MAME works fine. The only problem I've noticed when using the newest version was that it lists every game in the database rather than just the ones you have downloaded.
Not sure why that would be... even with the longest paths and fudgey typing fingers, copy/paste works just fine.. Got a long path? Paste it in there and you're in there in less than a second e.g. cd d:\direct1\yabadaba\doo\1\yasa\hoohoo\vavoom
But yeah anyway.. if you're uncomfortable with cmd lines, then yes it might just be time consuming for someone. But the truth is it really is a lot more efficient for many types of file operations.
But then again there's a lot of situations where a GUI does work better. If you don't do a lot of work with files then it's probably all moot anyway. But it's just knowing what options are there for you.
Yeah, it's a good emulator. It doesn't have as many problems as I originally said.
I think they should compact romsets into a single file (i.e., .arc for arcade, like .nes, .pce, .smc, etc.), if that's possible, so that you can associate the file type with the program and just double-click it to make it to run, and they should maybe provide compatibility lists for romsets so that it's easier for ROM sites to know which versions to host. It seems like there's some confusion here.
You have to navigate to that long path first in order to copy it.
However one feature I'd like to see added to Windows/Mac/Linux, etc is the ability to double-click a directory part in a path to get to that part of the path. For instance, in this path on my computer:
C:\Documents and Settings\Matthew\My Documents\games 020211
I could click the word Matthew and it'd pull me back to the Matthew directory rather than hitting "up" over and over.
CHD files are large Hard Drive images or disk media images that are required to run games. For example Street Fighter III in the arcade used a GD rom and a motherboard containing the chip roms. In your NFL Blitz, you only have the roms (i.e. just the motherboard portion), you are going to need the NFL Blitz.CHD (not named that way, it's probably 478743.chd or some crap like that). Torrent MAME CHDs if you want to play the more recent games though a warning, it will most likely take up minimal 40 gigs for the CHDS if not more.
They already compact romsets into a single file. It's called a zip archive.
And compatibility lists do exist. They're called MAME. The program allows people to extract the romset data and use them with frontends or rom managing tools to manage and play the games. Blame the morons that keep posting old romsets online instead of updating them like they should, it's their fault you have so much trouble finding "working" sets.
To add to the confusion is the parent and child rom sets. Use romcenter and the datfiles and you can have full merged sets (all rom files in both parent and child), split (parent zip file and child zip file must be in the same directory) and split merged (forgot what this one does)
Keeping merged sets is a very bad idea.
Not only are some filenames on these sets the same, keeping them merged may make it a bit harder for you to update or fix your sets when you upgrade to a newer version of MAME.
Front. Ends.
Seriously, if you spend a little time configuring everything, you're golden. Here's a couple shots of GameLauncher running in my cabinet, well, the first one was during construction so the monitor's not really "in" the cabinet...
The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "save us!"......and I'll look down, and whisper "no."
MAME isn't perfect, but what do you expect of a freeware emulator (especially one that supports so many games running off different hardware)? My main complaint is that games which ran perfectly under old versions of MAME are very choppy when played under newer versions of MAME. The hardware requirements have jumped up tremendously, affecting games that previously never demanded such powerful hardware to run well.
I'm guessing you don't have Win7? In Windows 7 (and I think, Vista) that's exactly how it works.. you can just click on the "matthew" and it'll bring you right back there. You can also choose any subfolders from a dropdown.
That being said you don't ever have actually navigate to any path.. you can just start typing in the navigation bar (or in the Win7 start field) and auto-complete does a lot of the work for you.. you usually just have to type a letter or two. Then once the path is all complete you can cut/paste and shove it in a cmd prompt. It's actually a very fast process.
Back on subject.. I've completely ignored Mame CHD games. Too much space and really not worth the effort. I mean is there anything CHD related that works completely and is fun to play? Please someone tell me
My biggest problem with MAME is that somehow people get the idea that the way Arcade games look, play, and sound in MAME is "perfect." I have had countless discussions with kiddos that think they have played the original Arcade version and found it better than a AAA console adaptation. There is no convincing somebody how great an adaptation like Strider on Genesis was when they grew up on N64 and can play the emulated Arcade game for free.
My experience was totally different. I played the Arcade game first at a grocery store with a 6x9 speaker five inches from my head. I bought the NES version first and then more than a couple of years later got to play it on my Genesis. Not only did the game seem roughly equivalent, it absolutely destroyed everything else available for home consoles at the time.
Anyway, one other problem. At 1080i on my HTPC + 40" LCD I can't read the game titles in any version of MAME.
I love when people complain about things they get for FREE.
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KI 2 and SF III are the only CHD files I have. They both run great and KI2 actually runs a little fast on a five year old computer. To those complaining about NFL Blitz........it just doesn't work properly yet. It's one of my all time arcade favorites and I have tried EVERYTHING to get this game to work.
Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine, but demonic.
Pope Benedict XVI