MAME frustrations...

[tschak909]

Roughly a year ago.

[tschak909]

If any of you want to keep up with MAME's happenings, you have two places:

 

http://forums.bannister.org/

 

http://forum.mamedev.org/

 

The former is where the MESS discussions were happening before the MAME merger, and continue to happen there...

 

The latter is attempting to be the single nexus for MAME discussion.

 

Pay close attention to bannister's shoutbox.

 

-Thom

[phoenixdownita]

Aah "Mess has been merged". That explains it totally. When did that happen?

What's your avatar?

i can't decide if it's a top half body with a jackhammer or a top half body smashing his penis!

[NE146]

The 2nd one

 

Just an update.. In my quest to start from zero, I'm trying to download what appears to at least be a "large" collection of mame roms off usenet. Whether they're complete, or outdated, I have no idea until I run a checking utility. But what sucked is I started it at 5pm and it was still going around 9pm when my power went out for 2.5 hours My newsleecher seems to have kept where it last was but we'll see.

 

still pumping...

 

 

 

[Trebor]

What's your avatar?

i can't decide if it's a top half body with a jackhammer or a top half body smashing his penis!

 

Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em

 

My next steps to try are to see how "easy" or how fast can I get a relatively complete set of roms for arcade games, ignoring CHD's and mechanical, and any of the other odd stuff like that. I'll check usenet, torrents, IRC, and websites in that order. The last thing will be doing the fluff like artwork/bezels etc. anyway.. just a report.

 

alt.binaries.emulators.mame

 

MAME Torrents

 

Pleasuredome Tracker

 

Aah "Mess has been merged". That explains it totally. When did that happen?

Version 0.162, released May 27, 2015.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I have yet to figure out how to access usenet. Does it need a special web browser or something?

[MrBeefy]

I feel like a broken record on this site repeating this over the years, but I just dont understand why MAME has the reputation of being such an obstreperous bear to work with.

 

I realize that a little bit of up-front work to get some completely free software running thousands of games might be anathema to some in this world of instant gratification, but I promise you it is easy if you have a shred of patience and you know the first thing about how to use a computer.

 

Hands down, the #1 thing that I see causing heartburn and frustration with MAME newbies is them not realizing that the MAME version and the ROM version need to match (ROM is in quotes because they are not actually ROMs in the same sense that classic home console cartridge ROMs are a single MAME ROM is actually a set of ROMs copied from the original board, bundled with software drivers that tell your computer how to run them).

 

The common scenario goes something like this: Joe-Retro wakes up one day and decides he wants to play Dig Dug on his PC. He downloads the latest version of MAME, he goes to his ROM site of choice and downloads Dig Dug from the MAME section, he tries to play it, and he gets a weird error message about missing files. He tries Golden Axe, and it works just fine. Yay! Then he tries Asteroids and he gets that error message again. FUCK THIS SHIT! he says, MAME IS IMPOSSIBLE!

 

Dont be like Joe-Retro. Armed with the understanding that the MAME and ROM versions need to match, and your understanding of computer basics such as navigating folders in Windows explorer, youre 95% equipped with what you need to get your game on.

 

Cherry-picking individual games like Joe-Retro is an approach that is doomed to fail. Why? Because most sources of single games do not tell you what version of MAME you need to run that particular version of the ROM. The result is that some games will work, but many wont. On the other hand, if you hunt down a full set of ROMs, the source will tell you what MAME version they go with (if this info is missing, find another source).

 

To summarize:

 

- Obtain a full MAME romset from one of the many sources mentioned in this thread, and note what version of MAME it is for

- Obtain that version of MAMEUI (UI = user interface a version of MAME that does not require command-line know-how) from mamedev.org. It is available in both 32- and 64-bit versions. You may need to get the 32 if you have an older machine.

- unzip MAMEUI

- put all of the proper-version ROMs in the ROMs directory of the MAMEUI folder structure

- run MAMEUI

- search for and double click on the game you want to play

- if a nag-screen appears, do what it says (e.g. hit left/right on your joystick or arrow keys, hit enter, whatever). At this point, the game will boot up and start running in its attract mode.

- hit the TAB key to enter the config menu and map your controls (an intuitive process that should make perfect sense to anybody who has ever used an emulator of any kind). Note: The setup is automatically saved, so this process does not need to be repeated later unless you want to change the mappings.

- Exit the config menu (ESC key)

- Press the 5 key to drop in a virtual token and credit up

- Press the 1 key for player 1 start

- Get your ass kicked by your favorite classic arcade game

- When youve had enough, hit ESC key to exit back to MAMEUI

- Pick another game, and repeat

 

Games with special or analog controls might take some tweaking, but the above process will get you playing the vast majority of classic games. I dont wish to seem smug, but can somebody please tell me what is so difficult about this?

 

No, MAME does not have anywhere near the gloss and elegance of an iOS app. And yes, it has lots of esoteric configuration options available. But a lot of those options are just noise that can be ignored completely by most; if all you want to do is get right to the heart of the matter and play some classic arcade games, the above steps are all you need to know and understand to get started. If you get into it, youll pick up some more advanced tricks as you go along, but theyre not needed.

 

As mentioned, there are some very good if perhaps non-obvious reasons to adopt the if it aint broke, dont fix it philosophy when considering whether or not to upgrade your MAME version. Aside from the time and effort you save by staying the course with a working version, consider:

 

- Later versions might run slower on some games because the MAME team is always seeking to emulate more accurately, which draws more resources. The benefits of this extra accuracy will probably be completely unnoticeable to you. This is important to understand, because lots of us employ old, disused PCs for running MAME, and resources are at a premium.

- If its the allure of new games being brought into the working games category that tempts you to upgrade, just be aware that i) most games that dont suck have been running fine for years, and ii) there may also be games being taken away that worked in previous versions. With successive MAME versions, some games may suddenly lose sound, stop running at full speed, or stop working entirely. Again, this is not a problem if you find and stick with a set that satisfactorily plays the games you want to play.

I have a roms etc and working mame for 161. However now I'm trying to find a front end. Mame 161 has no way or just browse alphabetically.

 

I tried adv mame and can get it to run but not connect to the roms. Any good suggestions on front ends?

[atarilovesyou]

I had a problem with MAME at every step, not just getting the roms to work. But, I got some help from here. That's the best advice I can give: ask around until some benevolent MAMEr takes pity on your poor, non-MAME soul Worked for me!

 

I'd love to have some kind of front end that will eliminate all the garbage ROMs from my collection (pinballs, other crap...not hating pins, of course, it's just that they're useless to me). There are literally THOUSANDS of games!...yet, I'm missing Indiana Jones. Well, there goes the neighbourhood.

[phoenixdownita]

I've been fine with mameUI

http://www.progettosnaps.net/mameui/

Download the version that matches the romset, place your roms in the ROM directory.

When the UI fires on the left side you'll see a sort of "tree" ... it's not a tree it's in reality a sort of preclassified/preselected set of rom lists.

Once you choose one of the left nodes in the tree the list of Mame games in the middle changes to only show the ones satisfying the criteria.

Some criteria are "Golden Age", or "Vertical Scroller" or "Working" etc.... what I normally do via right click is to remove clones from the view (a clone being a game that is just a hack of another game) to remove clutter although sometimes it makes it worse for a a few games, not the clutter but the leftover selection is wrong.

 

Anyway beside learning that in MameUI the left tree really is just a tree of "search criteria" the rest came easy enough.

[Cynicaster]

I have a roms etc and working mame for 161. However now I'm trying to find a front end. Mame 161 has no way or just browse alphabetically.

 

I tried adv mame and can get it to run but not connect to the roms. Any good suggestions on front ends?

 

Have you tried MAMEUI? It has a graphical user interface built in. It's not the prettiest, but it works. You can sort and search large numbers of files very easily. You can also browse screen shots, cabinet pictures, control panel pictures, etc. if you have those files (some rom sets come with them).

 

Personally, I only use a front end on my MAME cabinet, and it is Mala. I believe it has been pretty much abandoned, but I have a version that works and have stuck with it.

[TPA5]

I'll second Mala, I've used it before and it works pretty well. Making your own skins isn't very hard either. It is indeed abandoned development-wise at this point, but it works well enough that it isn't an issue.

Edited July 11, 2016 by TPA5

[+DrVenkman]

I have to second the suggestion to spend some time at the Pleasuredome tracker. Helps to have very fast broadband.

 

For Macs, the front-end of choice is basically QMC2 ... Being Qt-based, it's not OS X specific or standard, but it's easy to use and it works.

[NE146]

Yep.. just an update. Snagged 11.2 gigs of roms off usenet (a.b.e.mame) and it was mostly a bust using MameUI64 v0.175.showing hardly any working games. I believe what I got was mostly a update pack tor Clrmamepro or some other utility to update your existing ROMs for newer Mame versions.

 

Yes I have the majority of roms already, but the point of this is to try and start from scratch and see how easy or difficult it is. So, moving onto the Pleasuredome trackers.

 

By the way.. the whole MESS thing is a bit of a hurdle. I had to figure out how to filter showing all the MESS games and just keep it straight arcade. but it's cool because I found something for "Entex Space Invader" which is a game I know super well from my childhood and wouldn't you know it.. it plays great! I mastered it already. Only problem is it just shows LED dots and it apparently needs some kind of artwork to make it look right, but I don't know how to do that yet. But still.. kinda cool.

Edited July 13, 2016 by NE146

[Epx998]

I have yet to figure out how to access usenet. Does it need a special web browser or something?

 

As I remember it, you need access to an NNTP service that will let you subscribe to the group you are after. Then you'll need a good client to read the articles and download the binaries. but this is off of memory from 10 years or so ago.

[mr_me]

I have yet to figure out how to access usenet. Does it need a special web browser or something?

Outlook express and thunderbird are also newsreaders. You can get dedicated newsreaders with more features. Your isp typically provides the nntp server service but there are other free nntp servers too.

[S1500]

I tried MAME 175 last night. What were they thinking for the interface for adding a folder? I tried to add a ROM folder(for my arcade games), and had to do it 3 times. It made no sense with the way they have you do it. Adding a folder from a simple Win32 dialog made sense, and it worked(would have been nice to see the full path). But with the way they do it now, it's a huge step back.

 

Also, how do you do a double filter to show(not filter OUT, but show) available & working ROMs?

[Keatah]

The interface, after all these years, is still pretty lousy. And downright illogical in certain areas.

[Nebulon]

Despite all my bitch'n & moan' I still believe mame to be utterly and totally awesome. I one time had a fantasy dream about being a time traveller going back to the early 80's with an R-Pi hidden inside a VCS cartridge. Then going on tour as the world's greatest programmer and magician. Demoing all the arcade games on hardware that fits in a pocket. I even had my own custom version of Winux 11 which monitored the timeline to ensure no inversions were happening by way of not showing games that hadn't been invented yet.

I agree. MAME rocks.

 

I have a ton of arcade emulators that I paid for and none of them have near the amount of configuration options that MAME has. Ironic that something made open-source by "the people" blows the doors off of the retail variants.

 

To this day I still run MAMEoX on the XBOX and MAME32 v0.35 on the PC. Nice and simple. And as R.Cade mentioned above, I only play the older stuff, so it works out fine.

[Nebulon]

If you're willing to play stuff prior to 1995, I'd highly recommend MAME32 v.36. It's one of the simplest to get running:

 

http://mame.oldos.net/

[+DrVenkman]

I've said it before, I'll say it again ... a $35 Raspberry Pi + $8 case + $10 power supply + $12 32GB card = the best $65 a gamer can spend if you love to play the old stuff. Download an image for RetroPie, expand it to your microSD card and copy over your roms.

[S1500]

Ran into an interesting problem using MAME on Linux(Ubuntu). I hit Alt to jump in Bionic Commando, and it switches the task back to the desktop. Now I have to find a way to shut that off. Alt is not a good window management key, MAME or no MAME.

[Arbee]

That's an excellent writeup and summary.

 

My current beef with mame is when I changed the BIOS locations to /../mame/bios/, the roms for the games or carts now had to go there too. Couldn't put the roms in /../mame/roms/

 

Both roms and bios had to be under the same folder. Well fuck that I want them separate!!

 

And the way you accomplish that is to have multiple folders in your ROM path. It's a path, just like a Unix or Windows $PATH, it can have multiple folders.

[Arbee]

I've said it before, I'll say it again ... a $35 Raspberry Pi + $8 case + $10 power supply + $12 32GB card = the best $65 a gamer can spend if you love to play the old stuff. Download an image for RetroPie, expand it to your microSD card and copy over your roms.

 

This is a common misconception. You very much get what you pay for: primitive emulations of games from a 16 years ago version of MAME with incorrect colors, sounds, gameplay speeds, and the occasional CPU core bug to keep things interesting. Even the golden oldies like Pacman and Donkey Kong are emulated to a far higher standard of fidelity now than was possible back then. Get a small form factor Core i5 or i7, run current MAME with a good frontend, and the experience (and game selection) is miles better.

Edited July 29, 2016 by Arbee

[Keatah]

And the way you accomplish that is to have multiple folders in your ROM path. It's a path, just like a Unix or Windows $PATH, it can have multiple folders.

 

Well let me try that later and see what happens.

[tschak909]

Arbee hits the nail, right on the head. MAME's emulation core has had several architectural shifts, since its inception...and yes, the changes require more powerful hardware...but you are rewarded with ever increasing accuracy of said emulation, as well as a big increase in the # of games...

 

Simplest example, many of the oldest MAMEs that can run on ARM hardware have incorrect colors, due to the fact that the colors are approximated, and are not read from e.g. the requisite color PROMs, and modelled appropriately.

 

This was a topic that Aaron Giles wrote about in his blog, many years ago (almost 10 years ago, at this point), but I bring it up here, because of the ever present use of MAME, from that vintage.

 

-Thom