Thread: MAME - How to install?

I appreciate the compliments on the program. Mame is a unique animal in that it doesnt look for a single file to open games, it looks for a folder, then identifies the proper files within the folder to run the game. It was easy to open an emulator program like project 64 and then make it open a game and then embed it within MI, but with Mame, you can make it pretty much do the same thing, but it proved to be incredibly difficult to make work correctly, and since its truly a dos program, that created additional problems. The existing emulator programs are all hard coded into the program, so you would have to open Mame from the external apps module, then navigate within Mame to open the games. There are many different versions of the old classic games that were made for the other emulators, you should look for those games, in fact I have pacman 2 for super nes and I have galaga and galaxian for nes. I also have pacman, xevious, donkey kong, excite bike, and ice climber, for GBA. PM me if your interested in any of these.

Regarding FM radio, All the reports have shown that the reception on everything available is incredibly bad. The high quality stuff is yet untested as well, so you probably wont see a decent FM unit available for a long time, thats why I developed XM.

Originally Posted by we87

First of all let me say that this is by far the BEST front end that I have used so far, and I think this will definitly be the one that I use in my car when I am finished. The only down side that I have found is there is no FM Radio integration, but that is no big deal at the moment... I also love the emulator part of this front end. I already had in mind to use MAME but never thought of integrating it with my front end aswell. This program already made that happen!

However, I want to play the old arcade style games like Pacman and Frogger and such, so my question is: How would I install MAME with this front end?

Is there a certain procedure involved? Or can I just make a new folder in the MobileImpact directory with the MAME essentials....

Thanks In Advance for any information you have, I apreciate it.

(I have searched, and came up with 4 posts that didnt help me at all)

Hey thanks for the reply, I really apreciate it. Its nice to get the facts straight from the author himself!

Well while there are LOADS of different emulators that run on the same MAME platform, and different front ends, etc.... Most of the ones that I have personally tried dont look for a folder. Instead they look for a .zip file containing all of the rom contents. So I would think that maybe that would help out? Seeking out a single file instead of a directory?

Also, have you looked at some of the GUI's designed for MAME? All of those run on Windows and not DOS. However, when the actual game starts it does run in DOS, but I think if you just set it to run in fullscreen mode it would implement itself fairly easily. But in either case, Ill try using the external apps section and see if that works....

Thanks for the offers on the other roms, but im more oldschool man. I want the classic originals with the funky bootup of the arcade boxes, you know the real deal hehe. If for not any other reason, just for when someone older says "A Computer In Your Car? Why The Hell Would You Want To Type And Drive?!" Those people will shut up once they see their old quarter games in my car!!! MWaHaHAHA!

Thanks again for the information

ok using mobile impact am i able to do something to the software where when i press games mobile impact shuts down and whatever mame frontend loads????? am i able to switch between frontends. what if on multiple hard drives?? i really like how some of the flashy mame frontends look with the previes and all.i also like how the classic games have the boarders around them.

i appreciate any and all help even if its do more reaserch cause that lets me know iv missed something so please give whatevr u got


How woul i go about makeing my own front end?????

is it possible too.......
ok i wiki wat is a front end n got.Front-end and back-end are generalized terms that refer to the initial and the end stages of a process. The front-end is responsible for collecting input in various forms from the user and processing it to conform to a specification the back-end can use. The front-end is a kind of interface between the user and the back-end."

so if i understand correctly it should possible to create a front end to choose witch front end you want 2 use. useing this setup woul i be able to go back n forth betwwen a mame front end and mobile impact??? i appreciate all help

Sorry for the delay in response...
I haven't been developing Mobile Impact for awhile as you may know, but i still check this forum occasionally.

Mame will not work with this front end. Im sure with alot of tweaking you could probably get it to work, but there are roms available for the existing emulators that are the classic games. They are classic game packs and i believe you will find them for N64 emulator.