[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.
Update: 4-7-09: Added youtube videos for XP and Vista.
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.
Learn how to play roms in XP:
Learn how to play roms in Vista:
I thought that they could be bad, but wasn’t sure due to how many there were. I guess I could try downloading the same roms from another site to see. Thank you all for your input.
Some of them just might not work with the emulator. that could also be the problem, although I doubt that is that problem.
The emulator doesn’t work. This tutorial is a waste of time.
Hold up right now. If you follow the steps in the tutorial, it should work.
Given that you do not give any constructive criticism, how can I help you?
Yes, I understand not all games work due to Bios issues, but the majority of games work.
If you want to be your own renegade, then so be it, but to come here and tell me what doesn’t work won’t make it a better tutorial, does it?
guys i have a problem. i cant play garou mark of the wolves. i have mame32 emulator and it doesn work. any ideas of this? i have also cps3 emulator and still doesnt work.
Some roms don’t work, and I’m not sure why. What type of ROM is it, MAME?
Try all the emulators for MAME and see if any work. Chances are you might have one of the games that just doesn’t work with an emulator. I have come across that a few times. ;/
Ok I have vista and this is not working. I tried your step by step process and it the roms are listed as in the correct rom folder. Why will it still not work, does this emulator not work for vista?
I will have to try in my Windows 7. If it works there, then it works in Vista.
Did you try running the compatibility mode of XP on the emulator by chance?
thank’s alot
i’m really happy to know how to play this kind of games on the computer
hey worked perfectly, although does anyone know how i might be able to use my xbox 360 controller i have the wireless reciever for windows? thx
I am able to use my ps3 controller so I don’t expect the xbox 360 controller to be any different. What you want to do is connect the controller, and make sure you can see it in control panel.
Now load you game, press tab, and configure the buttons for the player 1 controls.
yo dude how do u get the ps3 controller to connect to the pc? thanks man
You need to download a six-axis driver. Get it from my account here: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/14773/11679_Sixaxis_PS3_Win32_Driver_For_PC.rar
i do not understand why the beatmania games will not work on the emulator. i got the x-men game to work but when i when to romnation and downloaded the beatmania games they simply will not work…any of them. i fallowed the same steps but are there extra steps that need to be made becuase of the type of game?
@Pianoman: I did not know beatmania games were considered MAME roms. Isn’t there a beatmania game made for windows though?
idont get it what i got is not a folder
@dlord2: Put the roms in the rom folder, and then do the audit list to find it and play it.
I can’t get Garou Mark of Wolves to work either when I try my monitor says out of frequency and i have to restart my computer, can anyone help me with this?
I’ve figured out that just because you can download a ROM, it doesn’t mean it will work.
You can try to use the mame90b emulator and see if that will help.
Do I need to go through the cmd. thing to use mame90b or is it an icon like mame32?
Yes you got to go through the command line, and launch the game. The instructions to launch the rom is simple.
This is what I did to launch my Lucky and Wild game since it would not work in mame32.
Not to sound stupid or anything but I really don’t know how to use the command line. How do you start the program.
Using command line, navigate into your mame folder. Assuming your rom is in the rom folder, type mame rom.zip or whatever your filename is.
having no luck….downloaded everything step by step as you said; copy and pasted xmen into the roms folder. when i do an audit nothing appears. im running vista. can you help me troubleshoot this? whats this compatability mode of XP ot the emulator you speak of? can you please advise with a step by step. ive been dying to play this game for years!
Man, lucky for you I have XP and Vista as a dual boot setup. Will I make a video showing how to make this work in Vista? Stay tuned…
Added 2 new videos. Now that is service!
make a folder on the desktop(call it MAME) and put mame and all his folders(also the exe into the same forlder!!)unrar the xmen files into one file. put it in your roms-folder inside the mame folder.
dont make any shortcut of mame on the Desktop! make inside the MAME folder and copy of the exe(Copy of mame32) inside the same folder!!!
now, start mame by dobble kliking the copy of mame exe.
audit….
and look into available games…
have fun.
works with any xp. dont know about vista??
dont use vista!!
dont know how to install a game pad? tried everything!!! can somebody help me here? please?
Gamepad is easy. Make sure you can configure gamepad in the control panel.
Launch your ROM. Press TAB. Now configure your controls but instead of using arrow keys use the gamepad buttons.
Man bro I went over your your info over & over & dam I cant get it to work I have Mame32b.109…I still have a hard time trying to get the roms to play…I also have 7-zip…aswell it does not extract as indicated…it does work I even watched your video over & over I dont know if its the emulator… it does not work yeah I heard not all games wont work with that emulator but still common I have been doing this for nearly 8hrs straight tryin to figure it out I really need your man I am so frustrated…i love arcade games ever sice I was a kid as an arcade fan can u help me plz…I have watched so many videos over & over…
You are doing something wrong. Did you do the exact steps as I have done in the video first?
Well your the expert bro um… Ok when I download the roms I notice it does not look like a folder with the # 7 like on yours does it just looks like a piece of paper depending what website I download the rom from…I tried make in into a folder it does not work…I dont extract any files as you said cuzz it would not work I done that already BIG MISTAKE..except for Mame32b.109 am alomost there I got it at tip of my fingers Damn how frustrated I am you make it seem so easy it looks easy…I hear you say type in the caption code? Could that be my mistake?…Am finally getting somewhere its am Audit all games its say incorrect & this pops us check it out… xmcotah : xmn.06a 524288 bytes NOT FOUND (shared with parent)
CRC(1b86a328) SHA1(2469cd705139ee9f1142e6e379e68d0c9675b37e)
xmcotah : xmn.07a 524288 bytes NOT FOUND (shared with parent)
CRC(2c142a44) SHA1(7624875f9c39b361fc83e52e87e0fd5e96279713)
xmcotah : xmn.08a 524288 bytes NOT FOUND (shared with parent)
CRC(f712d44f) SHA1(0d18d4a4eacad94a66beca6ec509ac7f690c6882)
xmcotah : xmn.09a 524288 bytes NOT FOUND (shared with parent)
CRC(9241cae8) SHA1(bb6980abf25aaf3eb14e230ca6942f3e2ab2c660)
xmcotah : xmnhx.03 524288 bytes NOT FOUND – NO GOOD DUMP KNOWN
xmcotah : xmnhx.04 524288 bytes NOT FOUND – NO GOOD DUMP KNOWN
xmcotah : xmn.13m 4194304 bytes NOT FOUND (shared with parent)
CRC(bf4df073) SHA1(4d2740c3a827f0ec2cf75ad99c65e393c6a11c23)
xmcotah : xmn.15m 4194304 bytes NOT FOUND (shared with parent)
CRC(4d7e4cef) SHA1(50b8797b8099a8d76ad063ba1201a13dbb88ae3a)
xmcotah : xmn.17m 4194304 bytes NOT FOUND (shared with parent)
CRC(513eea17) SHA1(a497477ad9ac13180911d8745ef6ee1955c0b877)
xmcotah : xmn.19m 4194304 bytes NOT FOUND (shared with parent)
CRC(d23897fc) SHA1(1e31627999736652252164d32662779a1ac6ca29)
xmcotah : xmn.14m 4194304 bytes NOT FOUND (shared with parent)
CRC(778237b7) SHA1(89a759ec383518ec52f5059d10ec342f2247aa20)
xmcotah : xmn.16m 4194304 bytes NOT FOUND (shared with parent)
CRC(67b36948) SHA1(692fb6e4096b880aa22996d554b160f664bbd907)
xmcotah : xmn.18m 4194304 bytes NOT FOUND (shared with parent)
CRC(015a7c4c) SHA1(cccc95dafd076a1a9fa004710006149c42d058ba)
xmcotah : xmn.20m 4194304 bytes NOT FOUND (shared with parent)
CRC(9dde2758) SHA1(17ba259cad03c7b5d56c0a5eda9ab53521665729)
xmcotah : xmn.01a 131072 bytes NOT FOUND (shared with parent)
CRC(40f479ea) SHA1(f29e15f537675305264ae2138a0a537fb9e2008b)
xmcotah : xmn.02a 131072 bytes NOT FOUND (shared with parent)
CRC(39d9b5ad) SHA1(af502debfd36100d4fc971ed25fdf9d7121d6f18)
xmcotah : xmn.11m 2097152 bytes NOT FOUND (shared with parent)
CRC(c848a6bc) SHA1(ac8ac564d3c43225822f8bc330eba9f35b24b0a4)
xmcotah : xmn.12m 2097152 bytes NOT FOUND (shared with parent)
CRC(729c188f) SHA1(3279774ad8aebbcf0fc779cdfcbe21044dd192ad)
Audit complete.
Its something… b4 I got nothing HELP ME PLZ….
Just like the cooment posted by DTLIIRTL thats what use to happend to me… Now I get errors help me or 1 incorrect data… help me…
Sooner or later we will make this work. If you download the same emulator as me, and the same game as me, you still get error? Did you watch the XP video to see what I did step by step? This is really bugging me.
Hy. Doesn’t Mame emulate sound two ? I tried a Primal Rage rom and there is no sound. Thank you.
It is very possible the sound in the rom file is messed up.
HEY! the guy knows what he’s talking about you…you all just dont know what U R doing thats all…
THIS WORKS FOR VISTA, DO EXACTLY AS IT SAYS AND YOU WILL BE FINE…THANKS