M.A.M.E. Manager 4.0 (03/06/1997) by Paolo Nicoletti (P.nicoletti@radiostudio.it) additional ideas and mameman.txt by Mark van der Molen (Elvis@stack.nl) IMPORTANT !! ============ DO NOT ASK US FOR ROM IMAGES! DO NOT DISTRIBUTE M.A.M.E. MANAGER TOGETHER WITH ROM IMAGES! In many countries owning rom images for games you do not own is considered illegal. FREEWARE DISCLAIMER: ==================== This product is freeware. You may use it for your own game playing needs and that's it! I won't take any responsability (directly or indirectly) to any damage (temporary or permanent) that this program or any associated programs may do. Also, you can freely distribute this program and its associated files as long as you respect the following restrictions: 1) That files "MAMEMAN.EXE", "MAMEMAN.TXT", "MAMEMAN.DAT" and "MMAN.BAT" are included in the same archive in an unmodified form; 2) It must NEVER be packaged in with MAME or ROMs images; 3) That no charge is made for copying or distribution of this program and its associated files (beyond reasonable access fees); 4) It may not be included in any commercial product or CD-ROM compilations without the author's express permission. EXPLANATION OF TERMS : ====================== M.A.M.E. The multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. (but i guess you'll know that otherwise you wouldn't have any use for Mameman) CWSDPMI A DPMI server for dos, this is needed if you want to run Mame from dos. GAME A game supported by Mame. ROM The needed rom files for a game supported by Mame. ROMZIP A zip archive containing the rom files for a game supported by Mame. SAMPLESET A set of samples that can be used to provide sound for a game, only a few games can have samples attached. SAMPZIP A zip archive containing a sample set for a game FILES IN THIS ARCHIVE ===================== The following files should be contained in this archive: 1) MAMEMAN.EXE - The main program. 2) MMAN.BAT - Batch file to launch Mameman and set env variable. 3) MAMEMAN.DAT - Datafile for Mameman. 4) MAMEMAN.TXT - The file you are reading now. Note that I don't put no more the source code in this zip file because the archive would be too big. However if you wish to obtain the source contact Paolo (me!) at (p.nicoletti@radiostudio.it). In the near future you can also download the source code from the Mameman homepage. OK, SO WHAT'S MAMEMAN ANYWAY ? ============================== Mameman is primarily a frontend for M.A.M.E, the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator by Nico Salmoria and Mirko Buffoni. There are several other frontends for mame, but Mameman has got some functions that are unique to Mameman. Here's a sneak preview of some of these unique features: - Mameman can check automatically which new games are supported by Mame. - Mameman can automatically search the appropriate rom files for a game. - You can see which game you played most often. - You can see how long you've played each game. - Mameman can show you which games are missing from your Rom sets. SOME OTHER IMPORTANT FEATURES : =============================== - Play games directly from zip archives - Keep all sample sets in 1 dedicated dir - You can expand all zip archives at the touch of a button - You can pack all installed games to zip archives - You can verify all zip archives - You can have seperate settings for every game Mame 0.23 supports 124 games and it is getting nearly impossible to keep track of all games without a front end. We both feel Mameman is the best way to keep track of your rom files and launch games. No more searching through game listings for missing roms, just let Mame manager do all the work. Find out if any roms are missing from your collection (did anyone say Invaders revenge ?). OK SO HOW DO I INSTALL THIS THING ? =================================== Installing Mameman is not really that difficult, follow these steps and you should have Mameman installed in a few minutes. NOTE : IN THIS EXAMPLE I ASSUME YOU HAVE MAME INSTALLED IN C:\EMU\MAME 1) Create a subdirectory called 'MAMEMAN' in your mame directory (C:\EMU\MAME\MAMEMAN) 2) Extract 'MMANxx.ZIP' to that directory (C:\EMU\MAME\MAMEMAN) 3) EEhh..that's it you're now ready to run Mameman !(Well almost) Some other things to check : - Make sure you have the file 'README.TXT' that comes with Mame in the Mame directory, Mameman needs it to supply information about the games. - Make sure the file cwsdpmi.exe is in your path, or put it in your Mameman directory, Mameman will then run cwsdpmi.exe automatically. (this program is needed if you are running Mame from dos). - If you want to play games from a zip archive be sure to have PKUNZIP.EXE and PKZIP.EXE in your path. QUICK START =========== Here's a quick start for people who never read through manuals. 0) Go to your Mameman directory and type MMAN 1) Select 'check for games and roms' in the utils menu and follow the onscreen instructions. 2) If this is the first time that you run Mameman you'll be asked to select what mame.exe will be used. 3) When all new games and roms have been found go to the 'Frontend and management section' 4) Set commandline option for a game and follow onscreen instructions. That's it ! you can now play games by pressing on a game title! OK I HAVE IT INSTALLED AND I WANT TO READ THE MANUAL! ===================================================== Go to your Mameman directory and type 'MMAN', this should show a startup picture. Press any key and you'll see the following menu entries: Manage Utils Fun! Configure Quit Manage: Here you'll find the Mame frontend section. From here you are able to run games, set commandline options add/delete games attach sample sets to a game and search manually for rom files. Utils: Here you'll find some very useful functions of Mameman. From here you can check for new games and roms, expand all zip archives to the appropriate directories, pack all game dirs to separate zip archives, automatically assign descriptions to games and verify all zip archives. Fun: Yes, you're right, this is the fun section of Mameman. Here you can find several statistics. Currently you can see how many games your mame version supports, how many games are playable on your system, how long you've played games (statistics for each game individually and all games together) Top 10 of most played games and a top 10 of your least played games. Quit: Obviously, from here you can quit Mamemanager. First thing you should do if you have your games as zip archives on your harddrive : Select 'Search for new games and roms' in the Utils menu. Select yes to start searching for newly supported games. If you have Mame 0.23 installed Mameman should find 124 games. When the search for new games has been completed you should see a requester asking you where to search for rom sets. Select the dir where you keep your romzips (in our example this would be C:\EMU\MAME\ROMS). Press to select the dir you are in and Mameman will start searching for the correct romzips. First thing you should do if you have your games installed in the appropriate dirs and you want to play from ziproms : Select 'Zip all games' in the Utils menu. Select yes to start creating ziproms for all installed games. When a ziprom for a game is created the subdir for the game will be removed from the Mame directory. So if you have 50 games installed in 50 subdirectories (C:\EMU\MAME\1942, C:\EMU\MAME\AMIDAR etc.) and create ziproms all the game subdirectories will be removed, the ziproms will be put in the subdirectory ROMS in your Mame directory (C:\EMU\MAME\ROMS\). First thing you should do if you have your games installed in the appropriate dirs and you do not want to play from ziproms Why would you want to do this ?? Well there may be people who want to do this because games start up a bit faster. Keep in mind this takes up a lot of harddrive space. Mame 0.22 installed with all games takes up 17 megabytes of harddrive space. If you still want to play games from subdirs here's what to do. Select 'Search for new games and roms' in the Utils menu. Select yes to start searching for newly supported games. If you have Mame 0.22 installed Mameman should find 118 games. When the search for new games has been completed you should see a requester asking you where to search for rom sets. Go to your Mame dir (C:\EMU\MAME). Press to select the dir you are in and Mameman will start searching for rom sets. No matter which of the above options you chose, you should now be ready to proceed to the next step: Setting commandline options THE MANAGE MENU =============== Selecting 'Frontend & management section' puts you in the frontend section. The leftmost windows shows the names of all games supported by the Mame version you are using. The center window shows the commandline options for the selected game and also informs you if a Rom set is available for that game, if it's a ziprom or not and also if a sample set is attached to the game. The description of ech game is displayed on the top of this window. The right most window shows the available keyboard shortcuts. The first thing you'll probably want to do here is setting default commandline options for all games . Commandline options change the way Mame works. You can specify the screenmode to use , the frameskip to use and several more options. You'll only have to adjust the settings for on1y 1 game, you can make these settings default for all other games. You can however have seperate commandline options for each game. So if you haven't done so already press . Now you should see a blinking cursor in the middle window. The function of each of the commandline options is explained in the left most window. toggles an option, you can move up and down with the arrow keys and pressing completes setting the commandline options. You now see a requester with 3 choices. If you want to use the commandline options you defined to just this game choose 'NO'. If you want to apply the commandline options you just defined to ALL games choose 'YES'. Finally if you only want to apply the commandline settings you just defined to all games that do not yet have commandline options choose 'Only to those that have empty settings'. Now you can run a game by pressing over a game name, the game will be started with the commandline options you defined for the game. SOME OTHER THING YOU MIGHT WANT TO DO ===================================== 1) Setting a description for each game The easiest way to do this is to let Mameman do this automatically. Select 'Assign a description to each game' in the Utils menu. You can now replace the description for every game by Mameman's default description by pressing B or only add a description to every game that do not yet have a description by pressing A. You can also manually change a game's description. If you want to do this go to the 'Frontend and management section'. Select the game you want to add a description by pressing the arrow keys or type the first letter of a game title. Now press . This brings up a menu, select 2) Change description by pressing . You can now type the description you like for the selected game. 2) Resetting dip-switch, highscore and key settings You can reset the dip-switch, highscore and key settings by going to the 'Frontend and management section' and pressing over a game title. This brings up a menu, choose whichever setting you want to reset and press . Now choose yes if you really want to reset the settings, no to return to the frontend and management section. 3) Well we could go on explaining all the options of Mameman but we won't. Look around a bit in Mameman, try some options, see what happens. Mameman is not a difficult program to use, you can't accidently delete files and you can't accidently format your harddrive using Mameman. So go ahead discover the many options of Mameman yourself....... A MORE OR LESS HIDDEN OPTION !?! ================================ Yes there are two : 1) If you type this at the dos prompt in you Mameman dir: 'MMAN -CREABAT' Mameman will create batch files for all installed games, to run them without Mameman but with the commadline option you defined in Mameman. Why is this option still in Mameman I hear you ask.....well I have no idea......maybe some people have a use for it...... 2) Also you can type: 'MMAN -NOPIC' Mameman will not display the startup picture! I tell you not to use this! The picture is very good!! PEOPLE I'D LIKE TO THANK ========================= 1) Mark van der Molen for the GREAT PICTURE that introduce 'MAMEMAN', for the manual in correct english and for testing very well my program! Also a great thanks for all the suggestions that he gave me! Without him, 'MAMEMAN' with the support of zip files, wouldn't have NEVER been made! If you like the picture you can write to him ( elvis@stack.nl ) ! A great thank to his girlfriend that (I imagine) has beared him and also me during the test-session!! :-) 2) Nicola Salmoria and Mirko Buffoni for the 'EIGHTY-WONDER-WORK-MAME'. With 'MAME' program I can be a child again! :-) 3) Riccardo Signato for writing the two beep-music about 'AMIDAR' and 'PACMAN' and because he has got a CYRIX processor and I have got the chance to test my program on it. 4) Davide Vaio for testing my program. 5) Alessandro Taricco for testing my program and for the passion that we share from time immemorial about the computer games! 6) Massimiliano Fabris for testing my program! 7) Maurizio Zanello the author of 'MAMENU' frontend ! I've stolen many paragraphs from his 'MAMENU.TXT' :-) ! 8) Dave W. for having accepted to put my 'MAMEMAN' on his GREAT EMULATOR PAGE named 'Dave's Video Game Classics'. (http: //www.gamepen.com/gamewire/classic/classic.html) 9) Thomas Hammel for his GREAT emulation zone! (http: //www.datacomm.ch/~camelot) 10) Roberto Ventura and Paul Leaman for their magical work about Ghosts'n'Goblins (One of the best games of all the times!) 11) BLOOD the author of 'FEMAME' frontend. 12) Scott Stone the author of 'MAMELOAD' frontend. 13) Kurt Wolf the author of 'LPMAME' frontend. 14) At last a lonely thanks to the A.C. TURIN (Torino) that is my favourite soccer team! Last, this (and I hope stop!) year it's going very bad so I don't go no more to the stadium and I have got more time to write 'MAMEMAN'. :-( ! FINAL WORDS =========== Thanks for using 'MAMEMAN'.If you think you have some new ideas or improvements for Maeman feel free to send an email to : (p.nicoletti@radiostudio.it) For the latest news on Mameman check out http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/5959.