Mame Tutorial for n00bs

[Chepecool]

I am new to launchbox and mame.  I have a problem with some roms.  I imported a full arcade rom set.  When I try to run a cpsIII rom it will not run, however if I right click the game, I can select a different bios version to run the game.  Is there a way to have said roms to select the right bios?

[sundogak]

Means you have an incomplete MAME set if some work and others don't. That's a MAME thing, not LB. However, if some run and you want that one to work when launching as default within LB, then go into the game via edit and select Additional Apps. You can then select one you know works and make it the default. Then LB will launch that version. However, won't fix the other versions until you get MAME squared away.

[turbofeet]

Indeed.

I use an application called Clrmame pro which I use to verify my set (100% complete ?).

Do bear mind that the version of Mame itself must match the Romset.

So; if you have an old Romset say 0.82 you would need Mame 0.82 to run those ROMs. They have all previous versions on their website.

A common error is to use a recent version of Mame for an older Romset.

Good luck

[blackboxingcat]

HI

How do i exit mame in bigbox straight into the game selection screen,instead of it exiting into what looks to be like core/emulator settings?

cheers 

[Tatts4Life]

I have MAME 204 non merged. Is the easiest thing for me to do to just treat the current version of MAME as a fresh install? I don't really ever plan to update MAME monthly but every so often.

[Lordmonkus]

If you have a 204 rom set I would suggest using the 204 version of Mame as well, using a newer version could break some games.

[turbofeet]

Yes as Mr Funky Monkey said, the key thing is to ensure that the version of MAME and the Romset are the same version.

I have updated it to the latest version loads of time but rarely do I think I have gained much.

[Tatts4Life]

I was just wondering if it was worth it going from the 204 rom set to whatever the newest one is? It's been probably 2 years or more since I downloaded 204. Do They ever add any games worth playing that weren't in a previous version?

[Headrush69]

5 minutes ago, Tatts4Life said:

Do They ever add any games worth playing that weren't in a previous version?

That really depends on personal preference and what games you like and if they work well enough for you.

More important to me is emulation improvements for games that already "work". For example, around version 0.180 they switched several games that used sound samples to preliminary  Votrax chip emulation. Games like Q-Bert, Gorf sounded terrible in parts. I kept an older MAME version just for these games. A few recent updates have improved the Votrax emulation enough that I don't need the old MAME version anymore. For none arcade titles, lots of improvements in Apple II emulation that I use as well. So it's not yes or no and depends on your usage.

 

 

[turbofeet]

Yeah there are usually additions and fixes. Specifically the CHDs.

In some updates you might have like 70 files that have changed but then - in the end all it meant is that you have one random chess game added.

Newsgroups are the best source of the odd files btw. Especially if you upgrade your set to a ver recent one.

[bombatomba77]

@Lordmonkus: Thank you so much for this!  I had to get rid of my old MAME cab (with my old PC and old version of MAMEUI installed) and decided to start over.  It was driving me nuts until I found this thread.  Thank you so much!

[Lordmonkus]

Glad it was helpful.

[Zeaede]

Finally got that emulator setup download it from somewhere else allready configure

Would never ever figure it out myself

[mtib]

Hi, I searched but didn´t find. I need to find a way to set a default preset for stretch setting for all roms. For instance, when I load a rom, I can set the Screen Horizontal Stretch and the Screen Vertical Stretch for an especific game, than I have the following setting on the cfg file from this rom:

         <video>
            <screen index="0" gamma="0.800000" hstretch="0.998000" vstretch="0.990000" />
        </video>

But I need this setting to all roms, otherwise I will have to set for each game. Is there a way to set this parameter on the mame.ini file? Thanks in advance.

[MapleLeaf]

I'm encountering a pathing issue to my MAME Roms folder.

I currently have my Roms folder inside Mameui64 on my desktop with all of my Roms inside of it. 

When I right click the Roms folder and select "Properties" it says the Location is: C:\Users\username\Desktop\Mameui64

I've tried adding this location to the MAME .ini file using Notepad++ and clicking save but when I load CMD and type: mame64.exe sf2

I just get the following:

"'mame64.exe' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file."

I've also tried: C:\Users\username\Desktop\Mameui64\Roms

And the same issue occurs.

I do have this game and I'm not sure I understand the pathing issue.

[Lordmonkus]

If you keep your roms in the \roms sub folder of your Mame install then you don't need to change anything in the mame.ini file.

The default setting should be:
rompath                   roms

rompath                   roms

 

[MapleLeaf]

Yeah, I know, but I'm using 2 versions of MAME.

-The Original/Official MAME (or whatever people refer to it as).
AND
-Mameui64

I currently have all of my ROMs in Mameui64 and I want to path to them FROM the official MAME because I don't want to duplicate my ROMs. Both MAME installs are on my desktop. 

[Lordmonkus]

Try putting your roms in C:\users\username\roms and then edit the mame.ini file to point to that location:

rompath "C:\users\username\roms"

Wrap the path in quotes as a precaution just in case you have a space in your user name.

[MapleLeaf]

Can Windows not path to a desktop location? There should be no reason as to why this doesn't work. 
And yes, I considered doing what you're recommending, but I don't want the ROMs on my C drive, I prefer them being on my desktop as strange / silly as that may sound to some. 

Creating an .ini via CMD was simple, but at this point, with the amount of time I've spent on what should be an incredibly simple task (creating this path), I may as well delete MAME and use Mameui64 because it doesn't require any command line inputs and it should suffice for LaunchBox as an arcade emulator. I only wanted the option to use both, but if trying to set a simple path is wasting this much of my time I don't think I want to deal with command line anymore. 

[JoeViking245]

4 hours ago, MapleLeaf said:

Can Windows not path to a desktop location?

 

4 hours ago, MapleLeaf said:

but I don't want the ROMs on my C drive

 

The 'problem' is your "Desktop" is on your C drive.  Regardless, the path to your Desktop is

C:\Users\your_user_name\Desktop