Mame Guide v1.0                         Copyright 2001 MRV2K
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About Mame
----------

I guess that it's right to say that you know that Mame is 
an arcade emulator. Mame was started back in 1997 by Nicola
Salmoria supporting 3 games which were Lady Bug, Ms Pacman
and Pengo. Now after 3 years of continual development Mame
now support thousands of games and new games are being added
all the time. It supports hundreds of different arcade
manufacturers including Sega, Capcom, Atari, Konami and Irem
to name but a few. If you have had a console or even games
computer like the Amiga or Atari, you will have probably
played "arcade conversions". Now its your chance to play the
real thing. 

Mame is an "emulator" this means that Mame simulates the
chips on an arcade board and uses rom images to run games.
Because Mame uses rom images which are extracted straight 
from original arcade machines, nearly all of the games that
it runs are 100% perfect. This means that what you play is 
exactly what you would see on an original arcade machine, 
the gameplay, the graphics, the music, all intact. 

One of the good things is that you dont need a powerful
machine to run it on. I've got an Athlon 600 PC with 256MB
ram and only a few games run slow. A Pentium PC (or
equivalent) with Windows 9x/NT/2k/Me, 16mb ram and 5mb plus
of hard disk is enough to run alot of games, however some of
the newer games require a pretty good spec. Other formats
and systems are supported including Amiga, Macintosh, Linux,
Unix and several palmtops. 

The rom images are the largest part of Mame. These can be as
small as 2KB or up to 99MB. To download the whole set on a
56k modem would take over 1000 hours of solid download and
would use 3GB of hard disk space (I know, I've got them
all).

With all the diversity of games that Mame supports there are
many thousands of hours of gameplay to be had. All
categories of games are supported from "shoot-em-ups" to
"wrestling".


------------------------------------------------------------
| Mame Options                                             |
------------------------------------------------------------


Path Menu
---------

Mame path - Specifies the mame path if U.M.U. is not in the
            Mame directory.

Rom path - Specifies path to romsets 

Sample path - Specifies path to samplesets 

Executable Name - Specifies the name of the executable file
                  used by U.M.U.


Display Menu
------------

Auto Frameskip - If you game is running slow then use skip
                 frames to speed up emulation 

Skip # Frames - Lets you specify how many frames out of 12
                are skipped when playing a game.
                
Vertical Sync - Waits for the screen to redraw before 
                drawing the next frame (reduces tearing of
                graphics) 

Triple Buffer - Triple buffering (only if fullscreen) draws
                three screens at a time and flips them which
                creates smoother animation. 

Windowed Display - This option lets you run MameW in a
                   window on your desktop or fullscreen. 

Maximize Window - Make the game window fill the screen.

Scanlines - Emulates the lower resolution screenmode on
            monitors and TV's. 

Throttle - Throttle MameW's speed to match the game's
           framerate.

Rotate Right - Rotate Screen 90 Degrees right.

Rotate Left - Rotate Screen 90 Degrees left.

Flip Screen L-R - Flip the screen horizontally.

Flip Screen U-D - Flip the screen vertically.

Resolution - Sets the resolution in fullscreen mode
             (e.g. 640x480) 

Screen Depth - Manually set the screen depth (e.g. 16bit)

Screen Effect - none - no effect (this is the default)
                scan25 - 25% scanlines
                scan50 - 50% scanlines
                scan75 - 75% scanlines
                rgb3 - a certain "monitor mask"
                rgb4 - another one 
                rgb6 - another one
                rgb16 - another one. Choose the one you like 
                        best. 

Hardware Stretch - Stretches games to fill the screen using
                   the hardware on your graphics card 
                   

Sound / Vector Menu
-------------------

Sound
-----

Sample Rate - Set samplerate (e.g. 22050) in khz 

Samples - Uses samples to complete the sound systems for
          games which require them. 

Resample Filter - Resample sound if samplerate does not
                  match 

Sound - Enable/Disable sound and sound CPUs 

Volume - Sets volume level (range [-32,0]) 


Vector
------

Anti Alias - Draw antialiased vectors which smoothes out the
             edges. 

Translucency - Draw translucent vectors which simulates the
               feel of vector games 

Beam Width - Set beam width in vector games 

Flicker - Set flickering in vector games which again adds to
          the realism of vector games. 


Other Menu
----------

Controllers
-----------

Joystick Type - None
                Normal
                Hotrod
                HotrodSE

Mouse - Enable mouse control

SteadyKey - Lets you press more than one key at a time if
            you are having problems. 


Extra Options
-------------

Artwork - Use additional game artwork 

Cheat - Enable/disable cheat system 

Pause After Mame - If enabled you have to press a key to
                   return to U.M.U.

Brightness - Sets the brightness in full screen mode

Gamma - Gamma correction is used if you find Mame is too
        dark. 

Auto Switch Res - Switches the screen resolutions to best
                  fit the game. 

Auto Switch Depth - Switch the color depth of a screen to
                    match the game being played. 

Keep Screen Aspect - Keep a game in the right aspect no
                     matter what resolution is used. 

Use Game Refresh - Attempt to match the game's refresh rate 

Use Screen Refresh - Synchronize only to the monitor refresh 

Frames To Run - Sets the number of frames to run within the
                game 

Verbose - Display additional diagnostic information 


Default Keys
------------

These keys work on all versions of Mame. 

Main Keys
---------

5,6,7,8 - Insert coin 

1,2,3,4 - Players 1 - 4 start buttons 

9,0 - Insert service coin (Needed by some games) 

F2 - Test Switch 

F3 - Game Reset 

F4 - Show the game graphics. Use cursor keys to change the
     set or colour. 

F8 - Decrease frame skip during a game. 

F9 - Increase frame skip during a game. 

F10 - Speed Throttle (Makes game overspeed) 

F11 - Frames Per Second and Frameskip information 

Left Shift + F11 - Enables the profiler 

F12 - Saves image of game screen to snaps directory. 

P - Pause the game 

Esc - Exit from game 

~ or  (Above Tab) - Volume Control 

Tab - Access Mames in-game menu 


Control Keys (Default)
----------------------

Arrow Keys - Joystick Controller (Player 1)

Left Ctrl - Fire 1(Player 1) 

Left Alt - Fire 2 (Player 1) 

Space - Fire 3 (Player 1) 

Left Shift - Fire 4 (Player 1) 

Z - Fire 5 (Player 1)

X - Fire 6 (Player 1)

If the game requires more keys such as the six fire button
games and multi player games then you can find the extra
keys in the in-game menu. To do this you need to press "Tab"
and from the menu select "Input (This Game)". You will now
see which keys need to be used. Press "Tab" again to close
the menu. 


------------------------------------------------------------
|Installing Games                                          |
------------------------------------------------------------


First you need to download a game. Try Mame.dk for games.

You then need to get it into the c:\mame\roms\ directory.
I normally use Windows Explorer as you just have to open
the directory and drag and drop the zip file from the
desktop on to the folder icon for you mame/roms directory.

You must be careful when downloading roms as there are two
types. You have parent sets that are the main games and
clone sets which are variants of the parent set and share
roms from it. Therefore if you have downloaded a clone set
and don't have the parent then the game won't work. To make
it easier to differentiate between parent and clones I have
highlighted parent games in white in the games list and
clones in gray. 


------------------------------------------------------------
|Additional Files                                          |
------------------------------------------------------------


Certain games require extra files to complete them. These
files contain sound samples and extra artwork which are
used by the games to get them 100% accurate. You can get
the complete sets of sound samples from www.mame.net. The
zipped files that you download need to be placed in the
C:\Mame\Samples directory however you do not need to 
extract them, leave them zipped.

The artwork files can be got from the official Mame site at
www.mame.net and you must extract the zip files into the 
C:\Mame\Artwork folder. You cannot leave these files zipped.

There are also four data files that Mame can access to get 
extra information. Here they are... 

Mameinfo.dat 
Mameinfo.dat contains information about all of Mames games 
giving update information, alternative games of the same 
genre, development details, known bugs, useful tips and 
also if the game is emulated on other emulators. You can 
get it from MASH's Mameinfo Site 

History.dat 
This data file contain development information, game
background and hints and tips. 

Cheats.dat 
Although the cheat file is not regularly updated it has
cheats for most of the main Mame games. These cheats can
give you extra lives, invulnerability or even let you access
extra levels. 

Hiscore.dat 
This file is used as a "Hall of Fame" for Mame users. By 
default you only have the original games hiscores to beat
but with this file you can go up against the best of the
best.


------------------------------------------------------------
|In-Game Menus                                             |
------------------------------------------------------------


During gameplay there a couple of in game menus you can 
access. If you press the "TAB" key you will access the main
in game menu... 


Input (general)
This is where you can view / change the main Mame keys 


Input (this game)
This is where you can view / change only the keys that
affect this game. 


Dip Switches
Nearly all games have switches on the main circuit boards.
These switches affect difficulty, lives, language and any
number of other options. If the author of the Mame driver
has mapped out these switches you can change them from here. 


Bookeeping Info
Shows how may times you have played the game. 


Game Information
Shows information about the game if you have the 
mameinfo.dat file in the main Mame directory. 


Game History
Shows information about the games history if you have the 
history.dat file in the main Mame directory. 


Cheat
Show the cheat screen. See below for more information on
the cheat system. (Cheats will only show up if you have the
cheat option selected)
 

Reset Game
Resets the game loaded in memory. 


Return to Game
Closes the in-game menu 


You can also press the "tilde" key to activate the volume / 
brightness controls. 

------------------------------------------------------------
|Using Mames Cheat System                                  |
------------------------------------------------------------

To access the cheats you need to make sure that you have
enabled them by selecting the cheat option in the Mame
Options menu. You can access the cheat system from the
in-game menu. Load a game and open the in-game menu by
pressing "Tab" then on the menu select "Cheats". 

To search for say a lives cheat in Mame first you need to
load the game you want. I will use Thunder Dragon as an
example as it is new to Mame and therefore not already
covered in the cheat.dat file that is available. Put some
money in and start the game. Once the main game screen is
open press p. This will pause Mame and allow you to count
the amount of lives available. In Thunder Dragon there are
3. Press tab and select cheats from the menu. On the cheats
screen select the "Start a New Cheat Search" option.

The first option lets you select which CPU Mame will search
for the cheats on. This is useful if you have a multiple CPU
game and cant find a cheat on one CPU, you can simply switch
to another one and repeat the process. 

Leave the CPU at 0 and highlight the Lives option. Use the
left or right arrow keys to enter 3 for the lives value.
Press enter to get the first results Mame will give the
amount of times it find 3 in memory. (Thunder Dragon has 66)
Press tab to exit the menu and then press p to restart the
game. Lose a life and press p and tab gain. Select the
"Continue Search" option, change the lives to 2 and press
enter again. The matches will now read 55. Repeat the whole
process changing the live to 1 and the matches will show 6. 
Once you've lost you last life in Thunder Dragon enter 0 in
the lives and bingo one match found! 

Go to the Add/Edit a Cheat option you will see two entries
(for some reason) for address value B7A29. This is the part
of memory that Thunder Dragon uses to store its lives in.
Highlight one and press enter. I'm not sure if the Name and
Description work as I can't get them to but under value all
you have to do is to change the value to 255 and you then
have 255 lives. Return back to the main cheat menu and
highlight the Enable/Disable a cheat. In the next menu
highlight the one you changed and press left until it shows
on. Tab out of the in-game menu and viola! 255 lives. This
can be adapted to alot of games and as long as you keep a
note of the cheat info you can add the information to the
cheat.dat file using the section below.

If you have the cheat.dat file alot of the games up to Mame
0.36 are covered. If the datfile supports it you can just
open the Enable/Disable a Cheat option and when you select
it you will see a screen showing a list of cheats. 

All you need to do now is to highlight the cheat you want
to enable and press left or right until it says on. Once
you are done press "Tab" again the menu will disappear and
the cheat will activate. 

------------------------------------------------------------
|Editing the Cheat.Dat                                     |
------------------------------------------------------------

To store your cheat for future use you can use the file
cheat.dat. This can be downloaded for Pugsy's page here. 

First you need to download the file and extract it into your
C:\Mame directory. 

Make a note of the cheat that you have found. You will need
the rom name (e.g tdragonb), the number of the cpu (normally
0), the memory address that mame found the cheat at (e.g.
B7A29) and the value youe wanted it changed to. 

Open the windows start menu and go to run. In the window
type notepad c:\mame\mame.dat and notepad will load up with
the mame.dat file. If you look down the file you will see
that it has a special format to it. To enter a cheat you
must follow the format exactly or it wont work. 

If we use the cheat that we found above as an example above
here is what you need to do. 

Scroll down to the very bottom of the file and enter the
following lines (make sure that you use the colons)


;Thunder Dragon (Bootleg)
tdragonb:0:B7A29:FF:000:255 Lives  


Here is a breakdown of the information that was entered.

;Thunder Dragon (Bootleg) - A remark to tell you which
                            game the cheat is for.

tdragonb - The name of the rom file for the game
 
0 - The cpu number to be used  

B7A29 - The memory address to be changed  

FF - The value to change the address to in hexadecimal  

000 - A special option to be used to determine how the value
      you put in is used during the cheat operation. There
      is information at the top of the file on this and
      I still dont understand most of the options work so I
      guess use trial and error.  

255 - Lives The text to be shown in the mame cheat menu  

Once you've finished entering the details all you need to do
is to save the file, close notepad and load up Mame (with 
the cheats enabled of course!). Load up the game you want,
when it has loaded press the tab key, select cheats, select
enable/disable a cheat and you will see you cheat there.
Activate it and off you go. 


------------------------------------------------------------
|NEO-GEO Memory Cards                                      |
------------------------------------------------------------


Because the Neo-Geo games can be run as arcade games or
console games you can save your games onto a "memory card".
To use memory cards you first need to create one. To do this
run a Neo-Geo game and once it has loaded press the "Tab"
key to open the in-game menu. Select the Memory Card option.

If you have no memory cards installed already select "Create
Memory Card" and you'll see "Card Loaded OK" its that simple.
If you fill your memory card you can make another by moving
the cursor left or right on "Load Memory Card" and selecting
"Create Memory Card" again which will create another (up to
999). 

The usage of memory cards is fairly automatic. To save your
position in a game for instance all you need to do is die
with no credits left and wait for the timer to count down.
The game will automatically ask you whether you want to save
your position. When you load the game in next time and add
some credit it will automatically ask you whether you want
to continue from your saved position. 

You will also notice on the menu that there is an option
called "Call memory card manager". This brings up the
Neo-Geo memory card utility which allows you to rename your
cards and see your saved games. If you select this option
nothing will happen until you reset the game by pressing
"F3". To exit, follow the on-screen instructions.


------------------------------------------------------------
|Summary                                                   |
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This guide is a VERY cut down version of the full Mame Guide
available on easyEmu. For more information please try there.