how hard is mamewah to setup

[divemaster127]

I was just wondering what are peoples opinions of how hard is mamewah is to setup, also can it play videos
thanks
divemaster

[Minwah]

Yes it can play videos...I'll let the others comment on ease of setup... 

[AlanS17]

It's not hard if you're just setting up MAME since that was what it was made for. It handles other stuff, but that all involves more configuration.

Just try it out. That's the only way you're gonna know.

Another super simple one is Game Launcher, but it's not really supported. If you can't figure it out on your own, I don't know if there's anybody you can ask for help. It doesn't do video, either.

[divemaster127]

thanks for the reply
gary

[lindart]

Mamewah is awesome, but perhaps a little difficult at first if you have absolutely no experience with something like it. If you are able to get command line mame set up, it should be no problem. Once you get a few emulators set up, you begin to get the hang of it. JCrouse has an awesome site that gives info for setting up several different emus. Hopefully he doesn'tmind the link 

http://home.comcast.net/~cpviewer/

Regards

[Dire Radiant]

Mamewah is pretty simple to set up if you use Screaming's Mamewah Config http://www.bluecamel.org/2005/02/26/mamewah-config-1611 When you set up an emulator you have an option to download a preset file for most of the popular ones. Grab that (It uses a wizard type approach so its easy) edit the paths right there in the wizard and you're all set.

[spriggy]

In the big scheme of things, Mamewah is easy to set-up (and arguably the #1 windows based frontend for cabinets) .  Difficulties can quite easily be rectified via the adequate included documentation, searching through this forum, or asking minwah himself.

A medium handfull of users seem to get the s%#ts with mame software and frontends, quite quickly, and throw it away before they even read the documentation thoroughly. 

Unfortunately not everything is as simple as 'pressing a button'!

Have fun trying!

   (damn...that was heavy!)

[youki]

You should try my Front End AtomicFE .  a big part of my user in Europe came to Atomic because it was easier to setup than others.

[screaming]

Mamewah is pretty simple to set up if you use Screaming's Mamewah Config http://www.bluecamel.org/2005/02/26/mamewah-config-1611 When you set up an emulator you have an option to download a preset file for most of the popular ones. Grab that (It uses a wizard type approach so its easy) edit the paths right there in the wizard and you're all set.

  I second this

-sab

[jcrouse]

Difficulties can quite easily be rectified via the adequate included documentation

lol hahahah lol hahahah lol

Please give me one of whatever your drinking?

 
John

[Minwah]

lol hahahah lol hahahah lol

Please give me one of whatever your drinking?

 
John

Whyioughta!  Who asked you to be mod in the MW forum?!?!...

 

[spriggy]

Difficulties can quite easily be rectified via the adequate included documentation

lol hahahah lol hahahah lol

Please give me one of whatever your drinking?

 
John

..yeh...I should have probably attached a deciphering algorithim with my reply 
 

[Fat_Trucker]

I came to this hobby with no experience of emulation whatsoever. I use MameWah in my cab and have about half a dozen arcade and console emu's running on it plus a laser disc emu. If you take a look at the .ini files that come with it its all fairly straightforward.

You can download preset .ini's from here and just modify the paths to suit whichever emu you are using.

Similarly with movie/sound files its a simple case of typing the path (c:\movie\arcademovie or whatever) to your movie/sound files into the right field in mamewah config.

I chose mamewah because of the various front ends I looked at it was the easiest and most straightforward to set up and modify for someone with no real experience.

[Steve Kaz]

Well, i've been making an attempt at it for a few days now and i've been reading everything and it seems like it's going to take some time. 

At first, i got it functioning and to create the list.  Last night i finally got it to see my default control panel.  I'm still having issues on using the trackball as the mouse, but that's today's adventure.  I haven't screwed with the music, screenshots, or movies yet, as i figure that will really take time.

[jcrouse]

Trackball = mouse

In the ctrlr folder there should be a file, default.ini. Near the bottom is a setting, mouse 0. Change the 0 to a 1 and SHAZAM!

John

[Steve Kaz]

I saw that in the manual right after i posted that message.  I tried it and at the same time used the "-mouse" command that it mentioned to cycle through the games.

Then i went back into Centipede to test and it wouldn't pull up the game.  It said that it was loading, then flashed and went to the Auto DOS screen.

I went back and set everything to the way that it was (Mouse 0) and removed the "-mouse" command.  It still won't pull up any games at all.

So i got fed up with the command line and went for MAME32.  I setup my Slikstik as default and clicked to allow the trackball.  It works fine if i enter through explorer, but when i set it up for MAMEWAH and clicked on a game on the list it didn't work either.  It gave me an error and told me to check a log file that it created, but i can't open it.

Also, where would the dat file be?  When i set up MAME32 it wouldn't even generate a list because it couldn't find the dat file.  I switched it to ROM only, but that's boring and it doesn't offer any detail.

Thanks for the help.  I'm have a hell of a time here (and i am reading over the instructions to try and find these answers).

[jcrouse]

Go to a command prompt and while in the mame folder type this:

mame listxml|xml2info > c:\mame\mame.dat

You may have to change the output path but that should generate a dat file for you. You will then need to point to it somewhere in Mame32's config options, I would guess. I don't use Mame32.

John

[Steve Kaz]

Thanks.  I'd like to go back to command line MAME too, but i was having too much trouble and i have to get this up and running fast.  Once i'm sure that MAME 32 works fine, then i'll go back to MAMEwah and see if i can setup the CL version and get it to work properly.

I almost had it, but that trackball thing threw me off and then the games wouldn't load.  Any ideas on the other stuff?  Should i just reinstall MAME CL and MAMEWAH and start all over?

[Fat_Trucker]

Not sure on your particular set up but Mamewah worked pretty much 'out of the box' for Mame when I set it up for the first time.

Once I had command line mame set up and working I simply extracted Mamewah to my C:\ drive, modified the Mamewah mame.ini to point to my mame.exe and roms folder, booted it up, clicked generate list and it was away, no issues with the trackball or anything else.

Once you have done the whole command prompt, mounting the drive thing with command line mame and have it all sitting happily in a folder (C:\mame works well enough). After making sure you have installed any supplemental system files (found on the mamewah homepage) for Mamewah to run properly, you should simply be able to point all the relevant paths in the Mamewah config file to your mame folder and theoretically it should all light up.

It sounds like your issues may be more to do with setting up command line mame properly in first place rather than getting mamewah to work. I know I found setting command line mame up a royal pain in the backside the first time I attempted it since I had no experience with Dos or command lines.

The start from scratch approach may see better results.

Edit: One last little note. From what you are describing it sounds like you may not have set up the correct path to your mame, roms folder which is why when you try to execute a game from the menu it just flashes a command prompt then dies. Check that your roms path in the mame.ini is correct (C:\mame\roms or wherever you keep them) and that the rom extension is set to zip.

If its any help my mame.ini looks like this:

### mame.ini (mamewah v1.61) ###

emulator_title

[Steve Kaz]

I think that you're right FT.  It probably had to do with my CL MAME setup.

I kind of did what you suggested, but with MAME32.  Now that i'm sure that the MAME32 works fine, i'm trying to get it to run in MAMEWAH.  I had some trouble getting it to generate the list and name it what i wanted, but it's up and running now (with the rom descriptions...thanks to jcrouse).

I'm getting a quick error message when i click on a game that points me to that MAMEWAH log, but then it boots the game and everything works.  Go figure i guess.

Thanks for the help guys and sorry if i'm being a pain.  I created a deadline for myself by throwing a party next weekend and i have to have this up and running before then.

[spriggy]

I'm getting a quick error message when i click on a game that points me to that MAMEWAH log, but then it boots the game and everything works.

[Steve Kaz]

Yes

[spriggy]

Yes

Win98 & Mamewah compat. are known to give some wacky errors.

Here are the 2 mods I do to reduce me to trouble-free Win98 Mamewah support.

As quoted by Minwah in an old thread...

OK, make a batch file which does something like (substitute your mame path etc.):

c:
cd\mame
mame > temp
exit

Then run this batch file before MAMEWAH for the first time after boot-up.  It seems to work for everyone that's had the problem so far, so fingers crossed...

A batch file is just a .txt file but with the .bat extension.  Just cut and paste the above bold text into the file.  Then throw it into your startup menu.

Also remove the {nosafelaunch} command from these mamewah.ini entries.

commandline_format                        [name]{autodosbox}{nosafelaunch}
alt_commandline_format_1                  [name]{autodosbox}{nosafelaunch}
alt_commandline_format_2                  [name]{autodosbox}{nosafelaunch}

I have no problems with win98 compat. with these changes.

fyi.
spriggy

[RTSDaddy2]

I would reccomend using the wizards, most definitely.  I guess I simply don't have the patience to do it without them.

My problem with MAMEWAH is that I have read the documentation, but after a while it starts sounding like Greek to me...takes me a few times to get it.  I also had a problem where I (not MAMEWAH) did something stupid and lost every single screenshot, file, etc. that I had set up.  I'm in the process of thinking about redoing the whole thing or giving up and just letting each emulator stand on its own (i.e. click it, then choose your rom).

The problem I have with not going back to MAMEWAH is that once you do get it set up, it does make for an IMPRESSIVE front end set up.  No doubt about that.

RTSDaddy2

[StLouisRod]

I found Mamewah fairly easy to set up, as long as you don't need custom game lists. Then it's a major pain. I had to use a combo of Qbasic program, Dos commands, Excel, etc. to get the catver.ini file down to 20 simple genre's such as "shooting", "sports", "breakout", etc.

Then, creating my favorites list manually in the mamewah options menu took another hour  .

But the include layout designer is very cool.

Here's a custom menu I created (borrowing from other folk's ideas), that I installed on one of my customer's Hanaho HotRod Mame cabinets:

http://www.ru-gaming.com/hidden/mamewah

Click on the mamewah.jpg file to see.