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MAME - How do you have yours and what do you think??


SIMPLYAUSTIN

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Right...

Well its that time of year again. Im on the big update to my HS, all art, new ideas, new HLHQ etc etc etc. So one at a time im going through my systems and looking at what I can do to make them better.

As some of you may remember, im a MAME Mong!! I have it working, it works well, but I have no idea how. I understand the theory, just not the Emus. But I can get them to work. My current version is 153? It works well for what I need. have full roms and CHDs. Its running with Jumpstyles MAMEUIFX which so far... is working ok??

Problem is that I now love all this bezel stuff going on. I also love the filters, shaders etc that can be used and form what little I have played with my current setup, I dont think I can make that happen without a hell of alot of messing around???

Right so what I need is a lil info...

What Emu would be the most stable, easiest and best looking to run my MAME? I dont mind downloading another version of MAME. I have RA installed and from my head Im thinking that it would be the best with its shaders etc. But what version does that use???

I need to be able to control it with my XBOX controllers, run widescreen with bezels. Run shaders, scanlines and I also like the crev look to go with the new bezel project.

Can anyone advise me on this??? Sorry guys... MAME just aint my thing

What setup do you use... do you have any features that I dont know about? Anything that could make this amazing?

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First and foremost, for visuals HLSL is better than anything I could produce on RetroArch, and I mean by a long shot, and also consider that Mame also emulators AAE etc, so the bloom looks amazing. Gigapig has an HLSL guide, and I think that's the end all for making mame look good. You can set up HLSL on any version.

Other considerations:

You'd have to look up what games are getting fixes in later versions to know if its worth it to you to update. I personally just downloaded 157 and probably will never update again. So you're going to want to use the emu version that matches whichever rom set you want to end up using. If that's 153, stick with a 153 version of mame.

MameUIFX is probably the way to go, since it has the most feature and a handy scan to tell you what roms work etc. But it certainly isn't "necessary". MamePlus on the other hand has limited shader support, and may be worth looking into, but honestly, HLSL is the way to go.

However, for controllers, RetroArch is by far the easiest to deal with. It's plug and play and does have shader support so you CAN make it look really good. I think this option is worth testing out, and honestly, I'm on the fence about just using RetroArch for Mame from now on. My hesitance is that I really have no idea about its compatibility with various rom versions so for now (and always) I'll keep as many emus set up as I can just in case.

If you go the mame route, you have to find a jumpstiles compiled version that supports direct input. I personally found that mame is just terrible saving key bindings, but that could be user error, so xpadder at least for me the route to go with it, as it saves the key bindings for multiple controllers whether or not they are plugged in.

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I understand now, Kind of....

HLSL is muchh better I loved the effects in Giga's Vid... they are amazing!! But the problem is Im just soooo confused?? So does this work with MAMEUIFX?? I can keep my current set and make it work with this??

Is it just an option already built into this version of MAME that just needs enabling? Or is this something I add to MAME to allow it to do it??

Thanks for the Reply BTW... miss that damn button!

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Truth be told I'm no expert either haha, but if I recall its simply a matter of opening up the mame config and making sure HLSL is enabled, then downloading the HLSL files and putting them into the folder? Should have been covered in Gigs guide, cause I remember not knowing what the hell I was doing during but it working out just fine. I can attest it works with UIFX version as thats what I use, but I don't think I ever tried it on 153. I'm reasonably sure it works on all versions.

So yes, as far as I know, you can keep exactly what you have and follow Gig's video tutorial. Here's the link:

There's also a few ways you can set the actual shader effects, IE through a config and/or in game through the tab ui.

I LOVE RetroArch and use it as my main emulator for every system it will emulate.... except Mame for now because I got it looking so fantastically good - to give you an idea about why you should bother with HLSL at all.

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Great advice from Mr Lost and thank you for the compliments.

Austin, I have put together a small pack in /Upload Here/gigapig/Mame HLSL/For Austin. It's drag and drop into your mame folder and includes the ini's for mame and vector games to give a bloom effect.

Please Back up your folders before applying these.

And then it's just a case of switching HLSL on in HLHQ. Oh, I use Mameuifx as well.

post-9524-142870670853_thumb.jpg

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Truth be told I'm no expert either haha, but if I recall its simply a matter of opening up the mame config and making sure HLSL is enabled

I'm sure that's only necessary if you run Mame outside of HyperLaunch\HS. If it's enabled in HLHQ HyperLaunch sends...what's the right phrase...command line string, with the HLSL setting in it. If it's set to false then it won't have it, so it kind of bypasses the Mame ini.

Run - Running: J:\Roms and Emulators\Emulators\Mame\mame.exe digdug -window -[b]hlsl_enable [/b]-video d3d -artwork_crop -nouse_bezels -use_overlays -use_backdrops -nouse_cpanels -nouse_marquees -rompath "G:\MAME Roms"

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Yes. Pretty much everyone I've seen mention it on the forums here are using MAME for AAE.

Giga - I'm just glad you're here to correct me all the time. I've been funneling so much information into my poor poor brain for so long that I think I'm to the point where every time I learn something new, I forget something else. I've had to reference my own RetroArch guide, that's how bad it is. But its good to know I can always go back and get things explained to me in your elegant, booming voice.

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Yes. Pretty much everyone I've seen mention it on the forums here are using MAME for AAE.

Giga - I'm just glad you're here to correct me all the time. I've been funneling so much information into my poor poor brain for so long that I think I'm to the point where every time I learn something new, I forget something else. I've had to reference my own RetroArch guide, that's how bad it is. But its good to know I can always go back and get things explained to me in your elegant, booming voice.

One thing drives out another.

I hear you bro, I'm the same, in fact I'm sure I'll have to watch my own guides soon, just to remember. There is so much going on hear, I'd have to bookmark loads, because I think "right that's cool, I'll go back to that" and when I do I've forgotten the bloody thread. Case in point today, Austin's Gamecube thread, I've moved the art, now I should set up the emu, but I really need to do a bezel video guide and loads of other stuff. :)

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Hey giga. I grabbed your hlsl settings from your folder some time ago and i love it..and even better: my friends are impressed. Is the for austin folder even better?

I don't think so, but you can try it.

Bloom effects in Mame? How do you set those up? Don't remember ever seeing an option on Mameuifx for that. I have AAE setup but like Gigapig said, it crashes sometimes.

That's just basically another ini file within the ini folder called vector, in fact you can have a different ini for every game if you want.

Open the Mame.ini and line 5 is "writeconfig ", if you set it to 1, every time you run a game an ini file will be generated for that game, which you can then adjust to satisfy your OCD ;)

Here is the vector ini.

vector.zip

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Quick couple of questions....

MAMEUIFX- do I need to set any special way so that it will work well with the HLSL thingy? As in D3D OGL, res or anything like that??

CHD's... I still have them in seperate root folders. Should I merge them together to get them working as they should be???

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Hold the phone!!!!!! I did it!!!!! Ooooooooh yeeeeeeeah!!! Using my natural hero instinct I just bit the bullet and copied it over seeing what would happen. I didnt even back anything up, thats the kind of guy I am.... always on the edge ;)

My MAME now looks like the dogs nads due to you guys and I thank you a squillion. Next stage.... enable the nice looking bezels and figure this CHD thing out :) Today is going to be a good day for MAME I tells ya!

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Unerstand... I have MAME working perfect now. This afternoon I will begin the process of the bezels.... not looking forward to that!

I do have an issue snce my addition of MAME to my wheel today. When I go into HS, I can see the games, all the roms etc.... but they refuse to launch? everything works, all the buttons, but press enter and nothing??

In the past I would have thought either emulator open, HL running in process... but nothing? Games work fine in HLHQ, they just refuse to in HS. I had GC and megadrive running fine through HS but they dont work either now too.... any ideas?

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Still no joy, Im bewildered :(

As I have full games for xml I did not fill in the extensions etc in HyperHQ. Was just going to leave it to HLHQ. So I have gone in and set the details... lets say for example MAME....

Heres my Emulator settings....

fYXzpgo.jpg

Filters....

QN6gTES.jpg

And the only other thing that I changed which may have done something....

B5aFI9s.jpg

I just cant see whats out of the ordinary?? All my systems work fine and they were doing well until today :(

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Ok figured one silly mistake. I moved the location of HLHQ folder which made the relative paths different. Prob could not make the link between HyperHQ and HLHQ. Now I get to the fade and for MAME it just ahk errors out... Aaaaaaargh, Im sure it wasnt this hard the past 3 times of doig this :(

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Jeeeeeeeeeeeez!!!! When I moved HLHQ it reset all of my working dirs out of whack.... should have know but its wierd at there was no lil red ! mark like you get when links no longer work... strange... but oh well. ITS WORKING NOW!!!

Not to try and get the bezels sorted before the missus comes back from work ;)

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