Helping My Old Man Play Emulated Games

[GrooveMan.exe]

Just a quick one - I'm here with my dad trying to get an arcade emulator up so he can play some of the classics he remembers. This consists mostly (or entirely) of Space Invaders. I tried using MAME initially, but it's been ages since I've tried to install it, and I pretty much hit a dead end.
Plan B was using GGPO, which set up and emulated a test game (MvC) fine, but doesn't go far back enough to support the games we want.

So if anyone can run past me in patronising baby steps how to get MAME running, or can suggest GGPO-friendly games my dad can play (Fan of retro shooters, likes beat-em-ups but button mashes), you'd be helping me out a great deal.

Thanks in advance.

[Vipershark]

ugh mame is a total dick to set up
believe it or not, I was doing this exact thing the other day

you want mame32b (the one with the gui and the orange arcade machine as the icon, idk exactly what it's called)
your roms go in the roms folder in the mame directory
once you put them in there you go to audit all games in the top dropdown menu (don't remember what section it's under)
this will check all your games to make sure they work and stuff
once this is done click the working button or whatever on the huge games list and it'll tell you what games you have available to play
double click a game to start it

also if anyone knows where I can get a WORKING galaga rom please post it
I've tried at least twenty different romsites (which all had basically different releases) and none of them worked. at all.

[Yawackhary]

To run MAME the easy way, you need to either download MAMEUI (which is an updated version of MAME32, from the same coders) or a frontend for the official MAME (basically a screen to choose your games and settings without resorting to command line, there are 100s but one that I would choose is EmuLoader just in case you want to play Model 2 or laserdisc games that I would doubt that your dad would want to play). Downloading MAMEUI is the easier option.

After downloading, you need to either click on the binary that should say MameUI.exe (there are two versions depending on what computer you have) so you can have it on a folder where you want to go. I haven't had any experience on MAMEUI (but I did on MAME32 until the later releases didn't work on my old computer and forgot) so I guess that it does a scan for MAME and the games like Emuloader. Also have a look here: http://easyemu.mameworld.info/mameguiden...allUI.html

Your ROMs that you download go into the roms folder, the samples (basically audio files of the game from unemulated sound chips) go into the samples folder. All the games that listed as having samples are here: http://maws.mameworld.info/maws/srch.php?samples=yes

MAME has a parent/clone system so say your dad wants to play Donkey Kong, the ROM that you need is dkong but if you want to play by the Japanese order, you would have to download dkongjp as well. When you click on the game on the list, you get a legal screen just press left key and right key (or typing o k) to skip it, luckily you only have to do this once per game so next time you play it goes into the Game Info screen so press Enter to skip that. Pressing 5 is to insert a coin, pressing 1 starts the game (if you and your dad want to play, then insert more coins and press2 so Player 2 can play). The arrow keys are your control, Control, Alt and Space are your keys. Pressing Tab ingame goes into a menu where you have DipSwitches (bascially options like what score to get an extra life, difficulty or even free play), tells you what controls the game has and even cheats (but you must download that seperately). Pressing P pauses the game and Escape quits the game.

If you are still not sure on how to run it after explaining look here: http://easyemu.mameworld.info/mameguiden...guide.html

Also Vipershark, you really do need to find a old Galaga ROM somewhere unless you update since MAME sometimes updates the ROMs and most the sites update to the latest version.

[GrooveMan.exe]

Right. That's partially what I remember reading from the MAME FAQs, but they didn't put it step-by-step.

Thanks a bunch though, that's really useful!

Would it be possible to set the thing up on my computer and copy the folders over to his, or is it a program that requires installation?

[Vipershark]

nah, it should work fine either way
I copied it over to my flash drive ad it worked on another computer

[GrooveMan.exe]

Sweet, MAME is working just fine now.

With that, and game suggestions (nothing too hardcore)?

[Zach (KK)]

how about hangman

[Kosheh]

^um


what about uh, the old-school space shooters? You already mentioned Galaga, but what about Centipede and Asteroids?
also, expose him to twinbee, the kind of shooters that kids are into nowadays

[Zach (KK)]

It was a joke, since it is the worst arcade game EVER. PERIOD.

How about sonic the fighters?

[Vipershark]

Sweet, MAME is working just fine now.

With that, and game suggestions (nothing too hardcore)?

Definitely the old school classics. For my dad I got battlezone, pacman, galaxian, dig dug, and a few other old games.

Again though, if you can find a WORKING Galaga rom (as is is superior to Galaxian in every possible way ugh I hate galaxian) then please link me to it.

[Zach (KK)]

oh, the old OLD games?

[Helmo]

Atari old? Uhhh I reccomend Berzerk, and Joust, they're not (space) shooters or beat em' ups but they're classics.

[GrooveMan.exe]

Atari games wouldn't do much good on an arcade emulator. :V

At any rate I downloaded the feasible suggested games, and he's happy with them. Thanks Kosh Viper and Yawa.