Getting started with mame

[erehwon]

I'm looking into trying mame and had a few questions. Thought I'd ask here since the arcade board is a bit slow at the moment.

What is the best frontend? There is a addon for xbmc that I was looking at, but I was also looking at separate ones. I was also looking for ease in setup. I tried hyperspin, but couldn't figure out how to do a list of just the roms that I have and not all roms.

Are there any good lists of the top mame roms? I'm looking for some of the top games in the various genres. I'm not asking where to get roms, just what to look for. The internet archive released that big 47 GB collection of roms and I want to narrow things down.

[Rickstilwell1]

MAME4droid on Ouya only lists the roms you put on it, and you don't even have to have the parent version of the game to play something. I would recommend starting with one of those and that. The Ouya lets you use any USB controller on it. I like using the PS3 controller wirelessly.

[MidnightRider]

How does that work? I thought the parent rom basically had all the main game info.

[Greg2600]

I use MAME4droid on Ouya as well, works great on everything pre-1995-ish. You have to get rom set 0.139 though. Some of the driving games need to have the controls remapped when you first play them, so that the analog steering, pedals work.

[erehwon]

I have a broken laptop hooked to my tv, which is where I might be putting the emulator and roms. It probably has more power than that ouya or my modded xbox. I think I have the most recent version of mame, .152. So, would I need a rom set for that version?

For controls, I was thinking of using an xbox 360 controller or the neo geo x arcade stick I picked up from target for $12.

[Greg2600]

I have a broken laptop hooked to my tv, which is where I might be putting the emulator and roms. It probably has more power than that ouya or my modded xbox. I think I have the most recent version of mame, .152. So, would I need a rom set for that version?

For controls, I was thinking of using an xbox 360 controller or the neo geo x arcade stick I picked up from target for $12.

For most games you'll be fine. If you can't fine a 0.152 romset, then download a different one, and install the mame version that matches. You'll also want a Mame front-end like MameUI. As long as your computer fully recognizes your controller, Mame will too. Like I said, you may have to do some config in the game settings itself. The extra power on the laptop will be good, because (example) some games like Die Hard Arcade runs in MAME, but the Ouya is too slow for it.

[Rickstilwell1]

Some games after 1995 run just fine on the Ouya. It depends on which ones though. 1944: The Loop Master came out in 2000 but it runs perfectly on the Ouya. The ones it can't handle are the 3D ones.

Also some versions of MAME will still work with some of the wrong roms for its romset. That is because not every single game was edited for every release of MAME. Only certain ones will have problems if you match the wrong versions as long as the releases are not too far apart. Many of the roms for the slightly older Wii set will work on the Ouya and vice versa.