Mame .173 64bit + NoNag + Hi-score + Forced Directinput 173

64bit MAME 173 patched with no-nag, no white windows, hi-score and forced direct input. Couple of key items with this release:

MAME has once again updated files in the installation package, specifically in the "plugin" directory. As such, just overwriting your old pre-v173 mame64.exe with this new one will cause a lua script error at boot. At the very least, you must install the 173 package from the mamedev site, then overwrite your mame64.exe with the one included here. The mame.ini file has ALSO changed AGAIN, with some mame-induced changes and some from the no-nag patch, so re-create it with a mame64 -cc command and adjust accordingly if you don't like the included one. Remember, too, that the HLSL settings for raster and vector games (which covers just about every arcade game ever made) are in the "presets" folder. Changing them in the mame.ini won't do much, as the presets "raster.ini" and "vector.ini" take priority over any common settings. A "hi" folder must be created for your high-score storage, and a "hiscore.dat" must be placed in the MAME root directory.

To help make this even easier, and based on some requests last time I posted this, I zipped the entire package for you and it's ready to go as-is. NO ROMS INCLUDED, OF COURSE. Unzip it somewhere safe, populate it with the contents of your current artwork, cfg, nvram, diff, roms, and preset folders and you're off and running. MY HLSL settings are here in their full glory if you want them, or trash them and use your own - what ever you prefer. If you've slaved over your current video settings to get them "just right" or like BGFX, then don't use my preset folder, generate a new mame.ini with the 173 mame64.exe and populate manually it as needed with your current mame.ini contents.

2 Last things:

I had some requests after my v172 post to compile versions with raw input, or in 32bit. I'll be honest - I compile this for my system and dinput/64 bit is what I got. 'Nuff said.

Secondly - I'm not a huge fan of this release. I actually had to pull the folder from my recycle bin after reading a post discussing the release earlier. IM(Humble)O, there are few reasons to upgrade from 172, and the speed of 173 seems to be slightly slower (about 1% on average) on the most demanding roms. I use mmpork, ibara, and pinkswts to test the speed of the emulator, and typically come in at 99% with v172. v173 is coming in about 98%, even with autoframeskip enabled, etc. I would COPY your critical folders to this version, then test a few roms with it before fully committing to it. If you've got an older system and you're a classic arcade purist, you won't care because you're not rocking CAVE roms, anyway. And you've got a banging MAME PC, then you won't care, either. My mame setup uses a Core i5 with 8g ram and a GTX 560 Ti graphics card. Not a gaming rig, but no slouch, either. So bear this in mind before you upgrade. And if 173 works great for you, that's great. EDIT - After running this on a similar PC with a slightly faster CPU (Core i5 3.3g vs Core i5 2.5g), I couldn't get any of my three test roms to drop below 100% emulation with the setting included in the DL. So no worries if your PC is decent.

Final parting thought - BACK UP YOUR CURRENT MAME FOLDER AND COPY THE KEY FOLDERS INTO THE ATTACHED VERSION, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. The only folder I DIDN'T do this with was my roms folder, as it's WAY too big. That way, you get a working version AND there's no risk of losing hard work.