Mame on windows xp

[Furemir]

Hi everyone, I m having trouble running MAME on my aquired pentium 4 with windows XP. On my Laptop with windows vista it runs like a charm. But i have copied the maps to my aquired computer (for my cab i m going to build) but it wont start up. Any ideas what i m doing wrong. I m running MAME 0149b (command line version).

[empardopo]

Is it the same version of mame in both PCs?

[Furemir]

Yes its the same version, but i have been searching on the net. could it be i m missing direct x? Let me rephrase do i need direct x for MAME?

[matt4949]

I had a similar problem moving mameui from one xp machine to another. When I coppied and pasted some how I picked up a set of parentheses on all my files and mala was not able to follow the correct path to mame and mame was not able to follow the correct path to roms, All was fine after deleting about 30 parentheses. Check to see if your folders still have the exact name they should.

[empardopo]

Yes its the same version, but i have been searching on the net. could it be i m missing direct x? Let me rephrase do i need direct x for MAME?

Really, I'm not sure if DirectX are necesary.
Check your path in the second Mame.
Try with another type of mame but you must use the same version.

Greetings!

[ppv]

Bit more info is needed:
is XP fullly updated? (ie sp3 + updates)
What is your video card? Are it's drivers up to date?
Have you done some hardware tests?
What is the general behavior of "mame not working"? Any error messages?

[Furemir]

Those are hard questions: i had the pc in the attic (its my wife's former computer) an IT friend of mine formatted it and installed xp on it. Not sure if he installed all service packs and updates. Same goes for the video card i have no idea whats in it. Its a Pc from around 2007 i guess. I ll have to check that out. But when i double click the Mame icon my screen goes black briefly but doesnt advance in the Mame start screen no errors.

[BadMouth]

I'd start with these Directx and visual C runtimes.
No idea if MAME relies on them, but a lot of other emulators do.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5555

[ppv]

I'd plug it on the network to have Internet and start Windows update. Do as Badmouth told too. Direct X is a must as are VC runtimes.
To check the vid card, just right click anywhere in your screen without an icon, select properties on the pop-up menu,  and click on the Settings tab. It should show you what video card you have.

[Haze]

If the system has cheap onboard graphics (some Intel chipset) it might simply not be suitable.

Although you should still fully update Windows, DirectX etc.

If it's not Intel but some Nvidia card make sure you DON'T install the latest drivers tho (you'll need something much older like driver rev 260.99)  Using the latest drivers with certain cards on 32-bit XP causes a BSOD, which appears to be Nvidia's fault (it's a BSOD caused by a driver crash...)

there's also "-video ddraw" or "-video gdi" that may serve you better if you have an incompatible card, although be warned, gdi is SLOW.

[ppv]

If it's not Intel but some Nvidia card make sure you DON'T install the latest drivers tho (you'll need something much older like driver rev 260.99)  Using the latest drivers with certain cards on 32-bit XP causes a BSOD, which appears to be Nvidia's fault (it's a BSOD caused by a driver crash...)

I can attest to that one, It happened to me on one of my computers.

[Yenome]

if im thinking right d3d is from directx so yes mame uses directx. I had the same issue you had before and I never got it to work right. I ended up just having to get a new copy of mame unzipped on to the arcade machine and then I was able to copy my roms folder over.