OS anymore!

So much has changed in this build, mostly internally, but you will notice improvements in general even without the 4K mode. I hope you enjoy this build as much as I did coding it. Make sure to check the change log for a complete list of changes, which is extensive!

February 25, 2021 [version 8.8.8 released]

To triple infinity... and beyond!
I'm starting to use TNT Unicode Components Pack in the frontend. I should have done this a long time ago. Added TntRichEdit control so Unicode texts can be displayed in Game Docs panel and in message boxes. You might need a richedit20.dll file so non-English texts can be properly displayed. I tested the frontend with the file supplied by Windows 10 and the results are awful. You can do the same test on your system, try renaming the DLL and restart the frontend. If English / non-English mixed texts are good, you don't need this DLL.

For this build, and this build alone, such DLL file is supplied with the binary packages. Future releases will have a separate download link. Why ? You might already have a DLL in your system that produces good English / non-English mixed texts (usually when Microsoft Office is installed).
File is from the discontinued Microsoft Word Viewer. I tested 4 different DLL files and they all produce different results. Why, Microsoft... WHY??!!!

I rewrote the parsing function of MAME dat files and Game Docs feature is now lightning fast!
Other tweaks were made, and history (xml or dat) shows texts correctly. In fact, history.xml is the preferred file.

New 4K Mode (2160p). But why ? If you're like me, have a 4K monitor and use screen DPI scale at 100%, everything looks tiny, and so does the frontend.
By enabling this setting, you will get resized dialogs with bigger fonts, bigger buttons and other enlarged stuff. I haven't tested this feature with DPI scale other than 100%...
This is my personal dream come true feature ever since I got a 4K monitor back in 2017. A font sized 16 looks so much better compared to size 9!
Warning: Do not attempt to enable this setting if your screen resolution is lower than 3840x2160, the frontend does not validate Windows resolution.

More tweaks to message boxes, better font colors and texts. Several message boxes were also updated with night mode colors. They can display Unicode texts too (see command line texts). The Run Game Confirmation Dialog in the new 4K mode looks awesome.

I've made some modifications to the TNT Unicode Components Pack so, if you already have it installed in your Delphi compiler, you must install my modified pack or some frontend features will not work, and Delphi will give compilation errors. I couldn't find a way to create new "extra" controls to keep the library with unaltered code.

I'm sure I forgot one or two things I worked on, for now, it will do. :)