MAME Rom Problem and Questions

[OC_Ryan]

Hello everyone, I have been lurking around this forum for over two months and I just finally became a member. I bought my first cabinet, which was a Lil' Hustler arcade originally, and have gotten to the portion to where I need to set up the computer for the cabinet. I'll be posting a new project in the project announcements soon when I get the chance to snap some pics. If these have been answered elsewhere, please point me in the right direction, because I have tried desperately to look through the forums, but to no avail. So my questions, in this nice, easy to read format are....

How do you match ROM files with the version of MAME you are running? Can you use CHKMAME, the program I've been hearing so much about to somehow convert them to the proper version? If not, what exactly does CHKMAME do?

Also, as far as the different versions of MAME go, would you suggest I go and get the very latest one and use it? Or should I use one of the earlier versions?

Lastly, this is on the brink of a software/hardware question, but I'm trying to layout my control panel and I'm not sure how many buttons per player to use. I've seen plenty with 6 buttons per player, but that seems excessive as I'm not familiar with any games that need that many. Any insight? Also, some links with some control panel layouts would be great if someone could provide some. FYI, it's going to be two player.

Thanks everyone! I'm sorry I'm such a noob, trying to pick up on this stuff as fast as I can!

[slasherman]

How do you match ROM files with the version of MAME you are running? Can you use CHKMAME, the program I've been hearing so much about to somehow convert them to the proper version? If not, what exactly does CHKMAME do?

I don't know about CHKMAME but I think ROM files are the same.. You can use one kind of ROM files in all Mame emu as far as I know.
The only special Mame you need is for Donkey Kong 2 The Jumpman returns... I think...

Also, as far as the different versions of MAME go, would you suggest I go and get the very latest one and use it? Or should I use one of the earlier versions?

I think Mame 128 or 129 is the latest versions...I'm using MAME32 FX 0.126 version myself and here is a easy way to save high scores
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=88032.0

Lastly, this is on the brink of a software/hardware question, but I'm trying to layout my control panel and I'm not sure how many buttons per player to use. I've seen plenty with 6 buttons per player, but that seems excessive as I'm not familiar with any games that need that many. Any insight? Also, some links with some control panel layouts would be great if someone could provide some. FYI, it's going to be two player.

Thanks everyone! I'm sorry I'm such a noob, trying to pick up on this stuff as fast as I can!

I would go for 4 buttons per player but there are a few games that use more buttons
I'm using Winipac to design buttons and stuff
http://ultimarc.com/download.html

[u_rebelscum]

1.  Depends what you mean by different versions; version number, or derivative build.  Sometimes the rom zip file (aka "ROM set", or "ROM" for short even though it's usually lots of separate ROMs) changes between an older mame version number and a newer.  Maws includes info on when such changes are made since 0.53 (example: the sf2 rom set changed at versions 0.65 and 0.126u5).  For non-official builds derived off of the official one, they almost always use the same as the official mame as long as the version number matches.  Some derivs add rom sets that official mame doesn't have, so of course these don't match.


2.  Depends on which games you want to play, what features/bugs you want/don't want, which rom sets you can get, and you PC hardware.  If you hardware is good enough to play the games you want, I'd say use the most recent main build (0.129 ATM).  Don't worry about getting the minor "u" builds.  If your hardware can't quite play the games you want, try 0.106 if it has your games; 0.107 had major changes that slowed most games on most hardware.  There are too many features to go into here, but an example of a feature: Save state vs hiscore.dat: two ways to save high scores on games that didn't save them on shut down, the former is getting better (a person just started going through all the games in alphabetical order of the drivers), the latter was removed from official mame a while ago but unofficial patches and derivs are out there that re-add it to the current version number (you won't be using official mame anymore though).


3.  Depends exactly which games you want to play.  If you don't play street fighter or mortal kombat type games, three or four buttons might be enough.  Neogeo cabs had four buttons, but many of the games only used two or three of them, and many of the old games used only one two or three buttons.  However there are a few games that used more than that: defender & toobin (5), and stargate (6) come to mind from another thread.


I know I'm not being definite in my answers; that's because there is no one correct answer to satisfy all people all the time.