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Mala fe run on start up and gen config


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Just thought I'd share some hurdles I came across being a rookie to mame.

 

The first and most simple piece of advice I've got is get the latest verified version of both mame and your fe, this resolves a lot of heart ache you could be having with mismatched versions straight off the bat.

 

Then disable all the sticky keys and ctrl + alt function your os has as standard.

 

I've used mala as my fe and it has served all my purposes without much drama it's just the game filtering that gets a bit interesting when you're trying to compile lists that suit your needs.

 

Another piece of valuable advice I've got is get yourself a USB wireless or Bluetooth keyboard with an integrated mouse, I've got a Kaiser Baas Bt-100 which is small and perfect for hiding and has all the functionality required for $40.

 

Now to what was my biggest heart ache the run mala or any fe on startup. Eventually I got jack of dicking around with shells and users and admin rights so I opted for the most simple of options; configure your fe then create a shortcut for it and drag and drop it into your "programs/startup" dir in explorer. So simple. Now couple that with removing the windows boots splash, removing all system sounds incl. startup and shutdown, set your desktop to black, remove the recycle bin and auto hide the task bar and you have a very basic simple startup function that to my mind is effective enough, there are heaps of guides around to complete these functions.

 

Also don't go crazy with control panel buttons, virtually everything can be managed by a fight stick setup 2 player buttons and a credit button and even the credit button isn't required. This is obviously dependant on your gaming requirements.

 

Now that is said I am by no means finished, I'm still working through run game on start up and a resolution rotation issue I have but I am still on the test bench so I think the arcade VGA will iron out the res issue and I just need to scratch my mind a bit to get the run game thing sorted.

 

Easy plug and play hardware:

J-PAC

Arcade VGA

USB powered speakers

Wireless keyboard

 

Warning mame doesn't have to be expensive but convenience comes at a price.

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Have fun tweaking -:)

 

Mame is great but there is a mass of tweaking involved.

 

Id recommend keeping a backup install so if something fails you can easily re-copy.

 

And another suggestion, keep the games list short, thousands of games on there will just mean you can never find or decide on a game to play, I have a little over 100 games on mine.

 

Sent from my R800i using Tapatalk 2

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Id recommend keeping a backup install so if something fails you can easily re-copy.

 

And another suggestion, keep the games list short, thousands of games on there will just mean you can never find or decide on a game to play, I have a little over 100 games on mine.

 

Sent from my R800i using Tapatalk 2

 

Seconded the backup. Just copy it all to a USB HDD so you can copy it back if anything dies. Believe me you do NOT want to have to do all of this again.

 

Also for Gamelists I tend to agree however what I did was create multiple lists.

 

Filter - This is essentially all game available minus Clones or games that don't work. Roughly 2000 games

Favourites - Just the games that I and my kids love and/or play the most. Roughly 250 Games

VS Games - Games that are 2 Players head to head. Great for when friends are over

2 Player Co-Op - Games that are generally 2 Player but Co-Op. Again great for when friends are over and the list my daughter loves the most as we play together.

 

You can then assign a list change button on your panel or something.

 

Cheers,

Brad

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Yep fully agreed on the keep a copy thing, being a faithless creature I've added a second internal drive and partitioned it with one side raid and the other side user backup to last best working system.

 

The lists are bastards, I've filtered clones but the masters aren't working!! So I've gone back a step and reinstated clones and now I'm just selecting a custom list of games I play, if something new comes up I'll just add it to the list. At least then I still have the all games list to fall back onto.

 

Now I must get back to upgrading the control panel for operation sanwa.

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Yep fully agreed on the keep a copy thing, being a faithless creature I've added a second internal drive and partitioned it with one side raid and the other side user backup to last best working system.

 

The lists are bastards, I've filtered clones but the masters aren't working!! So I've gone back a step and reinstated clones and now I'm just selecting a custom list of games I play, if something new comes up I'll just add it to the list. At least then I still have the all games list to fall back onto.

 

Now I must get back to upgrading the control panel for operation sanwa.

 

I'm not a fan of Mala's List maintenance and setup. The issue is that in many cases you have the master in the list but it doesn't actually work in Mame so need to have a Clone instead. Rom List and all the additions will help immensely with that. It's what I used as long as all your version are the same it works pretty well.

 

Once of my other cabs in a Mamewah cab and the list maintenance on that is a breeze. I manually created my lists in under an hour using only the arcade control panel.

 

Brad

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