Newbie - MAME Questions

[jstevens5591]

Hello Folks:

I am fairly new to the emulator world and have just successfully completed building my "retro" arcade PC. I think I have a pretty good handle on how things work. However, I am a little stumped on the MAME setup inside GameEx. I took my time searching through forums and questions but didn't fully find what I was looking for. Here are my questions:

1. Where is the recommended location for your MAME roms? Inside the MAME emulator folder "rom" location or to a folder I have GameEx pointing to (right now it goes to a separate drive that the emulator is not on)

2. Every time I start GameEx; MAME always wants to update it's list. Is this normal? Can I shut it off? What is the recommendation on this behavior? Mine takes forever to update. I have several thousand games.

What is everyone else doing? I would love to hear from the community.

Any other suggestions to my new project are always welcome.

Thanks in advanced for helping me.

Happy Gaming!!

Jeremy

[tthurman]

Hey there Jeremy, welcome to the GameEx forums

Since there is no set in stone method, it really all boils down to personal preference.  I keep mine segregated from everything for sanity's sake, this way when things change, i.e. new version of MAME or similar, I'm just dealing with that specific application, and don't have other assets involved in that directory.  I pretty much follow this approach throughout, and just ignore those that come default with mame.

Updating does take a long time, but you shouldn't have to do this unless you've made a configuration change, filter option, added new titles etc...

Ensure you are setting up integrated MAME in GameEx, and unless you are using AdvanceMAME ignore it, but do not confuse Advance MAME Settings with it.

You'll want to pay particular attention to the filtering options, but at a minimum turn off "Verify Roms" else you'll end up losing many titles.  There are numerous topics here about the filtering options.

Don't forget, you will need to update when making changes to the filters.

if you're running integrated MAME, then be sure you don't also have it set up in the emulator section, one or the other here, with integrated being preferred.

 

If you're still getting prompted to update each time, post back with your .ini and .log, see the links in my sig if you need help locating these.

 

 

 

 

 

[jstevens5591]

tthurman ......   Thank you very much for pointing me in the right direction. I have a better understanding now.

Could you tell me this - do I need to run AdvanceMAME? When I tried to configure it to work; it seems to have messed me up. I have my PC connected to a 55" LG HDTV.

[tthurman]

AdvanceMAME is purely optional.

 

I would recommend the integrated MAME support in GameEx I linked above.  Brings a lot of additional features that makes GameEx the great frontend that it is IMO.

 

 

 

 

[jstevens5591]

Hey guys, I am still getting prompted to update my MAME list every time I open GameEx. I have attached my .ini and log file if someone can take a look. I am stumped.

Also, I have over 9k MAME roms, but only 3800 show up. I am thinking it is due to filtering.

Thanks a bunch!

GameEx.ini

log.txt

[Draco1962]

My list also only displays about 3800 games. Keep in mind that most of the games above that mark are electro-mechanical ROMs and will never see the light of day in arcade emulation. GameEx filters out the EM titles, hence why you are only seeing about 3800 games.

[jstevens5591]

Thanks Draco ...  that would explain that than. Any ideas on why it asks me to update my MAME list every time I start GameEx? Maybe I am missing something. This is all I need to fix to complete my build.

Oh and btw, this front end is amazing!!

[Draco1962]

I am away from my PC so can't look at your files just now, but I am sure that someone from  the community may be able to guide you. 

[tthurman]

This is odd, why is it running help?  

 

Quote

09:36:05.8  5/29/2016:  Attempting to load game list
09:36:05.9  5/29/2016:  Running: mame64.exe -help
09:36:05.9  5/29/2016:  Running: C: C:\Emulators\Mame\mame64.exe -help > C:\Emulators\Mame\help.txt
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:  
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:  Now Outputing mame64.exe -Help
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:  
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:  
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:  --BEGIN--
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:  MAME v0.174
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:  Copyright Nicola Salmoria and the MAME team
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:  
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:  This software reproduces, more or less faithfully, the behaviour of a wide range
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:  of machines. But hardware is useless without software, so images of the ROMs and
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:  other media which run on that hardware are also required.
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:  
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:  Usage:  mame64 [machine] [media] [software] [options]
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:  
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:          mame64 -showusage    for a brief list of options
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:          mame64 -showconfig   for a list of configuration options
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:          mame64 -listmedia    for a full list of supported media
09:36:06.1  5/29/2016:          mame64 -createconfig to create a mame.ini
09:36:06.2  5/29/2016:  
09:36:06.2  5/29/2016:  For usage instructions, please consult the files config.txt and windows.txt.
09:36:06.2  5/29/2016:  
09:36:06.2  5/29/2016:  --END--

 

I thinking that some how the help exe is preventing the update list from taking.  You're showing titles, so it's working but when it goes back to look for it, it isn't finding it.  Double check your executable path.