Firstly, most newbies are not going to get very far with a command line/source code version of MAME. Make sure you get a MAME with front-end/GUI (Graphical User Interface) such as MAME32 Plus Plus 0.119.

 

Now put the zipped r0m files in MAME's roms folder. The roms themselves must stay zipped for the games to work. Open MAME and press F5 to refresh the Available games list (also refresh the list anytime more games are added to the roms folder). A game search will follow and then the games should show up in Available.

There could be a few different reasons for this. Check the following:

 

a) Make sure the rom path is set to the correct folder. In MAME go Options>Directories>Browse to the actual folder containing your roms>select it with OK then OK again to apply the setting. A game search will follow automatically. Also check that the name of the rom zip file in the roms folder exactly matches the rom name in All Games. If, for whatever reason, the zip isn't named exactly as MAME expects then MAME can't see it. Rename the zip correctly and try again.

 

b) Open All Games in MAME and go to a game that you put in roms folder but doesn't show in Available. Go right click>Audit to check for missing files. If there are missing files then there could be a mismatch between your version of MAME and the rom dumps in the zip file. MAME is a continual WIP. Not all versions of MAME and roms are going to be compatible with each other. One easy solution is to match MAME32 Plus Plus 0.119 with sites like romnation. Also check your MAME version number. If it has a letter "u" in the version number that's an intermediate update meant for MAME bug testers. It's best to stick with the official releases which have no letter "u" in the version number.

 

c) The game could require other files like bios or CHD in order to work. Check the game's info at MAWS. Download any other necessary components and add them to the MAME roms folder as per instructions (see Q5 - Q8 for more detailed info on bios and CHD).

 

d) The game could be a clone. Clones are offset in the Grouped list and normally require the parent (original) version of the rom in order to work. Get the parent version and try again.

 

e) (Vista!) Some newbies also run into problems when they are on Vista and don't realise that most MAME versions are for XP or older OS. I'm on XP so Vista is really not my forte. In spite of this I have managed to help some Vista users by directing them to either MAME32 Plus Plus 0.119 or MAMEUI64.

Ignore it. The emulation status of these games is imperfect but MAME Dev Team has done enough work to make the game playable. You may still notice some problems mentioned in the warning while playing though.

Not every game that is able to be downloaded is actually playable in MAME. The emulation status of these games is still preliminary. There is nothing you can do to fix it.

All Neo Geo games need the bios file, neogeo.zip. You only need one copy of neogeo.zip though. Leave it zipped and put it in MAME roms folder and all of your Neo Geo games should be able to work. However, as with roms, (see Q2 - b) the bios needs to be compatible with the MAME version you're using. If you get missing files on a bios audit then you know it's incompatible.

Yes. neogeo.zip isn't the only bios out there, just the most well known. Either check the game's info at MAWS for any bios requirements, or find a MAME bios pack and unpack it into the MAME roms folder.

The rom for SFIII3S is about 129KB. Seems a bit small doesn't it? That's because most of the game's data is in a CHD file, about 78MB. Look at the game's data section at MAWS to see the CHD file info, cap-33s-2. How you go about finding a copy of the CHD is between you and Google. To setup the CHD properly save it in your MAME folder under 'roms/sfiii3/cap-33s-2.chd'. This basically means make a new folder called 'sfiii3', put the CHD file as is (ie. not zipped) in the new folder, leave the new folder as is and put it in the MAME roms folder

Yes, the same principle applies. Regardless of the CHD filename, make the new folder that's going to contain the CHD with the exact name of the rom it pertains to and put it in the MAME roms folder. This sets up the CHD as a subdirectory of the rom.

Whoa there! Sorry to say it, but unless the screen your reading this FAQ on is attached to some kind of supercomputer, or you're a wiz at computer overclocking/benchmarking with a very expensive gaming rig, you can forget about playing most of those types of games for the time being. MAME philosophy 101: The emulation philosophy of MAME Dev Team aims for the utmost accuracy with the goal of preserving arcade history. They are not too concerned with the nice side effect of how this makes some games available to us players. Because of this there are certain games such as CarnEvil, Gauntlet Legends, etc. that currently will not run in MAME at full capability on average PC technology as the requirements for creating an accurate emulation environment are simply too high. Unless you're on a high-end PC this also applies to many 3D polygon MAME games even if they don't have a CHD due to the fast RISC processor of the original.

Games aren't much use if you can't control them.

 

Short answer, press tab in-game. If you're feeling adventurous you can figure out the rest of the controls for yourself.

 

Long answer. Assuming you want to use a controller for most games always have one plugged in before opening MAME. Make sure it's recognised in the PC with start>Control Panel>Hardware>Controllers. Then in MAME go Options>Default Game Options>Controllers and tick the checkbox for Enable joystick input>Apply. Launch a game and press tab to open the in-game menu. The basic default controls needed for the menu are:

 

arrow keys = navigate menu

enter = select an input to configure

delete = wipe an input if you need to do it over

esc = cancel out of the menu one window at a time

tab = close the menu at the current window

 

From here you can configure the controller globally with Input (general)>Player 1 Controls, or on a game by game basis with Input (this Game). It's best to use both. Setup the controller globally first, then customize the controller for individual games as needed. Also take note of the User Interface section inside Input (general) to start learning the hotkeys, such as 'P' for Pause.

Sure can. Just plug them in and, so long as the PC recognises them all, use the tab menu to configure each controller separately for Player 1, Player 2, etc.

The most common way to control these kind of games is with the mouse. In MAME go Options>Default Game Options>Controllers and tick the checkbox for Enable mouse input>Apply. Apart from that it's just a matter of configuring inputs as per Q9. The only other thing is that some games like Terminator 2 need aiming to be calibrated before the game can play. This should be easily done though with the mouse configured properly and a decent knowledge of the tab menu

Whether it's a racing game with steering wheel and foot pedals in the original cab, or a game with some other analog device like a trackball or dial, it can be a matter of personal preference which control method you end up choosing. For example, a racing game with more than one analog control component would be better suited to a dual analog style gamepad (or even a proper steering wheel rig) rather than the mouse, whereas a game with a single analog device like a trackball may be best suited to the mouse after all (unless, of course, you already have either a MAME cab or arcade controller with a trackball). It can take some experimentation to find the particular setup that you prefer for each analog control game. It's all good though because the more you mess around with the tab menu the better you'll get at using MAME. The basic thing to keep in mind when configuring analog control setup is that the X Axis equals horizontal movement and the Y Axis equals vertical movement

For cheat.dat, completely extract it into the MAME root directory, ie. into the main MAME folder containing the .exe and all the other files and folders like the roms folder, etc. Unlike roms though, which must stay zipped, the cheat.dat file must be fully extracted and placed in the root directory.

On the other hand, cheat.zips containing compressed XML files are designed to be kept zipped in the MAME root directory. This is for newer versions of MAME and comes as a double zip. The original zip needs to be extracted once to open the text files and to access the actual cheat.zip inside. Under no circumstances should the cheat.zip itself containing the XML files be unzipped. Leave it zipped! Copy or drag the cheat.zip into the MAME root directory.

In either case open the MAME front end and go Default Game Options>Miscellaneous>and tick the Enable game cheats checkbox>Apply. Now launch a game, press tab in-game and you will have a new option in the tab menu, Cheat. (See Q9 for tab menu navigation).

Nearly all games that saved their high scores in the original arcade machine also do the same in MAME. There are some games that don't even have high scores so there's obviously nothing to save with those.

 

Some games in MAME have Save State support. The option to automatically use the Save State feature will be found in Options>Default Game Options>Miscellaneous. If MAME succeeds in restoring a Save State on the next play it will make it so that the game thinks it was never turned off. As only a limited number of games have Save State support and the format is not always 100% reliable, this is not an ideal fix. That's where the hiscore.dat can come in handy. Keep in mind though that hiscore.dat doesn't have support for every single game either, but it's still a lot better than Save State

 

The highscore.dat needs to be setup the same as cheat.dat, ie. fully extracted into the MAME root directory. Then go Options>Default Game Options>Miscellaneous>tick the Enable hiscore support checkbox>Apply. Although some game's high scores will not save properly unless their nvram file is deleted first, be forewarned, it's not a good idea to go through and delete all your nvram files in one hit. The main reason for this is games like Street Fighter III 3rd Strike.

 

If you've ever set up the parent version of SFIII3S then you'll know about the time consuming CD rewrite operation the game has to run before it can be played. The CD rewrite normally only needs to be done once, unless of course, you delete 3rd Strike's 96MB nvram file that got created during the CD rewrite. It's fortunate then that SFIII3S is one of those games that will save high scores without needing to delete it's nvram file first.