MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator)

[UKBob]

Im sure its good if people are recommending it... how good though? (theres always one like me to ask, I know ;))

Last I checked (years ago) there were dozens of emulators for various systems, I spent hours reading about which ones were good, which were buggy, which crap etc before getting the emmy I needed. Whats this one like? And er... is it for 'arcade games' and no system in particular?

[UKBob]

What games are available? Surely its interpretational ability is limited to a piece of architecture of a certain design? IIRC, arcade systems were evolving all the time, which surely had different code etc to play them?

[UKBob]

Wow I can see myself spending forever playing

Does it emulate computers as well as consoles, like the amiga for example?

[UKBob]

www.mame.net/downmain.html

There are a few large files, Im assuming one of the bigger ones is the program? How are roms loaded, via the command line? And does one have to learn some bacis commands to run the roms?

I suppose I should just download it but wanted to check which file was the right one first. Any good rom site links would be appreciated too

[UKBob]

I downloaded the GUI version, and found california games for the atari lyn as a .rar file.

Does anyone have the time to guide me step by step, how do I get the game into mame32, and do I need to unzip the file first? seem to remember rar being a compressed format which winzip isnt recognizing.

Once unzipped, then how do I load the game?

>> Edited by UKBob on Sunday 19th June 22:49