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MAME
- About
- Configuration File Locations
- System BIOS files
- Running Games Under MAME
- Editing the Gamepad Controls
- RetroRig settings for MAME
- Additional Reading
MAME (an acronym of Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is an emulator application designed to recreate the hardware of arcade game systems in software on modern personal computers and other platforms.The intention is to preserve gaming history by preventing vintage games from being lost or forgotten. The aim of MAME is to be a reference to the inner workings of the emulated arcade machines; the ability to actually play the games is considered "a nice side effect". Joystiq has listed MAME as an application that every gamer should have.
The first public MAME release (0.1) was on February 5, 1997, by Nicola Salmoria. The emulator now supports over seven thousand unique games and ten thousand actual ROM image sets, though not all of the supported games are playable. The project is currently maintained by MESS project leader, Miodrag Milanovic.
The configuraiton files for this component are located at:
/home/your_user/.retrorig/.mame
A substantial portion of supported MESS systems require BIOS files to function properly. Generally this involves a zip file, created by you or someone else, that contains all the individual files needed to run the system. I will not provide these, as it is legally questionable. If you do possess these, you can load them with the "BIOS Loader" under the Settings Menu in RetroRig, or manually (seen below). Many ROMs, especially in the MAME4ALL ROMset, contain the necessary BIOS files inside the game archives.
Simply copy the zip archive into /RetroRig/BIOS/MAME directory under the RetroRig install directory. You can also place these files into the system folder, such as under RetroRig/ROMs/MAME/
Please see the "Checking/Verifying the required BIOS files" section below if you still have issues identifying the required files.
For best results, I have found it is best to place the original zip archive (if you have a bulk zip archive of BIOS files for a particular system/game) on the target machine. From there, extract the archive with the typical Archive Roller, or via the command line. Finally, create your new archive (e.g. tmnt.zip) using the required files.
I have found this method to be the best way to get MESS to detect the proper files. At times, copying the internal files over to my target machine, then creating a zip archive, caused MESS to not find the required files. Just my personal experience.
Once you have placed your BIOS archive, simply try to run a game using a system of choice. MAME will either run successfully, or crash and inform you what files are missing. You can use this about to determine what files you need in your zip archive. You can verify the integrity of a BIOS archive file by running a command, such as this for tmnt:
mame tmnt -verify
If the ROMset (what the BIOS files are realistically called) is OK, the output will reflect as such. If not, the same set of errors if you try to run a game without the necessary files will show. Interestingly enough, the -verify option can still pass if you load the correct zip file, but the CRC fails. This happened to me during testing. It is a very good idea to create the archive in the same source directory as the individual BIOS files, especially if you obtained a large archive of them as the original "pack."
Please see the links in the Additional Reading section below for more guidance.
Games run pretty effortlessly under the current implementation in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Some games will require you place the require ROM files (which most may refer to as the cabinet's BIOS) into one of two locations:
RetroRig/ROMs/MAME
or
RetroRig/BIOS/MAME
Many games that are in a zip format contain the necessary ROM/BIOS files in them (especially if you used the MAME4ALL ROM-set), but many still need their respective files. You can check that files are required by exiting RetroRig and inputting this on the terminal, substituting Your_Game with the title of the file/game you have:
mame Your_Game.zip
The terminal window will push back with what file(s) are missing or launch the game correctly. If you are missing a file or two, you can open the zip file with the "Archive Manager" Ubuntu has pre-installed, and copy in the files you need. You shouldn't need to create a new .zip archive. For more, please see the MAME website.
Within XBMC, this binary call is executed:
/usr/games/mame %ROM%
Currently, the support gamepads allow the configuration menu to either be called with TAB or with the Right Trigger on the gamepad (R2 for PS3 Controllers). Here, you can reassign buttons or correct any control you want.
RetroRig does the following general settings changes
- Preset controls for P1-P4
- ini file locates predefined for ROM sets
All settings are up for debate, and if you have any trouble, or would like any defaults changed, please let me know via an Issue ticket.