Mame Software Emulation Setup

I have decided to give the software side of MAME a chance instead of all the different emulators out there.

Few questions I have if you can answer...

Do the ROMS of the software have to be in the format of ZIP or can I keep the .BIN/.SNES/.NES etc...?

Can I change the names to a full info instead of the 8 character.zips they are in. Will a rename work fine?

I havent played with MAME software emu since MESS started on the Mac in the early 90s. So let's see what we can do.

They should stay in zip format in case of file conflicts between the different sets.

I don't know of a way to get mame to match up the roms with the game without the zip name staying the same.

I think you can do something like this:

mame snes -cart "path\game"

I don't think it needs to be zipped.

That assumes you don't want to use software sets.

You can use external files even with 7z, for me the best option. For example for megadrive no-intro set:

Mame.exe megadriv -cart "Z:\Games\MegaDrive\Sunset Riders (Europe).7z"

Thanks for the input.

Now I was testing with Atari 2600 ROMS. I guess the stupid tree hit me, I cannot get hte ROMs to run. I know how to add the folders but the MAME zipped versions dont want to execute. Even tried Stella and that only accepts non-zipped. Just trying to figure out the software setup for mame.

Done it with Arcades for decades why cant I figure the darn software?

Not sure what i am missing...

ROMS are .253 Software

BIOS and DATS are correct.

Mame see's the titles but the red banner pops up saying not found or wrong.

This works for me.   Maybe double check from your mame folder first, and double-double check BIOS.  Good luck.

C:\Games\MAME>mame -verifyroms a2600
romset a2600 is best available
1 romsets found, 1 were OK.

C:\Games\MAME>mame a2600 -cart "c:\temp\Adventure (USA).a26"

Interesting enough...

I have the major consoles working now.

I was trying to get V-Smile carts running, I think I own about 60 games around my house.

If I click on vtech/ANY GAME... says not available or wrong.

All my BIOS and ROMS are based on .253

 How are thou starting mame to run the games?

For me "mame vsmile cars" work (for software lists) and "mame vsmile -cart "~/Games/Roms/VTech/vsmile/Winnie Puuh - Die Honigjagd (Germany).bin"" for loading manually

I used the Windows version from MAME's website. Current version is .253.

I do notice that selecting folders. There is ROMS (obviously) and Software Media. Isnt Software media the NON-Arcade selection of MAME roms?

Gave up again on this... I plan on tackling this later this week when I have more time.

I had a serious problem with my NAS drive and now it's corrected I can get back to MAME.

Hello, you can try this: https://github.com/sam-ludlow/mame-ao

Even if you don't use MAME-AO at least it will show you where the files go.

Just type: vsmile poohge

I JUST downloaded official mame on official website "https://www.mamedev.org" and downloaded roms and software list on this site https://pleasuredome.github.io/pleasuredome/mame/ ,everything works and I dont even need to load a single command line to load any game

I managed to get all working chds roms and all major consoles non cd. Yes it included vsmile and game.com and another weird consoles.

There is some unespected working consoles that I see, but they are marked as not working

Look: sega genesis 32x games runs fine, I alread beat some

All PS1 2D games that I tested worked

All N64 games seems to load, I cant tell you if it has good emulation my notebook cant handle this average 35% even on simpler games

The few dreamcast games that I download load, again I cant handle average 35%

PC engine is flaged as working but some super cd rom games dont load the cutscenes, but the game runs at all.

I dont understand the hate about mame console emulation at all. All 2D games runs smother, 60fps

I think, 30fps runs weird to me, I cant stand old emulators because this (aka nesticle, ultra hle etc.)

The time that old computer "console" games needs to load realy annoys me, msx seems to load fast.

If some console dont works great on mame, I can load them in another emulation, It is a easy all in one retro download.

The shared save states sucks, but I don´t care about this because I play a game, finish and then change game.

I save in the start of every stage or I use a  cheat to get infinite lifes/continues.

All games that show me that save states dont work, seems to work, but there is a gimmick, you need to wait to start the gameplay and after the save loads sucessfull

The same about shared controls config, sucks, but I can handle.ll.

I was almost deleting my bsnes (this emulator lag a few here), but some snes games that requires another chip does big graphics issues on mame and its unplayable.

I really liked Mame for console emulation, but the navigation could be better on mame UI. 

My dream to have all retro consoles in a single emulator seems to be postponed.

Retro consoles for me is "pre-online services", means 6th generation of games

I tried this with bizhawk, retroarch and mednafen, and higan.

I hear ya..

I built a nice arcade station. I was hoping I could get MAME to be more fully functional.

Atari 2600 they work, same as Sega stuff and Nintendo.

A few I would like to work is Vectrex, V-Smile, TI-994A Computer. They say its working, I see my ROMs and they wont boot.

Same with Colecovision.

I really did not want multiple emus running and most dont connect properly to a controller setup.