I'm so happy, I finally got MAME working on my PC!

[Living Room Arcade]

I realize there are people here who are very knowledgeable about this.  But this is what I have learned so far about it.

 

How to Install MAME

- Leave MAME ROMS in .zip format.  
- All MAME ROMs need to be played with the correct version of MAME.  
- ROMS from non-merged ROM sets can be used stand-alone, because each zip contains all of the files needed to run that game.  
- Find non-merged MAME ROM sets at archive.org.  

 

So, I learned that I can go to Archive.org, view the contents of a ROM zip file containing many MAME ROMS, choose a few that I like and download them individually.

I must note the version of MAME such as 0.174 and download the MAME emulator of the same number.  Individual ROMS will work stand alone if the ROM set is non-merged. 

 

Example:

MAME 2016 Reference: Full Non-Merged Arcade Romsets at Archive.org

Note in the comments below, people are telling us it's MAME version 0.174.

Click SHOW ALL to see what's in the zip file.  

Find roms.zip in the list and click View Contents to see the list of roms.

As a hypothetical example, suppose we were to scroll down and find Neo Drift Out '94 (drifto94.zip) and download it.

Now we have our ROM.  And we noted that it is from MAME version 0.174.

Now we need the 0.174 MAME emulator to match.

We go to mamedev.org...

... and choose Previous Releases from the pull down menu under Downloads

and we scroll down until we find 0.174

and for PC running Windows, I will choose mame0174b.exe to download.  

Then I will run the installer and install MAME 0.174 emulator onto my PC.

Then I will put the ROM drifto94.zip into the ROMS folder that the installer created.

To run the game program, double click on MAME.exe.

Find the ROM in the list.  Hit enter.

Press:

5 insert coin
1 Player 1 start
arrows - move
Left Ctrl - button A
Left Alt - button B
space - button C
Alt+Enter - toggle full screen

 

I learned that sometimes, it will say that the ROM doesn't work and there's nothing you can do except wait for a future version of MAME to hopefully fix the problem.

 

It seems to me that you will end up with several versions of MAME installed on your PC in order to run all of the games that you want.  

 

Some examples:

Championship Snowboard and Side Pocket run on MAME 0.259.

Neo Drift Out '94 as we just said runs on 0.174.

Mil Miglia (1000 Mile Rally), Pole Position and World Rally run on 0.139.

 

So if I understand this right, you would need to install 0.259, 0.174 and 0.139 versions of MAME on your PC if you wanted to be able to run all of these games.  Is that correct?  

 

How are others installing MAME.  Can you offer some pointers, some things I missed?  

Edited November 1, 2023 by Living Room Arcade

[Atari Nut]

Why are you downloading such old versions?  Download MAME .260 and the ROMS that work with .260.

[Living Room Arcade]

5 hours ago, Atari Nut said:

Why are you downloading such old versions?  Download MAME .260 and the ROMS that work with .260.

@Atari Nut I guess that's because I don't see a MAME 0.260 non-merged ROM set at Archive.org.  

 

I see that Archive.org has a 0.260 merged ROM set

but I don't see a 0.260 non-merged ROM set at Archive.org.  

 

I like to download whatever free software they have at Archive.org in their software section.  I feel safe downloading from Archive.org.  I feel sure that whatever software they offer must be 100% legal and virus free.  

Edited November 2, 2023 by Living Room Arcade

[Atari Nut]

I don't care for merged-roms either.  You can use a program like ClrMAMEPro to convert the merged-roms to non-merged or split.

 

clrmamepro (emulab.it)

 

I prefer split.  It's little complex in my opinion but there is a forum where you can ask questions for some help.  There is also documentation at the site.

[mr_me]

Most people don't use unmerged sets because of the duplicate files.  

 

On 11/2/2023 at 7:01 PM, Living Room Arcade said:

I like to download whatever free software they have at Archive.org in their software section.  I feel safe downloading from Archive.org.  I feel sure that whatever software they offer must be 100% legal and virus free.

No, not legal.

Edited November 7, 2023 by mr_me

[Cynicaster]

Always glad to see new people getting into the wonder of MAME.  

 

I bet 90% of people who have ever posted a thread on the internet to say "HELP!  Can't get MAME to work!" could solve their problem simply by checking to make sure their MAME version and romsets are a match.  This is why I always recommend to first find and obtain a complete romset, note the version, then go grab that version of MAME.  Install and play... done.  

 

If you start by getting the absolute latest version of MAME and go on a treasure hunt for specific games, you're bound to run into headaches because most sites distributing individual games don't provide any info on what version they are.