Mame is an emulator that came out over ten year ago and has always been in beta.  This is due to the fact that it is always evolving.  It is has the largest collection of arcade emulated games for any emulator and some of them are quite new.  The first thing that can be said about Mame is that it emulates and you need to keep this in mind.  Most of the games will run fine and with the addition of 3d acceleration, can look even better than the original arcades; but you can't guarantee that all will work perfectly.  It will tell you if there is a problem with any particular game.

I use MameUI32.  No reason for picking this version; it just was there.  The latest version of Mame is 0.125.3 and can emulate over 5000 games.  It can be found here. There are two different version; one is for the 32bit version of Windows OS (Win98/ME/2000/XP/Vista) and the second version is for the 64 bit versions of Windows (XP64, Vista64), so you need to make sure you pick the right version for your OS.

There aren't any viruses on the file but check it for viruses first.  It's a good habit to have when downloading anything of the net.

Extract the file first

The file is compressed and requires you to decompress it to a folder.  Run The file MameUI32.exe and you will be asked where you want to install the Emulator.  I picked my downloads folder, as I'm only installing it for the purpose of showing you how to do it.  pick anywhere you like.  It will decompress the files into (where to selected)MameUI32.

The next thing you need to do is go and find the Extracted folder, which willed be named MameUI32.  It did not install the emulator but just decompressed it and you will need to make a short cut.  If you right click the MameUI32.exe file and create a short to your desktop (see image to the left); you won't have to go hunting down the file every time you want to use the Emulator.

So now we're ready to run it for the first time and it should look like this. (see below)

                           Every thing is fine so far

Now before we bother to transfer our roms to the emulator, we need to get the thing ready to play the games.  There are a lot of icons that need to be copied to the emulator first.  For example you will notice that there are tabs for Artworks, CPanels, Icons (link file is only up to version 0.119), PCBs, Samples, Snapshots, Flyer, Cabinets, Marquee, Title  and History;  but at the moment there isn't any information.  No problem.  We need to download the icons for each one. You even have the ability to cheat. Here is the dat file for the cheat section.  Unzip it and read the instructions how to use it; Here.  I have only posted a few of these items on my site, because they all take up nearly 3 gig of space compressed.

You are now ready to get and copy your roms into the rom folder.  Mame can run the roms compressed and usually; the roms come in the ZIP format.  I would advise you be selective regarding the titles you want.  Version 0.125 16.61 GBs.  If you have unlimited download bandwidth and have a Torrent program; here is a link, but I can't guarantee how long they will take to download, due to the size of the Torrent.

Mininova Mame 0.125 romset

For separate roms: http://www.coolrom.com/roms/mame/,

The reason you will need the correct romset for any version of mame, is that not all roms will work properly or at all with every version of Mame.  For example: I have version 0.67 romset and some of the games won't work with this version of mame and it becomes a lottery.

Once you have chosen the roms you want and have put the into the rom folder; run Mame again and you will notice on the right that there is an option to show only the available roms; this is important.  If you only have ten games installed, you don't want to have to wade through 5000 names to find the one your looking for.  So click on available.  Your huge list will be reduce to just the roms it can see (you may have to press F5 to refresh the list first)

Now you are ready to pick a game and run it for the first time.  Pick a rom and double click the name and it will load up.  The first time it will ask you to type OK.  Then if there are no further problems, it will load the rom up and start the process that the arcade would have done when switched on.

Once you see the game is ready.  You will need to add some coins, just like the real thing.

To add coins, you need to press 5 or 6 ( 1 player or 2).  Once you have enough credits, you will next need to start the game.  You will press 1 or 2 ( 1 player or 2) and they game will start and of you go.  Remember that you need to do this every time you want to use a new credit.

To leave the game just press Esc.

You can get Mame to run on consoles as well.  Here is a list of the console that I know run mame.

Sony Playstation 2 (needs to be modded)

Sega Dreamcast

Microsoft XBOX (needs to be modded)

I hope this guide in playing old arcade games on Mame is of some use to you and if you like it; tell me what else you would like a guide to.

Warning; I have never used CHD files but this is meant to work. 

Where to get CHD files

You can get the CHD files from most of the Mame rom sites as well as file sharing programs such as eDonkey and Kazaa. Because of the sizes involved a cable or broadband connection is recommended or you'll be there for a week downloading.

You may find that the archived file you downloaded had been split into several pieces e.g. wargods.zip, wargods.z01, wargods.z02 etc... You need to open the main zip/rar/ace file and extract the single CHD file onto your hard disk. You cannot keep a CHD file in an archive as Mame won't be able to read it!

Where to put them!

CHD files need to be put in their own folders in you main Roms folder.

For example Killer Instinct uses a romfile called kinst.zip and a hard disk file called kinst.chd. First the rom file need to be put (Still zipped!) into the main Mame roms folder (Normally C:\Mame\Roms). You then need to create a new folder in your roms folder called kinst and copy the kinst.chd (Not zipped!) file into it (C:\Mame\Roms\kinst). If you are unsure how to create folders then have a look at the Windows Basics page as it has a description of what to do.

If you've done this correctly then your folder should look something like this...

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