I do not do this to often ,,,,,, but I was requested by a fellow BYOAC'r .... so I aim to please .... here goes ......
I never install anything in the generic "My Documents" folder or even on my desktop..... since this just does not allow everything to be organized very well in my opinion.
I have installed about 40 emulators in MALA (some listed below along with the emulator I use for the games).
Mame (mame.exe)
Atari2600 (z26)
Atari7800 (mess)
Nintendo (fceUltra)
Sega Genesis (fusion)
Super Nintendo (zsNes)
Some notes before I continue:
Layouts:MALA is just one frontend which exists to help people start various emulators easily. There are many other frontends which people use as well (MameWah, GameLauncher, AtomicFE, etc..). Each of these frontends allow each defined emulator to be associated with a "layout" (background image used by the frontend so the display of the game listings and screenshots\snaps of the individual games can be presented over a nice graphic background. Some layouts which were created for use in MALA exist at the (
http://mala.arcadezentrum.com/layouts.html) site. Now, MALA also has a "layout converter" (located at the same link) which allows a person to convert MameWah (another frontend) layout files into MALA compatible layout files (ie: allows you to use MameWah layouts in MALA). Since MameWah has been around longer, there seems to be more MameWah layouts which currently exist on the web than do MALA layouts .... this is why the MALA layout converter was provided. You can find a lot of nice MameWah specific layouts at "
http://www.emuchrist.org/cpviewer/mamewahlayouts.htm"
This site has plenty of information regarding various emulators and was extremely helpful to me. When you get a better understand of how to configure emulators and what all the lingo means, then I recommend going to that site and looking around a bit to see what it has to offer. Anyway, after going to this site you should understand what layouts are now.....
Hacked EXE apps\wrappers:Some consoles, etc.. have emulators which were not built for command line execution and/or did not include arcade-cabinet-friendly key mappings. In order to make these types of emulators more compatible, the official EXE application was hacked to provide certain "upgrades". Also for some emulators which were not command line driven, a "wrapper" was created, A wrapper is a command-line application which interacts with the non-command line application, thus allowing it to be executed via the commnad line. I do not want to get into specific wrapper verbage here. Just letting you know that these special wrapper EXE files exist for certain emulators which would not be able to executed in a frontend without the use of the wrapper application. You can go to jcrouse's site (
http://www.emuchrist.org/cpviewer/applications.htm) to see some of the hacked EXE applications. You can download them and read about what the "enhancements" were. Some existing wrappers are also on jcrouse's site (
http://www.emuchrist.org/cpviewer/commandlinewrappers.htm) for certain emulators.
HOW I DID IT:The following is the format which I used to keep everything organized:
(
I only listed some of my emulators to get you started)
1) Create the following folders:
- "C:\Emulators"
- "C:\Emulators\Mala\"
- "C:\Emulators\Mala\layouts\"
- "C:\Emulators\Mala\layouts\Mame\"
- "C:\Emulators\Mala\layouts\Atari2600\"
- "C:\Emulators\Mala\layouts\Atari7800\"
- "C:\Emulators\Mala\layouts\Nintendo\"
- "C:\Emulators\Mala\layouts\Sega Genesis\"
- "C:\Emulators\Mala\layouts\Super Nintendo\"
- "C:\Emulators\Programs\"
- "C:\Emulators\Programs\mame\"
- "C:\Emulators\Programs\z26\"
- "C:\Emulators\Programs\mess\"
- "C:\Emulators\Programs\fceUltra\"
- "C:\Emulators\Programs\fusion\"
- "C:\Emulators\Programs\zsNes\"
- "C:\Emulators\RomFiles\"
- "C:\Emulators\RomFiles\Atari2600\"
- "C:\Emulators\RomFiles\Atari7800\"
- "C:\Emulators\RomFiles\Nintendo\"
- "C:\Emulators\RomFiles\Sega Genesis\"
- "C:\Emulators\RomFiles\Super Nintendo\"
- "C:\Emulators\Screenshots\"
- "C:\Emulators\Screenshots\Atari2600\"
- "C:\Emulators\Screenshots\Atari7800\"
- "C:\Emulators\Screenshots\Nintendo\"
- "C:\Emulators\Screenshots\Sega Genesis\"
- "C:\Emulators\Screenshots\Super Nintendo\"
INSTALLING MALA================================================================
Download the latest version (RC7) of MALA from here (
http://mala.arcadezentrum.com/download.html). Execute the self extracting EXE to a TMP folder somewhere. After it unpacks everything, then go into the "MaLa v1.0 RC7" folder (which it created) and move all files from within that folder into the "C:\Emulators\Mala\" folder you created previously.
** I believe MALA was created originally just for MAME, so this is why MAME must be configured when you start the MALA.EXE application. Based on this thread, I believe you already know how to install MAME and configure it in MALA so I will not describe how to install Mame here, however, you might want to consider reinstalling MAME into the "C:\Emulators\Programs\mame\" folder instead.
Also, download the MalaLayoutConverter.exe from (
http://mala.arcadezentrum.com/layouts.html) since you will need it later.
OBTAINING EMULATOR FILES(
Note: I will use the Atari2600's "z26" emulator as an example)
=========================================================================
- Download the z26 emulator program and install the program into the "C:\Emulators\Programs\z26\" folder. The z26 emulator has a "hacked" version located at jcrouse's site. I believe I use that version.
- Obtain your Atari2600 ROM file images from somewhere on the internet and place them in the "C:\Emulators\RomFiles\Atari2600\" folder. Some emulators require the ROM images to remain in a ZIP'd format, others require them to be unZIP'd. Some emulators require the ROM images to have certain extensions as well. You will need to read the documentation which comes with the emulator to determine what is required for each (ie: you might need to download bios files or other support files to use in the emulator as well).
- Obtain screenshots (aka snaps) for the Atari 2600. A great source for screenshots are from the (
http://localarcade.com/screenshotarchive/) site. If you need screenshots for games which do not exist here, then you can usually find them online somehow by searching around a bit. If you can not find screenshots that you want to use, then the emulator usually has a built in "take a screenshot" option which you can use to generate your own images.
- Optional: Obtain a "layout" set of files associated with the Atari2600. I went to the
"
http://www.emuchrist.org/cpviewer/mamewahlayouts.htm" site and clicked on the "800 x 600 individuals page" link so I can see all of the "MameWah" specific layout packages which were available. I found the Atari2600 layout and clicked on the image and downloaded it which was in a file called "atari2600_c.zip".
CONFIRMING EMULATOR WORKS VIA COMMAND LINE BEFORE ADDING IT INTO MALA:
(
Note: I will use the Atari2600's "z26" emulator as an example)
=========================================================================
MALA (as with most other frontends) executes command line applications for you, so you
must first confirm the application actually works via the command line. This is also advantageous since you can play around with the available command line options an emulator offers to determine which options you might like to use (ie: -fullscreen, -resolution x,y, etc..).
Usually the emulator install files include good documention which details what the command line options are and how they are used. However, for the Atari2600 (z26) emulator I found that the (
http://www.whimsey.com/z26/z26.pdf) document online had a much better explanation.
After deciding what command line options I wanted to use, I executed the following steps to verify the emulator worked for me (actually allowed me to play a game).
1) Opened a command line prompt window (ie: Start\Programs\Accessories\Command Prompt)
2) Changed to the Atari2600 program folder by performing the "cd C:\Emulators\Programs\z26\" command
3) Executed the z26 emulator EXE application with the options I wanted as follows:
C:\Emulators\Programs\z26>
z26 -v8 "C:\Emulators\RomFiles\Atari2600\Adventure.bin"If the emulator executes exactly how you like it, then you can now add it into MALA. If it
does not behave how you like it, then try again and play around with some options, etc...
CONFIGURING LAYOUTS IN MALA:
=========================================================================
I set up MALA to store all of my layouts in a separate directory rather than having the layout files all being placed in the MALA install directory, thus allowing the files to be a bit more organized in my opinion. Here are the options you need to set to have MALA do this ..... (only need to do this one time).
- Double-click on the MALA.EXE application to start it up
- Right click on the mouse and select "Options" to bring up the Options menu
- Click on the "GUI" tab
- Click on the "Layouts" tab
- Set the "Layout Folder" path to be "C:\Emulators\Mala\layouts\"
- Set the "Auto layout switch" setting
- Set the "Use layout names for directory names" settings
- Click OK and exit the options menu
- Exit the MALA application
Converting a MameWah layout into a Mala layout:- UnZIP the "atari2600_c.zip" layout files into the "C:\Emulators\Mala\layouts\Atari2600\" folder
- UnRAR the "MalaLayoutConverter.rar" application into the "C:\Emulators\Mala\" folder
- Start the "MalaLayoutConverter.exe" application
- Click the "Load MameWah layout" button
- Select the LAY file associated with the Atari2600 layout files
(ex: "C:\Emulators\Mala\layouts\Atari2600\02atari2600.lay")
- Click the "Save Mala layout" button
- Name the "MLL" file "Atari2600.mll" and save it into the "C:\Emulators\Mala\layouts" folder
** You can save your emulator MLL file (Mala layout file) under any name you want, but the filename you choose (ie: "Atari2600") must have the same name as the directory name you created to store the emulator layout files in (ie: "C:\Emulators\Mala\layouts\Atari2600\"). Also, the filename you choose must also be the same name you use to configure the emulator in MALA (see below). This way MALA can take the name of a configured emulator and know exactly which layout is related to it.
INSTALLING NON-MAME EMULATORS IN MALA (I will assume MAME has already been installed):
(
Note: I will use the Atari2600's "z26" emulator as an example)
=========================================================================
- Double-click on the MALA.EXE application to start it up
- Right click on the mouse and select "Options" to bring up the Options menu
- Click on "Other Emu Config" tab
- Click on the "Basics" tab
- Click "NEW" button and enter the name "Atari2600", click OK
(NOTE: This name must be the same exact name as you used to store your layout file)
- Enter the "Executable" as "C:\Emulators\Programs\z26\z26.exe"
- Enter "RomPath" folder as "C:\Emulators\RomFiles\Atari2600"
- Confirm the "Rom Extensions" field now lists the correct extension(s) of the ROM files
- Click on the "Execution" tab
- Enter the command line parameters ==>
-v8 "%path%\%rom%.%ext%"- Click on the Options tab
- Enter "Snap" folder as "C:\Emulators\Screenshots\Atari2600"
- Click OK and exit the options menu
- Right click on the mouse and select "Select Emulator" and choose "Atari2600". You should see the layout image displayed without any games listed yet.
- Right click on the mouse and select "Refresh game list" and this should produce the gamelist for you.
- Scroll to a game and play.....
HOPE THIS HELPS YOU OUT!!!!
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