Newbie MAMEWAH question

[toasty]

Let me preface this by stating that I am evidently an idiot, because despite reading many posts on how to get MAMEWAH up and running, I can't seem to do it.  Perhaps it is because all of my computing experience is limited to GUI systems, and a command line makes me apoplectic.  With all that said, can anyone help shepherd me through the process?

I've installed the Windows command line version of MAME 0.102, and MAMEWAH v1.61.  MAME is installed at c:\mame with roms at c:\mame\roms, MAMEWAH is installed in the Program Files directory on the c:\ drive.  When I start MAMEWAH, it indicates that there are no games -- I gather that there are things in the mame.ini file I need to change, but I'm not clear on exactly what needs to be changed and to what.

I've looked through the forums and haven't found anything that has allowed me to correct the problem.  Can anyone out there share their wisdom or direct me to a resource that will help?

Thanks in advance

[Roughy]

Just for grins and giggles, I put mamewah in a subfolder under mame on my machine. Actually, just to keep it all together.

Beyond that, when you launch mamewah, hit "2" and then follow along to Games List Options.  Hit "1".

Generate list.  Hit "1" to do that.  "1" is the new <enter>.

Try that--should work for you.

[toasty]

Thanks, but I've done that and it hasn't addressed the problem -- I hit "1" and nothing changes, still no games...

[Roughy]

Then you probably  haven't identified your roms directly correctly in the .ini.

Why don't you tell us what you've done without success so we can help you better?

[toasty]

I can do that, although I'm not sitting in front of that particular computer right now, so I'll have to do it later.  In brief, though, I changed the mame.ini file to include the correct path to the mame.exe application and to the roms. 

Like I said, though, I'll just post what I've done once I get home this evening.  Thanks.

[questionallthings]

Along with posting what you've done can you post the actual .ini file. Maybe we can take a look under the hood.

[toasty]

OK, here is the mame.ini file, as I've modified it up to this point:

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

emulator_title                            M.A.M.E.

### List Generation Settings ###
rom_path                                  C:\mame0102b\roms
rom_extension                             zip
dat_file                                 
nms_file                                 
catver_ini_file                           
list_generation_method                    rom_folder_vs_listxml

### Execution Settings ###
emulator_executable                       C:\mame0102b\mame.exe
commandline_format                        [name]{autodosbox}{nosafelaunch}
alt_commandline_format_1                  [name]{autodosbox}{nosafelaunch}
alt_commandline_format_2                  [name]{autodosbox}{nosafelaunch}
game_specific_config_path                 

### Artwork Locations ###
artwork_1_image_path                      c:\mame\snap
artwork_2_image_path                     
artwork_3_image_path                     
artwork_4_image_path                     
artwork_5_image_path                     
artwork_6_image_path                     
artwork_7_image_path                     
artwork_8_image_path                     
artwork_9_image_path                     
artwork_10_image_path                     
movie_preview_path                       
movie_artwork_no                          1

### Screen-Saver Settings ###
enable_music_in_screensaver               1
saver_type                                slideshow
movie_path                               
movie_fullscreen                          1
quit_delay                                30
wrapper_executable                       
wrapper_commandline_format                [name]{nodosbox}{nosafelaunch}
scr_file                                 

### External Application Settings ###
ipc_file_or_path                         
app_1_executable                         
app_1_commandline_format                 
app_2_executable                         
app_2_commandline_format                 
app_3_executable                         
app_3_commandline_format                 
auto_launch_apps                         

### Additional Settings ###
music_path                               
lcd_display_file_path                     
lcd_fe_text                               

### Settings used by MAMEWAH ###
current_list                              0

thoughts?  Thanks again for any help you can offer...

[Roughy]

Go through your mame.ini in your mame folder AND in your mamewah ini folder and double-check everything.

I've been through it all about 10 times today and then did a fresh install and life was much easier.  All the damn ini files make it a bit confusing.

[toasty]

this might be the problem right there -- I've only been changing the mame.ini file in the mamewah folder.  Is there one in the mame folder I need to change as well?

[Tiger-Heli]

this might be the problem right there -- I've only been changing the mame.ini file in the mamewah folder.

[toasty]

well, I fiddled around with it for a while and, although I'm not positive I know what I did differently, I got it up and running.  Thanks to all that responded...

[Roughy]

Awesome--still check out the configuration tools; they've got some nice features...

[dax]

This looks suspicious to me:

emulator_executable                       C:\mame0102b\mame.exe

Shouldn't the directory be c:\mame instead of c:\mame0102b ?

Or maybe just mame.exe - it's hard to tell what kind of conventions they want in these darn files.

[Roughy]

The reason you get to put the path there is so that you don't have to subscribe to anyone's naming conventions other than your own. 

You could all it kwejibo if you wanted to.

[dax]

The reason you get to put the path there is so that you don't have to subscribe to anyone's naming conventions other than your own. 

You could all it kwejibo if you wanted to.

Of course, but the OP stated:

MAME is installed at c:\mame

So the setting was in question.

But also, some of these front ends, like ArcadeOS expect a filename only and you have to specify the path in a different setting, and the details of that aren't elaborated in the config file.

[Roughy]

My bad; I took your question as far more newbie that you intended it.  I didn't refer all the way back to the top of the thread--sorry about that, and good call!

[toasty]

This looks suspicious to me:

emulator_executable                       C:\mame0102b\mame.exe

Shouldn't the directory be c:\mame instead of c:\mame0102b ?

Or maybe just mame.exe - it's hard to tell what kind of conventions they want in these darn files.

I actually ended up going in and renaming the directories and files to just "mame" without the version info, and that seemed to help with the configuration.