How many (playable) MAME games do you have set up on your cab?

[TelcoLou]

Wow.

  After meticulously trying out nearly 2000 games, I narrowed down my list to 799 just before I left for work. Sure, there's a few turds in the bunch, but they're at least good for comic value or cheese factor and are enjoyable to play

[opt2not]

I've got about 30 or so games in my cabinet, from Mame as well as other emulators.

Quite honestly, I don't think I play even half that number...during parties we usually end up with a combination of Street Fighter , Puzzle Bobble, or Hat Trick play.

My advice is to spend a weekend sifting through the games list, noting which ones you'd actually play.  Keep a condensed list of games.  I chose a small list just for some Front-End clarity, and ease of use for when people come over.

[TelcoLou]

Yeah, I can see myself thinning this list out eventually .. I'll likely make a few custom lists though; specifically for the vertical shooters (my favorite genre). But for sure, they'll be more than 30 games total .. I've got more than that many vert. shooters 

[leapinlew]

Yeah, I can see myself thinning this list out eventually .. I'll likely make a few custom lists though; specifically for the vertical shooters (my favorite genre). But for sure, they'll be more than 30 games total .. I've got more than that many vert. shooters 

Sort of depends on your controls, mame version, monitor orientation, and hardware capabilities.

My vertical 4 way with 1 button machine plays around 40 games.

[mh12]

i got to sort through everything on my new cab soon

is there a frontend that has the option of deleting the rom from the system when you delete it from your game list? i'm using Maximus so far and like it... but i'd use anything just for the weekend if i could just delete a game i'm not gonna use from the list & system and then move on to the next one!

failing that, perhaps one that will list games alphabetically by romname (eg sfiii)? so i can alt+tab between FE and explorer and get rid of anything quickly

[shardian]

I currently have 106 games. There are about 20 I might delete, and 20 I would like to add. At most, I don't think I would want more than 150.

Of those 150, there are maybe 50 I would play more than once or twice.

[Ginsu Victim]

The full .128 romsets, minus a few CHD games.

[NOP]

might I also shamelessly self plug ROMLister to help with your tasks:

http://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister

going through 6000 or even 2000 roms by hand is silly, especially when you don't know offhand if any particular game can even be played on your cabinet.  What's the point of having a trackball game available in your list if you don't have a trackball on your cab, or if a game needs 6 buttons and you've only got 4?  Dump those first and then narrow the list down by hand based on games you actually want to play.

BTW: to stay on topic a little bit, my vertical cocktail machine has 300 games on it.  I like including the total stinkers because I often get asked at parties what the weirdest/worst game is on my machine...  hilarity ensues.

[(+_+)]

Thanks NOP. I'll be downloading that since there is a lot of cheese (IMO) in that 6000 + list.

[cmoses]

might I also shamelessly self plug ROMLister to help with your tasks:

http://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister

going through 6000 or even 2000 roms by hand is silly, especially when you don't know offhand if any particular game can even be played on your cabinet.  What's the point of having a trackball game available in your list if you don't have a trackball on your cab, or if a game needs 6 buttons and you've only got 4?  Dump those first and then narrow the list down by hand based on games you actually want to play.

BTW: to stay on topic a little bit, my vertical cocktail machine has 300 games on it.  I like including the total stinkers because I often get asked at parties what the weirdest/worst game is on my machine...  hilarity ensues.

Looks good.  I have a question, after you have had the program generate a list, can you easily add a game?  Case in point I do not have a steering wheel or pedal on my cabinet, but using a joystick and a 2 buttons I have configured Ivan Stewart's Off Road to work.  Since it would not select that game because of the missing controls, can I easily add it in after?

[NOP]

of course!
http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/RL_tutorial_additionalROMs

basically just click the "list all roms" button and you can throw individual games from the master list over to your list.  easy.

[TrAb]

I have about 50 total, mainly only play the mortal kombats, street fighters, puzzle fighter, killer instict, and NBA hangtime.

[Turnarcades]

Sort of depends on your controls, mame version, monitor orientation, and hardware capabilities.

My vertical 4 way with 1 button machine plays around 40 games.

If you mean your Tempest cab, it rocks! I've never been a massive fan of vertical games, but some of my family were big players in the very early 80's and I may be building a Cocktail or Bar-Top just for vertical games, so maybe you could pm me with the games list you have on yours as this would help me out a lot.

Personally I keep a full rack on my own machine as I like finding a gem amongst those unknowns. My most shameful gaming moment was me and my mate dropping about £5 into a 'Splash' arcade machine back in the day just to see if the pictures got any better towards the end of the game. We clocked it, but the pictures were fairly mild, even though we were only 10 at the time.

[Thenasty]

I hand pick around 1500 games and continue adding 1 by one. I have a diff setup than every1. I have to make each custom PNG file for the FE. I put alot of time and work into this cab like the way MAME team put alot of work to the EMU.

Sample of my FE.
Click on the image to see it in action quickly.

[cmoses]

Very nice, what FE are you using?

[TelcoLou]

^^ VERY nice setup Thenasty!

I just this morning made some custom lists; i.e. "Vert. Shooters", "Horiz. Shooters", etc. Using Mamewah, I've set it up to toggle between the lists, so it's easier to find a specific type of game you want to play.

(Can't wait to get home and finish tinkering with it    )

[Visitor Q]

I am not sure how many are playable but I have the complete 128 set, all the CHD files including the LD ones.

We are just talking Mame here right? 

[mh12]

ROMLister is cool for all that info...

looks like i'm going through most of it all by myself, though.
if someone could make a batch file that would delete all .128's unplayable (/way too slow on, say, a 2GHz Athlon) games.. that would be great 

i deleted like 1000 games last night. i like going through most of em cos you always find these wacky, fun games you've never heard of. i know a bit of japanese, so i don't even wanna throw most of those japan-only games out. my top 3 buttons for each player are R-G-B, for the bishi bashi games and SALARYMAN CHAMP
also i want to see if there are many trackball or spinner games i'd like to play much. it would be hard to fit them in my panel, but i'd consider it. i found an old Happ trackball for $10 at an electronic surplus store.

i'm going to end up with a load of different lists in my frontend. think i'll share them when i'm done - are many people doing that?

incidentally, is there any reference around about alternate emulators for roms that MAME just runs too slow? i could swear i ran the SFEX games well on my Pentium 2 years ago, before they were even in MAME. i have no idea now what the emu was called.

[Turnarcades]

It is probably through the Zinc emu, though there is little need for it now as most hardware specs have caught up, as have the MAME development.

[javeryh]

I've got about 200 MAME games on my mini upright - initially I was only going to put vertical games on there but I figured there were a bunch of horizontal ones my daughter might like so I threw those on too.  The CP has a U360 with 3 "action" buttons.

My cocktail has about 7,000 games on it because I haven't configured anything yet.   

[Paul Olson]

I still have them all available, but I am making new gamelists as I get the controls configured. I am planning to have about 200 when I am finished. That will probably get slimmed down a bit over time if I don't play some of them. I have found that when you have fewer choices, you end up playing games a lot more.

[Texasmame]

MAME32 (my front end of choice) lists 3300+ games.

[mh12]

Zinc - that's it! Thanks. definitely going to need to play those games.
it does Strider 2! 

[retrometro]

out of the the 7000+ in mame 127-128, I've got 670 favorited.  of the 670, there are about 100 that are played often.

[pinballwizard79]

all of them

every console too

dont forget pinmame

or Daphne (nightmare to setup)

even all 190 Three Stooges episodes (seriously)

& a jukebox with every Beastie Boys song ever made

I think if I "utilized" one file per 72 hours I would be 236 years old when at the end of the list.

[drawfull]

All of them on my (unfinished) portable cp, but I probably only play a dozen or so regularly, 5 of which I have dedicated cabs of anyway. I don't have a trackball, just 2 sticks, 6 buttons each and a TT2 spinner.

I s'pose I do play other games infrequently, if I fancy some shoot em up action but that would be about it. Never play fighters despite the 6 buttons.

[Ummon]

In the golden age, a lot of games were vertical, but there were many horizontal games. Great games, too, like Robotron and Joust. I have maybe 300 total and probably half of those are 'gotta have'. At least 90 percent of them are from before '85, too. This is on a dual-player, trackball, spinner panel. I got into mame via Mame32, so have built from the ground up. My lists are all custom titled, too. Makes for hell in rom sorting and such, so I generally don't worry about it.

[daywane]

I differ from the norm.
at 1 time I had up to 7 cabs going.
maybe 20 games each.
I do notr have a 1 going now 

[Jack Burton]

I have about 6000 or so roms on my cab, of which about half are playable on my current setup due to controls or my mame pc being underpowered. 

Eh, it doesn't bother me.  I mostly just wander around in the game list and play whatever suits my fancy at the moment.  I love discovering hidden gems that way.  I would have never have played

phoenix
guardians
metamorphic warriors
magical drop
night driver
ribbit

or many others if I had a small rom list. 

I have about 50 or so games that I come back to time and again.  Mostly classics, vert shooters, and fighters.

I like the idea of just having so many games I could never get around to playing them if I tried.  I wish I could have some kind of "Random game" button on my cab.

[Visitor Q]

all of them

every console too

dont forget pinmame

or Daphne (nightmare to setup)

even all 190 Three Stooges episodes (seriously)

& a jukebox with every Beastie Boys song ever made

I think if I "utilized" one file per 72 hours I would be 236 years old when at the end of the list.

I can pretty much echo this, I am up to about 3TB of space for roms alone. Damn you PSX games! 

[TelcoLou]

Well now, after a productive weekend, my massive "Filtered" list is now down to 635. To make navigating even easier, I've created the following custom lists:

• Shooters, Vert.
• Shooters, Horiz.
• Fighting
• Beat 'em Up
• Shooting, Misc.
• Driving
• Run 'n Gun
• Misc.

Using Mamewah, I've set up 2 buttons to scoll back and forth between the lists; makes for quick viewing of the different types of games available

[Ummon]

Oh, I sorta forgot to mention: most games I have are playable. It's really the 'special controls' games, like Star Wars or Spy Hunter, that I won't play. However, Paperboy is playable using my spinner for x-axis, and P2 stick in right hand for throttle, with the upper-left button underneath my right pinky to throw papers. I've gotten to Sunday with this set-up.

Then of course if you have at least one U360 on-board, you can play analog/hall effect stick games - but some of them I think are a wash at best, like I, Robot. Road Runner, on the other hand, requires it. Unfortunately, the game is pretty boring after about 30 seconds and gets worse.

Oh, and lastly there's the dual-stick, dual-player games, like Smash TV or Splat! (love that game) that are fun alone but not 2P playable unless you have a dual-dual-stick panel. Just gotta.

[briktop11b]

    I have a six button street fighter style layout and PL 1 and 2 buttons and instead of a coin mech i have the push buttons that light up and look like coin inserts.  I have about 200 Mame games, 25 dreamcast games, about 25 PSone games, 75 super nes games, 60 sega Genesis games and about 40 gameboy advance games. Out of all those the Mame and dreamcast get the most play about 10-15 from Mame (favorite is prolly shock troopers and metal slugs)  and a few from dreamcast including ikaruga and under defeat, Awesome shooter games!!!