Hi im a Noob & i need help with MaMe Arcade..?

[Hasko]

Hello everybody i am kinda new to Mame and i dont know how to use it i mean ive downloaded the recent version but i am not aware of how to use it i downloaded the game i wanted from the Roms files but i just know how to get it going and runned can anybody give me any tips or uses to how to use the verison of (MAME (regular) 0.126) platform windows.. i know this is a waste of your time and i know its lame explaining this but 4 me i would be most happy if anybody could offer any help... thank you...i need to know how to get the Rom files working into the mame program.. if you know if theres any setting i got to do then please explain it to me..thanks..

cheers

[FatTrucker]

If you are a novice I would recommend downloading MameUI. Its exactly the same as normal mame but runs from a menu system rather than the commandline.

You can download it Here.

Firstly, whatever version of Mame you download you need to download the binary version NOT the source version.

Getting Mame UI running:

Leave your game rom zipped and place it into the 'rom' folder found in your main mameUI folder (root directory).

Double click the MameUI.exe

Once the menu has loaded scroll to the game you installed the rom for, right click it and select 'audit' from the menu.

mame will now tell you if you have a valid game rom.

If the audit is ok then you can double click the game and it will boot.

Note - If you install a lot of games at once, then once you open MameUI, go to the 'file' menu from the toolbar at the top, and select 'audit all' and it will verify all your game roms in one go.

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Getting commandline mame working:

Place any game roms (leave them zipped) into the rom folder in the Mame root directory.

Click the Start button on your desktop and select the 'run' command.

Type cmd

This will open a command prompt on your desktop.

Change the directory to your mame root folder. For example if Mame is installed in E:\emulators\mame you would type.

E: <press return>

Then type

cd E:\emulators\mame <press return>

It should now display

E:\emulators\mame>

now type mame -cc (including the space between mame and -cc) and press return like so.

E:\emulators\mame> mame -cc

You've now created a mame.ini file in the mame folder and can boot games from the commandline.

Type mame <romname> to launch a game. So for example

E:\emulators\mame> mame pacman will launch the pacman rom if its in your rom folder.

[Hasko]

how do i change the command prompt becos it sez that its C:\Documents and Settings\xp\ how do i change that to make in a directory located the mame folder where ever i put it? for explamle: desktop mame.

and wat do you mean by <press return>??? i mean what do i press?

cos i download it and i put it on installed the file on my desktop.

[FatTrucker]

In all honesty mate I would follow the first set of advice and download and use MameUI. Its a whole lot easier and doesn't require you to use the commandline at all, you just download it, put your roms in the rom folder and double click the game in the gamelist to launch the game.

Follow this link and download the 32 bit windows version from that page.

If you do want to carry on with commandline mame then your desktop will be something like:

C:\Documents and Settings\<your computer name here>\Desktop\mame

To change the directory on the commandline just type:

cd C:\Documents and Settings\<your computer name here>\desktop <press the return/enter key>

then type:

mame -cc

Although it would make more sense to just put your mame folder directly in C:\mame then all you would need to type is:

cd C:\mame

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<press return> means press your return or enter key (the big one between shift and delete on the right of your keyboard).

<your computer name here> mean the name of your computer folder found in C:\documents and settings\<your computer folder>

I can't be any more specific than that but to be honest with a very basic level of understanding of your PC and file structures I would still recommend you download MameUI linked to in the first post and use that instead.