MAME at bootup?

[D.Metal]

Hi guys, this is my first post here (probably of many!), so please, be gentle with me...

After months of thinking about it I've decided to try and build myself a MAME cabinet. I have an old PC gathering dust which plays the majority of the games I want on there and after checking it out, everything still seems to be working.

After some googling I've found various instructions to hide Windows, at the moment I have no problem with any of that, but the problem I do have, and the reason for my post, is getting MAME to boot at start up.

Does anybody know or have any useful links to get MAME to boot straight up instead of manually starting it?

Thanks for your time.

[FatTrucker]

Use a Front-End. Your cab will startup straight into the Game menu screen, you use your joysticks to browse the gamelist and a pushbutton to start whichever game.

FE's to try include Mamewah, GameEx, Mala, and Maximus Arcade.

Mamewah and Mala are free, excellent FE's (initially difficult to setup). GameEx and Maximus are shareware FE's (free version which you purchase for full features) that are very easy to setup with Maximus in particular being very nice.

If you don't fancy the laerning curve with commandline Mame and are planning on using MameUI then simply stick a shortcut to MameUI.exe into the Windows/startup folder and it will load as soon as windows starts.

Mamewah pic from my PC below:

[D.Metal]

Thanks for the quick reply FT (Did you used to be on the GamesTM forum btw?). I tried your suggestion and MAME does indeed boot up, unfortunately not properly though.

It doesn't seem to be reading the config/ini files. All I get is the menu, no snaps or the like, and no available roms...even after pressing F5, infact to get it to work I have to go into the menus and point it towards all of the various folders... any ideas why? Do I need to add anything after the .EXE command?

I'm not actually using MAMEUI, my pc is a pretty old Pentium 4, 128mb, 1.8ghz, Geforce2... so I'm using MAME32 .82 (The Sega system 16 games were reworked not long after so If I go over that theres no Outrun or space Harrier for me..).. I don't know whether the version of MAME will make any difference or not?

Also, I'm shying away from mamewah at the moment because it doesn't work with my usb stick (or more accurately, my cheapo usb stick doesn't work with mamewah). I have tried it before though and it is superb. Once I get the money together I'll be picking up an X-arcade tankstick which'll work via the ps/2 port... removing any compatibility problems.

Kind of wandered off topic there, any ideas on the mame problem?

-edit- I'm using Windows 98SE btw, dunno if that matters either....

[FatTrucker]

Yep used to be about quite a bit over at GamesTM. Thats a bit weird its like its booting a completely fresh version of Mame32 (mame32 is MameUI they changed the name).

You could overcome the USB joystick issue with mamewah by using the Joy2Key app or Xpadder. Works a treat, just converts your pad input to keyboard keys.

Normally what I do is browse to the C:\Documents and Settings\user\Start Menu\Programs\Startup folder.

Right click the program I want to start on boot and select create shortcut, then drag the shortcut into the folder.

All windows is doing in those circumstances is start exactly the same mame32.exe you click on to start mame32 so it should load with everything intact.

[D.Metal]

Aye thats pretty much what I did, I already had a shortcut to MAME on my desktop so I just right click>properties and copy the location of the link then make a new string in the MSconfig-startup called mame and paste the link in. It just its like its starting up with no folders...

I already tried joy2key with no joy, my stick isn't even recognised by windows but it works in MAME, Snes9x & Gens... so It'll do for now. Might give Xpadder a go though, never heard of that before.

All windows is doing in those circumstances is start exactly the same mame32.exe

Exactly what I thought... hmmm

[FatTrucker]

You're putting it in the wrong place.

Use the windows Startup folder (found in Start/Program Files/Startup just drag your shortcut there) I'm guessing putting it in at the msconfig startup menu is loading it before the rest of the explorer shell is loaded meaning its not getting access to the rest of the folder.

[D.Metal]

Ahhh right.

Its defragging at the moment but I'll give this ago in the morning and let you know how I get on.

Thanks for the help man.

[FatTrucker]

No worries. As for your joystick, if its recognised by Mame then you should be able to use the inputs for mamewah. When you set your controls up using the TAB function in Mame what entries show up for the joystick directions and button presses?

Post em here and I might be able to make you a working Mamewah config file.

[D.Metal]

Just wanted to say thanks again chief, putting it in the start up folder worked a treat.

Haven't had chance to list my joystick inputs yet but I'll definately post them up. I'm currently battling with my audio, A Genius soundmaker 5.1 setup... it works fine on the programs own audio test but no other programs including mame want to use the sub anymore. It was working fine last year..

Don'tya just love computers..