Category: Tech

MAME Starter Guide

MAME

Note (Jan 2011): this guide is pretty much outdated. I might write an update soon.

What is MAME? It is an emulator intended to document the hardware of arcade games systems. Of course, for most average users it is the side-effect of being able to play more than 3000 unique games that’s the important thing.

Well, that’s all well and good, you say, but how do I start? I’m glad you asked.

First, you will need to download MAME itself. If you run Windows, you can download the official release which is run off the command line, but I would recommend Mame32, which has a really nice GUI. For Mac OS X folks it’ll have to be MAME OS X (not very imaginative, yes) or SDLMAME, which is also the best option for Unix/Linux systems.

Next, you will need the ROM images*.

You can download some freely available ROMs to test. Place the downloaded ROM files into the roms folder where you unzipped MAME to.

To obtain more, Pleasuredome is the best way if you can work BitTorrent. The total size of the ROMs stand at almost 16 gigs currently, and so might take a while. The MAME ROM torrents are ratio-free but please do not abuse the ratio. Some games require CHDs which are compressed hard drive images, but these are generally not worth it as most PCs are too slow to emulate these games properly.

Or if you prefer, you can request for one of the Lazarus guys to burn you a copy. Read the instructions carefully, and note that I have never used their services.

That’s really all you need to start playing. You will probably want to grab the “Extras” torrent from Pleasuredome too. Lots of niceties such as screen captures and photos of the cabinets.

Additional stuff to grab:

* downloading of ROMs is illegal in most cases. You are downloading at your own risk.

Thunderbird 2.0 Released

Fantastic, been waiting for it. Features I have been looking forward to are message tagging and saved searches. What I consider the essential add-ons (Enigmail, Lightning and SmoothWheel) already work with 2.0, so no pain for me there.

The look and feel got an update too. The new theme is more refined, but perhaps a little duller compared to the previous version.

Thunderbird-2.0

Without further ado, the links:

Halite 0.29

Woo! No protocol encryption yet, being dependent on libtorrent’s implementation, which I hope is underway. Can’t find a changelog, but 0.29 has got to be 0.01 better than 0.28, right?

Get it from the official Halite site, as usual.

CCCP14 Released

Huzzah!

This is the 2007-02-22 “Anonymous does not forgive” build. CCCP is still the best codec pack as far as I am concerned. Coupled with the ffdshow speed ups for Vorbis and H264, this is really the only thing you need for video playback on Windows PCs*.

Also: Vista compatibility, and Zoomplayer 5.0.

* apart from Quicktime and Real content

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Halite 0.28

New version of Halite released with a snazzy new icon. Changes from 0.27 to 0.28:

  1. IP filtering support eMule style ipfilter.dat files.
  2. DHT support, thought it is turned off by default.
  3. Can select alternate save directory for torrents.

Long time readers of my blog (yes, all two of you!) will know that since BitTorrent Inc announced the acquisition of µTorrent, I have been keeping an eye on the development of Halite, and the library it was based on, libtorrent.

The major stumbling block to more widespread adoption is, I believe, the lack of support for protocol encryption (PE) in libtorrent. Well, the bad news is there is still no support. There is good news though. Eóin, author of Halite, is considering implementation of PE and contributing it to libtorrent. Most excellent. Pity that I am no C++ hacker, or I would have given it a shot myself.

I cannot recommend replacing µTorrent with Halite right now, but once PE is implemented, add features and polish from a few more iterations and I should be all over it.

Best Codec Pack

I see the K-Lite codec pack bandied about anywhere anytime anybody asks for recommendations for a codec pack, or as a solution to playback problems. Sometimes the monstrous “ACE Mega CoDecS Pack” makes an appearance.

When it comes to codec packs less is definitely more, as exemplified by my pack of choice, the Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP). Originally developed for playing fansubbed anime, it is tweaked and tested for maximum quality and reliability and is able to handle just about anything I care to throw at it. That one of the players included in the pack is the excellent Media Player Classic is just a bonus.

Make sure to read the installation instructions.

The only major formats lacking are RealMedia and Quicktime, and that is easily fixed by installing Real Alternative and Quicktime Alternative (both are designed by KL Software, creator of the K-Lite pack, so they are doing something right). Also, CoreAVC (not free) is an option for slower PCs for decoding H264 content.

Satsuki’s Decoder Pack seem pretty nice, and XP Codec Pack is another viable alternative. They decode more audio formats than the CCCP, so they may be more suitable for some people. Me, I have QMP for all my audio needs, but that’s a topic for another day.

Note: K-Lite has a “CCCP” profile, but it does not work well, and with none of the tweaks, so what is the point? Get the best, accept no substitutes.

Note 2: Graphic shamelessly ripped from the official CCCP wiki.

Update (12-Jan-07)
The latest betas of CCCP contain newer builds of ffdshow with some impressive gains in speed, by up to 20% it seems. Of course CoreAVC is still that little bit faster, but I can now play most hi-definition (1280 x 768) H264 content without slow downs on my 1.5 GHz Pentium M laptop. Excellent!

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Thunderbird 2.0 Beta 1

Was planning to upgrade to the first beta of Thunderbird 2.0 for the tags (I feel so Web 2.0). Enigmail has not yet been marked as compatible, and I need that for my subversive, perverse ways. Oh well, I can wait.

For the ones who absolutely cannot wait to use the latest and greatest, there is a data loss bug, so be sure to back up your profile.

Bittorrent Acquires uTorrent

Announced a few days ago. I am not optimistic about the future direction of uTorrent, given that Bittorrent, Inc has a deal with Warner Brothers (the enemy!). While I will continue to use the current version of uTorrent, I am already looking out for alternatives.

BitComet is definitely out, as it is still banned on a number of trackers due to it being considered harmful to the network, I am also not comfortable with the interface. BitLord, no, just no. Azureus is just too heavy for my poor little machine. ABC, BitTornado and the bevy of clients implemented in Python, lacking on some crucial features. Halite seems promising, but the libtorrent library it is based on lacks some features I need.

Since libtorrent has gained a higher profile thanks to the uTorrent situation, and I am hoping this will spur someone to get some heavy development work done to fill the gaps in its feature list, such as protocol encryption.

Community Server 2.1 MetaBlog API Update

The Telligent crew back ported the Blog File Drop feature slated for CS 3.0 into 2.1. What it means is that I can upload more than one picture per post via the MetaWeblogAPI. This is fantastic news. It simply means I no longer have to futz around with the Photo Gallery should I need more than one picture in a post. This is also the first post I am doing with Windows Live Writer, which is really nice.

Get it.