T
R O U B L E S H O O T I N G
[I can run MacMAME and go into a game, but how
do I start playing?]
Press the '5' key on your keyboard to insert a coin.
Press '1' to start a one-player game. The arrow keys
on your keyboard will control most games. The left 'Control'
key is usually the fire button. You can also press 'Tab'
to display a menu of options, then choose "Input
(this game)" to see what the game's controls are.
Press 'Esc' to leave this menu.
[When I double-click on a zip file, my Mac unzips
the file instead of playing it.]
Put the zip file into the 'Roms' folder instead, and
run the MacMAME application to play it. If you set the
file to open with MacMAME (by changing the file's type/creator
to 'pZip'/'eMuL' under Mac OS 9, or choosing MacMAME
as the application to use to open the file under Mac
OS X), then double-clicking the file will launch the
game automatically.
[When I run MacMAME, the game I want doesn't
show up in the list.]
Find the name of the game you want in the file "gamelist.txt"
(in the Documentation folder). The name of the zip file
MacMAME looks for is in the last column of that chart.
That is, if you want to play "Asteroids Deluxe,"
the rightmlost column says 'astdeluxe,' so the file you'll
need is 'astdeluxe.zip'. Put that file into the 'Roms'
folder, and MacMAME will show 'Asteroids Deluxe' in
its game list next time E.
If you have 'merged romsets' (meaning that a game and
all its clones are stored together in one zip file)
and the clones aren't showing up in the MacMAME list,
then select 'Show Virtual Clones' from the pop-up menu
above the game list.
If the game is not listed in "gamelist.txt",
then the version of MacMAME you have doesn't support
that game yet. Upgrade to the latest version of MacMAME.
If you're using the latest version already, then support
for that game probably hasn't yet been added.
[The game I want to play has a red 'X' by its
name in the list, and when I try to play it, it doesn't
work right.]
The red 'X' means that MacMAME does not yet correctly
emulate that game, and it is known to not work properly.
A future release of MacMAME will probably fix this.
Sometimes, variations of a nonworking game might be
playable (for example, a game might be encrypted and
not yet playable in MacMAME, but there might be bootleg
versions of it with the encryption removed). Control-click
on the game's name in the list to see other games which
are almost identical to this one; they might work for
you.
[When I try to open a game, MacMAME says that
some of the necessary files could not be found or opened.]
Most likely, you downloaded a zip file which didn't
contain all of the ROM files necessary to play the game.
Select the "Info" tab in the MacMAME application
window, then select "Mini Audit" from the
pulldown menu. If some ROM files are listed as "not
found," then you are missing some of the files
which MacMAME needs to have for that game.
Another possibility is that you are missing the "BIOS"
files for a particular game system. Arcade games from
Neo Geo, Nintendo Playchoice-10, and Century Video System
hardware require files which are usually kept in a separate
zip file:
* If you are missing "neo-geo.rom" or any
files whose names begin with "ng", then you
need the file "neogeo.zip".
* If you are missing files whose names begin with "pch1-c"
or "82s129", then you will need the file "playch10.zip".
* If you are missing "5b.bin" or "82s185.10h",
then you will need the file "cvs.zip".
Obtain the file you need, then put it into your Roms
folder, and the game should work properly.
[When I try to open a game, MacMAME says "NO
GOOD DUMP KNOWN."]
Some arcade video games are rare enough that a complete
copy of their entire game program has not yet been found.
MacMAME will try to emulate the game for you anyway;
sometimes the missing data is trivial and might only
cause sound or color problems, other times the missing
data will prevent the game from working at all. Unless
you can help find the original arcade game in question,
there is nothing you can do to fix this problem until
someone finds the missing data and updates MacMAME with
the new information.
[When I try to open a game, I get an "out
of memory" error!]
Your computer may need more memory available to play
that particular game. The more recent, more complex
arcade games, such as the Neo Geo games, may require
192MB or more. (Do not increase MacMAME's memory partition.
It will automatically use any memory available that
it needs.)
[I get a warning that screen flipping is not
supported in cocktail mode.]
Don't worry about this message; just type 'OK' and
bypass it. 'Cocktail mode' refers to arcade games which
were mounted on small tables in pizza parlors and bars,
with the game screen facing straight up; players would
sit on opposite sides of the table, and the image on
the screen would flip upside-down so the second player
could see it when it was his turn. Since you're probably
playing MacMAME on a computer monitor, you don't need
screen flipping.
[The game I want to play used to work fine before
I got a new version of MacMAME, but now it no longer
works!]
MacMAME is constantly being developed and improved.
Sometimes, a better (more accurate or more complete)
copy of an arcade game program has required a change
in MacMAME which makes an older copy of that game program
no longer work properly. Select the "Info"
tab in the MacMAME application window, then select "Mini
Audit" from the pulldown menu; if any of the ROM
files are listed as anything other than "good,"
then you may need to obtain a new copy of that ROM set.
If the "Mini Audit" reports no problems with
the ROM files, then most likely some recent change to
MacMAME is causing problems with the game. This happens
occasionally with the "beta" versions of MacMAME,
and most of these problems are eventually fixed.
If a game which worked in a previous version of MacMAME
isn't even showing up on the game list in the MacMAME
window, then you might need to rename the zip file.
See the answer to "When I run MacMAME, the game
I want doesn't show up in the list," above.