Help, with 'MAME' and games for it? what the heck is this?

[Amy]

Okay... I went and downloaded 'Mame' some type of well alot here will know a emulator type thing for arcade type games, Okay I download it and 'nothing' I mean yes a zip file full of files and folders, the files are mess application that when clicked come up in that DOS format on my PC....

What am I doing wrong and well, where do I get the 'real' mess at? I click on any and all these 'applications' and they all come up in dos format, nothign 'instals' on my PC nothing seems like it is right, also got a game I was looking for but this thing seems also faulty In the game folder zip... no application also, nothing but files with no 'types' all are called simple 'files'

So anyone know what is up and how to get this mess to work right, Please? Hmmm also seems 'small' this is menat to be an arcade emulator, and the MAME was some 8 MBs, but the game itself only 1.4 MBs...and just wondering 'if' this is and will be 'arcade' or not.... seems pretty small anyway and even in 1988 and 1989 arcade games were not 'that small' were they... I wonder if I am missing 'alot' more files or something here, this mess again I cannot figure out, anyone else know more about this please?

~Amy

[LiquidManZero]

For one, the original MAME is kind of a pain in the ass to use. This one is much easier to deal with:
http://www.zophar.net/Files/Mame32v.95_Binary.exe

From what I remember, you have to put the zip files you downloaded into a specific folder. And deffinately don't unzip them... A lot of the older games are really small, and some of the newer ones are deceptively so... For example, Killer Instinct takes up a fairly small amount of space, but that's not including the needed hard drive image for it.

I know that's probably not a really great deal of help, but it's 4:30 am, and I don't really feel like installing it and monkeying around with such things this time of the morning...

[Amy]

It is Okay, I will look at that other one, just I found it strange the 'Mama' I got has no text files of any sorta, just alot of folders with 'files' in them named 'dir' and those applications which open DOS mode...so will look and see, and do not worry about time and such, heh it is around 7 am for me (night shift working, ehh strip clubs that is when the money is made) so am about to call it a night myself (or day rather)

So will look into this more and see what if anything I can find out that would help me with this more heh

~Amy

[Bloodreign]

I've got MAME from 62-102 (skipped some along the way), MAME 32 is the best way to go, it has an easy to use GUI, and best of all it isn't DOS.

I've got about 3 and a half years of MAME experience and 1900 + games under my belt, so I caught on real well.

[Cypherswipe]

MAME is great, but kind of odd if you've never used it before.
1) You need to get either winMAME or MAME32, or you can get a frontend program for the regular version.
2) Some of those folders are for extras such as game screenshots, pics of the cabinets, history files, cheat files, etc.
3) Download roms and place them in the roms folder (create it if it doesn't exist), as bloodreign said, don't unzip them.
4) A key thing with MAME roms is that only the "parent" roms are complete, other roms for a given game just have the files that differe from the "parent" one. If you see multiple roms for the same game, grab the largest one since it's the most likely to be the parent one.

[Cypherswipe]

If you're still having trouble with it, go here: http://www.mameworld.net/easyemu/ and click on MAME on the left.

[Phil The Hammer]

I downloaded Mame 32 about a month ago, and got roms at

http://www.emuasylum.com/

Most roms work, but some don't.

Here's a link for the Mame site, where I found all the downloads I needed, except for the roms, of course, and all the answers for my questions.

http://mame32.classicgaming.gamespy.com/links.htm

I created a desktop shortcut which opens Mame same as any other prog.

I use Windows XP & a Logitech controller. For me, Mame is almost as easy to use as FCEU or GENS. I also downloaded a .cheat file, which has codes for just about every game this version of Mame can run. And it DOES run such classix as Pac-man, Missile Command, Asteroids, Contra, Galaxian, Galaga, Millipede, several Street Fighters & Mortal Kombats, Gorf, Defender, & a few Coleco hits such as Cosmic defender, Lady Bug, Carnival, Mouse Trap, Pepper II, etc. It's well worth the download!

And I haven't really dug into its full potential yet!

[Shad0wHacker]

heh it is around 7 am for me (night shift working, ehh strip clubs that is when the money is made) so am about to call it a night myself (or day rather)

Ehh... you're a ... 8)

I'm going to try mame tonight.

[Phil The Hammer]

A great thing about EmuAsylum is that they have screenshots for mosta their games, and also roughly how many KB or MB a given game uses.(If a given game doesn't work, try another version if it's present in your rom source. Be sure to delete any/all non-working games, unless you're expert enuff to fix-em!

I'm using Mame 32 with Windows XP, and here's how I've done the roms so far. Although there are other Mame rom sites, I use EmuAsylum mosta the time for the reasons above. I boot up Mame,I download the rom to desktop, drag-n-drop it into the Roms file in Mame's main window, boot up the game-playing file(the pic of the standup arcade game cabinet) and test the game. If it worx, great. I then dump that game's icon from the desktop onto the recycle bin. If the game fails to work, I open the Roms file & delete that game.

Remember to empty the Recycle Bin periodically! A whole blort of games or other bit-eating trash in that bin will seriously slow down yer PC!

I downloaded the .cht file from the Mame site, which has cheats for almost every working game. To access the cheats, I click in File in the upper-left corner of the game select screen, then Properties, then Miscellaneous, then click the box for 'enable game cheats, which brings up a green check mark in the box, then, at the bottom of that windoe, click Apply, then OK. Then, I boot up the game & before I start it, I push the 'Tab' button on the keyboard. In the window that appears, I click 'cheat', and in the new window that appears, i click 'enable/disable cheat' which brings up the actual cheat window. Here, you may activate/de-activate the cheats as you wish. When finished, push 'Tab again to close all windows, and play your game.

I believe every reader of this is more than smart enuff to figure out what each cheat does on a given game.