[Tutorial] How to Play MAME Roms in Windows
This tutorial is dedicated to underground user Wolf13. Without his request, this tutorial would not have been written.
I was looking at this other thread, where I showed the game ending for the Arcade classic X-men 4 players. I noticed a commentor asking how does one play this game on the computer, which made me create today’s tutorial.
Check out this super easy tutorial, that will have you playing any kind of MAME roms on your computer! Today’s tutorial will only outline how to play the classic X-Men 4 player rom on your computer, but go ahead and feel free to explore with other roms. Technically, you can expand this tutorial to go play SNES, NES, N64, and even Sega Genesis. If you really need that tutorial, please leave a comment so I know! Thanks!
Assumptions:
1) You know how to use a computer.
2) You have an unzipping program. Get and install WinRar at www.rarlabs.com or get free utility 7Zip at www.7-zip.org.
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Tutorial:
1) Go to www.romnation.net They have a great selection for roms. To play MAME roms, you will need the emulator first. Get it here. Type in the verification code and download that emulator, it is about 7 MB.
2) Now you need a game. The X-Men Mame rom is located here.
3) Unzip your Mame emulator into its own folder on the desktop, or anywhere else you choose. Take the game you just downloaded from step 2, and proceed to cut and paste that entire archived file into the roms folder, located inside your Mame32v103. Then click on the Mame32 icon to launch the program.
4) Go to File -> Audit all games. This command will now search your roms folder and see what games are available. Press ok when the audit is complete, and now notice that you see X-Men is in the main menu. (click thumbnail to enlarge)
5) Double click the first line there for X-Men, and Zing! The game loads! Press tab to bring up the configuration menu. Go to “Input (for this game)” and there you can configure your controls. From the start, number 5 is your “Player 1 coin”, and left control, left alt, and spacebar are your action buttons. As usual, the arrow keys move your player around. Have fun!
Now get your ass in gear and play this old school game! Don’t stop there, I highly recommend getting the Simpsons arcade game too. Enjoy! - Versatile1 for the win.
I am the best author here.
nah, its just that you have all that free time you loner
Haha. Don’t be jealous that you don’t have many tutorials.
Just FYI, Mame32 is not necessary. The newest version of MAME comes with its own user-friendly GUI (not command-line, although you can still get that version).
ha. versatile. did you really research the program?
Look, there are a lot of MAME emulators. You do not have to pick Mame32 like I did before. Geez.
i dont know what i am doing wrong!!!
can someone please help me out! is there a simpler way! haha i noe this is already simple but i dont noe where i am going wrong!
thanks
C’mon
Follow my tutorial. What do you not understand? I literally take you step by step to playing some games.
haha…i dont know! but i will retry everything and check with you again…thanks for looking out thogh…
All right. I even give you a direct link to the game. Did you even try it out?
haha yes i did…can i get your email address if possible please?
mines is : khalilomar1@yahoo.com
Email me at versatileninja at yahoo.com
hey i followed your tutorial step by step and when i did the whole audit game thing nothing showed up would you know any reason why that would happen e-mail if you dont mind
freezeeternity@aol.com
Windows XP or Vista?
xp
Ok, that is weird. If you follow the tutorial step by step, then there should be no issue. Did you try the xmen game above?
If it can audit correctly, and when you try to play it the MAME32 shows like this boot screen with numbers, and then it just says black, I am baffled.
Did you try pressing random keys to see if it will help?
when i audit it nothing shows up no game and if i go to the “available games and click on it it says error and a bunch of files
it lists off. like if you click on any of the games you dont have dowloaded
Did you put the game in the correct roms folder?
Worst case scenario, try out a different MAME emulator.
I figured out an update for my tutorial. If you go to Options, then Settings, find the directories link.
From there, browse for your Rom folder, and then your audit will work.
i am having the same problem. could it be the rom? i did follow your directions step by step and my roms arent showing up when i audit them either, i tried the other way and that didnt work. im trying to get a final fantasy game.
The problem is I think in your preferences for the Mame32 program, you did not specify the correct path to the ROM directory.
If you manually tell it where your roms are located, then it will work.
I just followed the instructions and it worked perfectly! Thanks for the tutorial!
It didn’t work for me. I made a folder for mame. I extracted XMen folder to ROM folder.
I open Mame emulator. I “audited games”, and did not get anything else after that…whats wrong?
Read comment 19 and 21.
“The problem is I think in your preferences for the Mame32 program, you did not specify the correct path to the ROM directory.
If you manually tell it where your roms are located, then it will work.”
You do not need to extract the Xmen game.
I downloaded MK2, and this works. I have noticed that some MAME games will not work with this emulator because it is missing files that the emulator needs to run. If you find a game like that, then I recommend you just pass it up and find a new game.
Hi, thanks for making this tutorial. I did everything, and got through the audit, but after it gives me the instructions to press left and then right, it gives me another screen saying to press any key. When I press a key, it just takes me to back to the MAME screen where I can choose games. Why does this happen? I am on Vista if that helps. Thanks!
I did exactly what you said
the game comes up in my MAME dashboard as working
but every time I select play game
the dash board just flashes in and out back to the same screen..grrrr
Im running XP…
i even tried different versions it’s the same thing
I know it works, I have xp as well. Try the same game, and make sure you put the game into the ROM folder.
none of you mentioned to leave the rom files in their .zip state. Do not extract these files in the rom folder.Just copy and paste the zipped rom into the rom folder. mame is designed to read them in the zip form.
Re-read step 3:
3) Unzip your Mame emulator into its own folder on the desktop, or anywhere else you choose. Take the game you just downloaded from step 2, and proceed to cut and paste that entire archived file into the roms folder, located inside your Mame32v103. Then click on the Mame32 icon to launch the program.
never unzip the rom files..fro easy downloads of them roms without any coplications just go to romhustler.com..
holla at me on jamone6515@webmail if you need any help privately concerning emus and roms..and for the best emulator guys,i recommend neo rageX..it rocks..try it out if i dont hav it
doesnt work
What part of the tutorial doesn’t work? It’s true, not all games work, but most do.
[...] July 4, 2008 at 11:39 am · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged: classic, dGBL, emulator, MAME, mame roms, Simulations, Video Game Research Found this nice blog from The Underground with detailed instructions and illustrations on how to play mame rom games on PC. Definatly wort checking out if you want to reliv some of the best moments of your childhood in the arcade Check it out here [...]