Windows frontend frustration from a Mac user :(

[megashock5]

Okay, I have pretty limited PC knowledge since I spend 10 hours a day on a Mac - but I'm trying to get this stuff working on a windows box since it's cheaper and has more emulator support.

First I tried MAMEwah - no games listed when I launch it. I expected that, so I try to run 'setup' and I get "invalid command-line parameters. unable to continue"

Then I downloaded Game Launcher. It list tons of games that I don't have. I read that the mamescan.exe looks for the emus and roms you have, so I try to launch it. It shows up for half a second and goes away. Doesn't appear to do anything. Try GL again, same generic list.

So then I tried Arcade at Home. I run the installer, but it says it's a MAMEwah installer and puts some stuff in the 'program files' area, then tells me that MAMEwah setup is complete. So I go to the folder that it just made - there is MAMEwah, but it acts just like the last one I tried and there's no setup app.

I realize that my lack of Windows knowledge is going to be a serious hinderence here, but I didn't think it was going to be this hard. Keep in mind, I've never used DOS in my life. (I'm a graphic designer and was trained on Macs all through school and even had an Apple II GS back in the 80s).

What am I doing wrong? Is this something I'm going to be able to do or is it useless if I can't even get this far?

[Tiger-Heli]

MAME32 should be pretty easy to set-up out of the box, at least to get some WinDoze familiarity.

I'm not up on MAMEWah, or GameLauncher.  I have used Arcade@Home, but highly suspect that it is broken with MAME 0.84 and up.

Come to think of it, that might well be your problem.

Mame swithched the -listinfo command from .txt to .xml output in v0.84 and broke about 3/4 of the frontends in the process.

You might try dropping back to 0.83 or previous and then setting up your frontends.

I use/have used EmuLoader.  There is a different version of it for 0.84 and you have to copy a file into it's home folder for it to work with 0.84.

Also, I recommend going to www.mameworld.net/easyemu and learning how to run MAME from the command line before setting up any frontend.

[Minwah]

1) First I tried MAMEwah - no games listed when I launch it. I expected that, so I try to run 'setup' and I get "invalid command-line parameters. unable to continue"

2) So then I tried Arcade at Home. I run the installer, but it says it's a MAMEwah installer and puts some stuff in the 'program files' area, then tells me that MAMEwah setup is complete. So I go to the folder that it just made - there is MAMEwah, but it acts just like the last one I tried and there's no setup app.

1) Sounds like you installed MAMEWAH fine, so you do not need to run the setup.  You can use the in-built menu (bring it up with '2', select with '1', and move with cursors).

2) I don't know but it sounds like you ran the MAMEWAH setup again (possibly you extracted the Arcade@Home installer to the same place, or vice versa.

As I say it sounds like you have MW installed fine, so drop me a PM/email if you need more help...

[megashock5]

yeah, MAME32 seems to work for me just fine. But is there a way to get a front end to work with it? I realize it already has an interface, but I was trying to get it set up so that when I turned it on I was presented with the front end, listing what games were available instead of going into Windows first.

I *think* the front ends can do that from what I've read (though I could be mistaken) and that's really what I'm looking for it to do.

The other part is, I'd like it to let me choose other emulators as well (NES, Genesis, etc.) Is this something that can be done or am I dreaming?

thanks for all the help!

[Tiger-Heli]

>yeah, MAME32 seems to work for me just fine. But is there a way to >get a front end to work with it?

Some front-ends will work with MAME32, some won't.  All will work with command-line windows MAME.

>Or is there any way to make MAME32 work as a front end, so I'm >presented with it's menu upon start up?

Depends - find MAME32 in Windows Explorer, right-click on it and select Create Shortcut.  Click and drag the new shortcut to Start - Programs - Startup (or C:\Windows\Programs\Startup or maybe C:\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup or C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup).  Now when you turn on the computer, windows will load and then MAME32 will launch.

With a lot of frontends, they can replace explorer (explorer and Windows explorer are different) as a "shell" so you boot into the frontend without seeing the windows start-up screens, but this is more complicated.

BTW, I didn't mean to forget about using a frontend and stick with MAME32, just that it was a good starting point to get familiar with windows.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah.... building on that, your "real" problem is you need to learn how to use both windows and the command line.  Once you do this fe business will be easy, but until you do you will always struggle.