I'm just starting to get into MAME (god, it's great) so I was wondering if there's anything I should know? I've got all my ROMs running with MAME32 0.94. Is there anything else I can get to enhance my experience? Anything you want to recommend? What setting should I be using etc? Tony
.94 is the newest version! Oh no, wait - there's .95 now. I prefer MAME32 Plus! personally, it's got a few nice extras and looks a bit prettier (transparent menus and whatnot). I also recommend getting some DAT files - just stick them in the MAME main directory (wherever the executable is): history.dat (http://www.arcade-history.com/) - gives you loads of info on many games hiscore.dat (can't remember where - the unofficial one's better now) - allows you to save hi scores on older games that originally couldn't mameinfo.dat (somewhere on mameworld) - gives more info about games cheat.dat - you can guess what that one does command.dat (works only in MAME Plus!) - shows move lists for many fighters.
Believe it or not, I'm a fan of the original command line release. Mame32 tends to like to omit games from it's list, and I personally think it slow, cumbersome, and prone to freezing or less sensitive input. The original version is up to 0.95, and you'll have to *gasp* navigate DOS to use it, but it's really not so bad.
MAME Plus contains two executables - a command-line version and a MAME32-like GUI version. I often use the command-line too for the reasons you listed, and also cuz my PC's slow. With MAME Plus, when extracted it'll make a directory called "mamep" somewhere - just stick those DAT files in that. If you press tab while playing a game the cheat and command list stuff should be somewhere at the bottom of the menu - I'm not at home now so I can't check exactly where.
How long do you think it will be before I can play Scud Race? Are people actually working on it or are the new-ish games not possible?
