MAME Questions (Newbie Alert)

[moonchilddave]

Ok, I am finally actually getting started on setting up my own MAME system, although it's been years since I first played with MAME. I've gone through and picked out most of the games I'm interested in running (about 150 or so) - most all are pre-1990 games and I don't think there's a single ROM that is over 1M. I'm mainly interested in the classics like Donkey Kong, Moon Patrol, Ms. Pac, Frogger, Galaga, Centipede and games of that era.

I am either going to be building a cabinet or using an old gutted one (not one that will land me in the Hellcade), and right now my intention is to keep it as close to that arcade feel as possible (buttons with leaf switches, trackball, spinner, joysticks, and possibly some sort of real arcade monitor like a Wells Gardner, etc). In other words, I'll probably be doing a good bit of shopping with Suzo-Happ.

Right now though, I am on my first step - picking up a computer. I'm leaning towards running WinXP SP3 since I've heard it's fairly stable and probably offers the most choices when it comes time to pick a front end (although Linux doesn't scare me as I have a Unix background).

So my first question is, how powerful of a system do I need to run the types of games I'm interested in as faithfully as possible? Would a P4 do the trick? How much memory? I'm not looking for serious overkill, and trying to keep the price down as much as possible.

[jb143]

In all honesty, for the games your interested in, a PII would be more than enough. I've got a 933MHz computer for running MAME and it runs all but the more demanding modern games. A P4 would be overkill.

[Namnuta]

Im running a P4 3.4Ghz PC in my mame cab, and the majority of things run great. Newer games though are still a little slow.

Heres my full specs

P4 3.4 Ghz
4 Gigs Ram
Radeon 4850 512meg

You would think this would run everything i throw at it, and 99% of the time it does with ease, but some games im still having serious slow down issues.

Honestly, with the price of comps, i would get a decent P4. IT maybe a little over kill for what you want, but you can get them for next to nothing. I doubt the price difference between a P2 and a P4 would be that different, even if the P2 ws fee. .

I would shoot for a

P4 2.4
512meg or 1 gig of ram
120 Gig Hd

Quick search on ebay show you can get that system for under $100.

[aclbandit]

I was curious recently and looked up Pentium 2's -- the ones I saw were oddly expensive, mostly because they aren't made anymore and the only reason one would need one is for some integrated system that can't be upgraded.

The easiest thing, I would think, would be to go to http://www.newegg.com and just order a set of all the cheapest parts available. (but make sure (lol?) that they are compatible -- don't want an AMD MoBo and an Intel CPU)

[moonchilddave]

Gonna go with a Dell P4 that my g/f has that she isn't using most likely. So now I'm looking at the monitors and it seems from what I have read, you can't go wrong with the Wells-Gardner D9200 monitor. So, with a P4, an ArcadeVGA card, and a D9200 as a base, I'm wondering what kind of cabinet I can put this monitor in and have it fit (horizontally mounted). I don't like the look of the newer cabinets and such, prefering the styles of say an Asteroids, Donkey Kong, or Pac cabinet... So, my question is, will the D9200 fit horizontally in these style cabinets or am I looking at a custom build most likely?

[moonchilddave]

One other quick question... I'm getting the Dell P4 for free (not sure of the speed or memory, but I think it has 512M at least in it). Would I be better off running Win2K or XP? Since this is going in a cabinet, I have no plans to really use the computer for anything other than MAME. Reason I ask is I'm a Mac guy...

I'm pretty sure the computer has XP on it and I plan on doing a fresh install if she still has the discs. But I also know sometimes there are advantages to running an older OS (like less overhead).

[Romeroman_Santa]

MAME is LAME

Lame Arcade Machine Emulator.

Try Amstrad 46P

[jb143]

I'd just use a stripped down XP booting right into your frontend.

Here's instructions for how to do that and for hiding windows, turning off those anoying info pop-ups, hiding the mouse pointer, etc...
http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Hiding_Windows

If you havn't already, you should check out the build your own arcade controls site. They go into detail about pretty much every aspect of building your own MAME cabinet...
http://arcadecontrols.com/arcade.htm

[moonchilddave]

Thanks for the info, I hadn't run across that site yet, looks like that'll be a big help!!!

[TheDomesticInstitution]

So yesterday, I decided to pull out a Dell of a few years old, out of the closet. I couldn't get MacMAME to work on my machine, so this was my alternative. My girlfriend had since purchased a new desktop because she thought this old one to be FUBAR. Well after burning 6 DVDs of all the old music/docs/etc. on the old one, and removing all unnecessary programs, I now have passable MAME machine.

It has a Pentium IV 2.somethingGhz, 80GB HD, and 512 RAM. I played a stage or two of Captain America, XMEN, and TMNT today and it seemed to work great. I'm currently using a Game Elements gamepad I got from Walmart a few years ago, which isn't too bad.

I'm running the latest version of MAME, and I seem to be getting the hang of it. I need to go find a MAME for dummies FAQ, so I can figure out:

-What a front end does, and if there's a primitive one that will run on 512mb.
-how to configure MAME properly
-whay I can't get Galaga to work properly, even when I have both sets of ROMs
-why a lot of older games require more than one ROM? I don't understand.

Anyway, just thought I'd share my experience. If I can get all this shit to work right, I'm thinking about setting up a cab. My woodworking skills suck, so I'd be looking for a cheap or free donor cab.

I'm also going to check out the site above, and see if I can learn some shit myself.

[Enigmus]

MAME is LAME

That somehow reminded me of all of the really bad phrases that come form the 80s. Still, MAME ain't lame!

[moonchilddave]

A front end is simply the system that allows you to launch the games from. I'm using Mamewah which will run on even the oldest systems with little RAM, but you need to get used to editing "ini" files to set it up... It's quite nice, but you MUST read the docs. You might also give Mala a shot - lot of folks seem to like that, and say it's easier to set up.

Most games only require a single ROM - but there are parent and clone ROMS. The clone ROMS only contain what is changed from the parent and then you need both. I found the ROM Keeper website to be a blessing as it will tell you what ROMS you need to run a game - and which are the parents and which are the clones. If you only run the parent roms, you don't need more than one per game.

Your problem with Galaga may be due to the fact that you are using an older ROM with a newer version of MAME. Look around for a more recent version of the ROM.

As for configuring MAME properly, a good place to start is the "windows" file in the docs directory of your install - shows you all the configuration options... and if you don't have a MAME.INI config file in your main directory run "mame.exe -cc" to create it from the command prompt.

Definantly head over to the Build Your Own Arcade Controls site listed above and hit their forums and start reading and asking questions! I've learned a ton over there already. You might also want to check out MAME World

[TheDomesticInstitution]

Thanks for all the info, moonchilddave. Sounds like I need to configure it properly before I do anything else. Anyway, you've been a big help.

[moonchilddave]

One other thing that I've found... there are some games that run slow for me or have choppy sound in the latest version of MAME, so I found that with Mamewah I can actually install multiple versions of MAME and set up game specific files for those. Like for me, Galaga '88 has serious sound and speed issues in the latest version, so in Mamewah I set up a game specific file to run it under MAME .083 where it runs full speed with no issues on my system.

Newer isn't always better....

There's a lot to take in - don't let it overwhelm you... as the end results when you get things just right are very satisfying!!!

[TheDomesticInstitution]

Today when I was randomly downloading ROMs, I found that a lot of the older games were the ones I had problems with most. Donkey Kong just plain sucks, for one. And Galaxian had a slight lag, but it was enough to hurt gameplay.

I'll have to look into MAMEwah, because I'm mainly interested in games pre-90's (with a few exceptions).