looking for a newbie guide

[vusteveii]

I've downloaded mame071b and put it in the location c:/mame/mame.exe
and ive downloaded mamewah .90 and placed it in c:/programfiles/mamewah

but i cant get the thing to run at all(when i try to execute any of the commandls from the command line, it keeps saying mame not found), ive read all the faqs and searched the mame.net boards and here, but its all pretty greek to me.   Does anyone know a link to a step by step guide for getting this stuff running written in a way that a computer newb can follow?

steve

[Howard_Casto]

you need a dos guide, not jsut a mame guide.....
it's saying mame not found becuase you aren't navigating to it in the command prompt

to change drives simpley type the drive letter followed by a colon like:

e:

to change directories type cd followed by the folder name
like:

cd mame

[vusteveii]

ok, its working slightly better.

Am i correct in asuming the start->run brings up the command line?

I entered

c:/mame/mame.exe cabal2

and the command windows comes up, but its not launching the game, a couple lines of text roll by, but its too fast to read.

[Syxx]

ok if you have mamewah you shouldnt need to manually type your command lines.
1- read your mame.ini file from with in your mame directory and setup your options and make sure all your directories are pointing to the right area.
2- launch mamewah, hit 2 and brings up your option menu, select emulator settings [1 is used to select stuff], then select emulator, and pick emulator 1, or whichever you like
3 - then under emulator settings choose execution settings, and point to you mame.exe so example c:\mame\mame.exe
4 - for send rom path select yes, send extension yes, long file names no, show dos window no
5 - go back to emulator settings, select list generation settings, for dat, nms, catver there all optional so you can skip them. set up your rom path, so probably c:\MAME\Roms\ then for rom filename extention choose zip [default]
6 - for list generation method choose rom folder vs listinfo.
7 - now go back to the main options screen select game list options, and then refresh game list. it should now show all your roms if everything is correct.
8 - to play one hit 1 or control and if all your mame settings are fine it will load right in.

its much easier loading through mamewah. if your still having trouble maybe try mame32 its easier to start off with. but if your using mamewah its not needed and mamewah has issues with mame32 at times so i recomend using mame32 on its own if you choose to.

other hint when in mame use the tab key to set up you controlls with in mame.

hope this helps.

[vusteveii]

it helps a lot, but im having an impossible time finding some of the settings your describing, where do i find list generation methods and where do i set the emulator rom path,  i dont see any of that under the "emulator options"

im running mamewah .90

[Minwah]

If you want to use v0.90, then there is a Readme.txt file included in the download which explains all.

The help Syxx gave refers to the newer versions which have little to no documentation atm.  If you choose to try the latest version, then what Syxx said will do nicely, although you can skip step 4, this bit is setup for MAME already