Mame help plese.

Im very much interested in using mame but i dont know how to best use it. Ive downloaded it today but thats as far as ive got. There doesent seem to be a great deal of instructions anywhere, all advice welcome.:)

What version of MAME are you using? There are so many different versions!

The easiest version to use for Windows is MAMEUI:

http://www.mameui.info/

You just download, unzip place the ROMS in the ROMS directory and launch. It's pretty straight forward.

The executable version of MAME from the main webpage requires a GUI interface to be downloaded separately, referred to as a "MAME frontend". If not, you have to type commands manually from the command prompt!

I'd stick to MAMEUI. if you're using Windows.

MAMEUI32 is the best to use, it has already the frontend.

I also agree here. MAMEUI is the best to use. It has a very nice and easy to use frontend built in, plus is easy to setup.

Also have a look at pleasuredome.org.uk for complete MAME rom sets and supporting file sets.

Bump!!. I forgot id started this thread a while ago. Well ive final got around to messing about with mame and following the advice here im currently trying to download the mame rom set from pleasure dome. Well this involves torrents wich i havent used before but i got stuck in anyway and well its not going very well.

Heres what happened: I downloaded bit torrent and signed up for pleasure dome and started the rom download. For the first hour it was Downloading 2kb a minute after that it jumped to 30kb and then finaly it got up to 800kb. I then had to pause downloading and start again, for the last three hours or so it hasnt topped 3kb.

So at the moment its been downloading for ten hours and i have got fifty percent of the file and at the curret speed its going to take ooohhh let me check eight weeks and nine days!!!!! what the splugles! am i doing wrong.:wall:

This is doing my head in ahhhgghhghghghghgh. :nuts:

Thanks.:wave:

That's a common problem. Go into the settings of your bittorrent client and reduce your upload rate to about two thirds of your max capability. Usually fixes it.

The reason is that for every datapacket you receive, you send a small confirmation packet back to the sender. If you cannot send these back at a constant high rate, the sender will slow down your download to compensate. So you need to keep some of your upload capability free for these to flow freely. Most clients are set to use your full upload capability to share with however, which chokes your connection and ruins your download rate. So if you reduce the upload rate in your client you should get decent download speeds again.

Teho has a point about upload bandwidth not being set too high. You need to allow upload bandwidth for web surfing and for communication of the client, on top of bandwidth for the actual file sharing.

So for instance, if your broadband speed is 500KB/s download, but only 60KB/s upload, you need to set your upload limit to say 40KB/s leaving 20KB/s free for communication or everything will slow to a crawl. The download limit can always be set to unlimited (in this example 500KB/s).

Your problem however is probably also linked to not having your ports open on your Firewall and/or Router.

To keep things simple, download uTorrent: http://www.utorrent.com/

Since version 2.0 it has auto upload setting capability, plus good default settings for a given broadband speed. Most people here know how to use it.

Now check that you have a green logo in the status bar at the bottom when you start your torrent. If not, check that your ports are being opened properly either via uPNP or by manually setting them. uTorrent has a built in program to check if they are open under its settings.

If not, there is loads of info on the net and in the help files to tell you how to open ports using either uPNP or by manually setting them. I can't offer anymore advice, because it depends on your software (eg software firewall) and hardware (broadband router).

When working correctly, you will be getting at least 200KB/s+ at most times depending on how your ISP handles P2P filesharing traffic.

Thanks to Teho and Bloodwych i did it!. Changed upload speed and manualy opend port on router and download was a steady 200Kb and then increased over night.

Thanks again!!. :thumbs:

So what games should i look for and what do i do if the game i want isnt on there.

All supported games are included in the PleasureDome Rom set, so all you will be missing once you have completed the download will be the large CHD roms. These are for the few HardDrive based arcade machines and current PCs cannot emulate most of these too well yet, so they are not required, only really for those who want a complete set.

However, do also download the EXTRAS core torrent from Pleasuredome as this included lots of support files for MAMEUI to use, including icons, photos of each cabinet, control layouts, information about each cabinet etc. Well worth it.

Word or warning though. Keep seeding the ROM torrent back to Pleasredome once you complete the download. They don't like members who donwload without letting others upload back again and can ban you if you don't.

Latest MAME set contains about 8500 games.