When you launch MacMAME, you'll be presented with
the front end dialog, which looks like this:
On the left is the list of games MacMAME found in
the ROMs folder which it supports. Non supported games
or those with incorrect filenames are removed. The
correct filenames are listed in the "readme.txt"
file that is in the Documentation folder.
There are two ways these ROMs can be stored:
1.The .zip file. This type has a ".zip"
extension on the name. It is the preferred format
to use, not only because it's much smaller than the
others, but it helps speed up loading of the front-end.
2.The "folder". This is a folder
whose name matches one of those listed in the "readme.txt"
file. You will get these if you unzip any of the ROM
sets on the 'net. Save yourself some hard drive space
and leave them zipped.
Additionally, you can group the ROM files within
the "Roms" folder into subfolders. For example,
if you want, you can group all the Pac-Man clones
into a sub-folder called "Pac Junk". Better
yet, you can force MacMAME to keep this folder closed
in the front-end by adding a dash ("-")
to the end of the name, so that "Pac-Junk-"
will always appear closed and you won't have to look
at the ROMs inside. Double-clicking on a folder in
the front-end will open and close it, so that you
can see or hide the ROMs inside. These sub-folders
have an arrow in the icon telling you if they are
opened or closed.
On the right are four tabbed panes, the first of
which is labelled "Info". Let's look at
the options. (Most of the options listed below have
equivalents in the menu bars, so I won't cover the
menu options here.).
The Info tab has a pull-down menu which displays
a variety of information about any game currently
selected in the game list. See above for picture.
Screenshots: The big empty box is where MacMAME
will load a screenshot of the game you have selected
in the front-end. For MacMAME to find the screenshot,
it must be in a subfolder called "Screenshots"
and it must have a name which matches the 8-letter
ROM set. For example, if you want to see a screenshot
of "Donkey Kong", you must have a file called
"dkong.pic", "dkong.jpg" or "dkong.gif"
in the Screenshots folder.
Hardware Info: Selecting this option displays
information about the selected game's arcade hardware,
manufacturer, date of manfacture, and what type (if
any) of analog control is used for a game.
Credits: Lists the names of the people who
have contributed to the MAME driver for the selected
game.
Mini Audit: Gives a quick list of the status
of your set of ROMs for a selected game compared to
a known good set.
The second tab is labelled "Video".
Here are the options available.
Full Screen: This checkbox determines if MacMAME
will run in a window or hide the desktop and menubar.
It's purely cosmetic, but I find that Full Screen
mode is less distracting and more immersive.
Enable Auto-frameskipping: You can get the
best performance out of some games by letting MacMAME
take care of increasing or decreasing the frame skip
settings to keep pace with the emulation. This options
will adjust the frameskip (up to 5) to keep the emulation
running as close to 100% as possible.
* Actual size: This means that every pixel
in the game is one pixel on the Mac screen. Quite
a lot of games only had resolutions of 256x256, which
is quite small by today's standards. Because the screen
size is smaller, this mode can be fast.
* Double size: For every pixel in the original,
4 are drawn on the Mac screen to effectively double
the screen size. This mode works nicely on today's
640x480 and especially 800x600 screens.
* Double size, Scanlines: Every other vertical
line is skipped, giving the impression of "scanlines"
that were present in the original machines low-quality
TV-like monitors. Less data is pumped to the screen,
so this mode is slightly faster than plain Double-size.
* Triple Size: The image is triple the size
of the default.
* Triple Size, Scanlines: The image is triple
the size of the default. Every third row is skipped,
fiving the impression of a thin scanline. If you have
a large monitor or can support very high resolutions
(1024x768 or higher), this option will give the best-looking
and most realistic video at the expense of some speed.
* Note: Although you can specify sizes
larger than 1x1 in the front-end, MacMAME will drop
them back down to Actual Size if the game window is
too large for your screen. That is, if you are running
a game with a 256x256 screen, it will double to 512x512.
If your Mac screen is set to 640x480, this obviously
will chop off lines on the top and bottom. You can
force it back to a double size by hitting the appropriate
menu-bar shortcuts - Command-2, Command-3, Command-4
or Command-5 during gameplay.
Standard Rotation: This checkbox tells MacMAME
that you want the image on the screen to always be
rotated so that the top of the game screen is at the
top of the Mac screen. Seems like a no-brainer, right?
Keep reading...
If you uncheck Standard Rotation, you have the ability
to adjust the game window in a variety of manners.
This is primarily useful if you'd like to squeeze
more of the game on the screen by turning your monitor
sideways and playing the game that way. It's also
useful if you run MacMAME from within a real arcade
cabinet hooked to a monitor and you've got an obscure
set-up.
* Rotate left/Rotate right: Does what it says.
The game image is rotated 90 degrees left or right.
* Flip x-axis/Flip y-axis: The game image
is mirrored along one of these 2 axes.
* No rotation: The game image appears exactly
as it does in the arcade. Some games are "vertical"
games, like Pac-Man, and were originally played on
monitors turned on their side. By playing the game
like this, turning your monitor on it's side and playing
with double-size & scanlines, you will have authentic
vertical scanlines. Neat, eh?
Vector options: These are only enabled if
a vector game is selected in the list.
* Flicker: Controls the amount of 'flicker' visible
in the vector lines. Crank it up for a more authentic
experience, at the cost of some speed.
* Beam width: Think the vector lines are too skinny?
You can adjust them here so they are nice and fat.
* Anti-aliasing: This option smooths out the vector
lines, resulting in a more accurate emulation of the
original vector monitors. The cost is speed. Turn
this off to get more oomph out of the vector games.
The third tab is labelled Audio.
Here's a breakdown of the options present.
Sound: Checking this box tells MacMAME to
emulate the sound chips and audio CPUs in some games.
Most of the time,you'll want to leave this checked.
Some games will run a lot faster if this is unchecked,
particularly those with a special 2nd CPU dedicated
entirely for sound. For example, play Donkey Kong
with this checked and unchecked and you'll notice
the top speed is much higher when it's not emulating
the audio CPU. The downside is that some games require
the audio to work properly. Experiment with this if
speed is an issue for you.
Emulate FM: Checking this box tells MacMAME
to emulate specialized FM sound generation chips.
These chips produce advanced sound effects for some
games, but they can be quite CPU intensive. If you're
having speed problems with some games, you might want
to uncheck this to see if it helps. For example, Rastan
uses FM sound for its music. Turning it off will speed
it up.
Use 16-bit audio: 16-bit audio produces better-quality
sound, but at the cost of speed.
Stereo: Enables stereo for games that support
it, at the cost of faster speed.
Sample rate: You have a choice of 3 sample
rates, from decreasing to increasing quality: 11025
Hz, 22050 Hz and 44100 Hz. Like 16-bit audio, the
tradeoff is accuracy vs. Speed. Pick the one that
works best for you.
Volume: The slider represents the volume used
by MacMAME. This is completely independent from your
Mac's system volume so keep that in mind. Changing
the system volume won't affect MacMAME and vice versa.
The last panel, labelled "Misc", allows
control over some of the gameplay features in MacMAME.
Generate debug log: You'll want to leave
this unchecked, unless you
a) want to fill up your hard drive with a
file called error.log or
b) are perversely curious about the internal
workings of the emulation. This is primarily of use
to those writing new drivers for MacMAME.
Speed Throttle: When checked, MacMAME holds
the game speed to 100%. Unchecking this will allow
some games to run faster, depending on the speed of
your Mac. It's quite a trip to play Pac-Man at 300%.
You'll want to keep this checked unless you're bragging
to PC users about the speed of your Mac. :)
Allow Cheats: Enables in-game cheats (if a
cheat file is present in the Cheats folder for a particular
game).
Ignore other applications: You'll want to
keep this option checked in most cases. It allows
MacMAME to steal as much time as possible to run as
fast as it can. As a result, if you're running in
a window, you'll notice the clock in the menubar doesn't
update while you're playing a game with this option
checked. MacMAME can only steal so much though, so
if you're connected to a network or the internet while
it's playing, it will run slower than if you are disconnected.
This option is also called "Hog CPU" in
the Options menu.
Load/Save Replay: MacMAME supports creating
"replay" files which are essentially recordings
of your keystrokes as you are playing a game. You
can use the replay options to record a high-score-breaking
session of Warp Warp, then send this recording to
your friends to show them what a stud you are. Of
course, it's hard to look like a stud when playing
Warp Warp.
Save list of All Games/Samples/ROMs/Info:
These are merely informative lists that MacMAME can
generate to tell you more about which games and sounds
it supports.
Audit ROMs: Tells you how your ROM sets stack
up. If any are missing or invalid, you'll know about
it.
Analyze Romsets: For advanced users who want
every scrap of info about their ROMs they can get
their hands on.
Audit Samples: Same as above, only with the
sound sample files.
Configure Joystick: If you have a joystick
that has Input Sprocket support (and the Input Sprockets
extensions from Apple) you can custom configure your
joystick from within MacMAME.
Here's a quick breakdown of the keys:
5, 6, 7, 8 |
Insert coin (players 1, 2, 3,
4) |
1, 2, 3, 4 |
Start (players 1, 2, 3, 4) |
Arrow keys |
Move |
Control (left of keyboard) |
Button 1 |
Option (left of keyboard) |
Button 2 |
Spacebar |
Button 3 |
Esc |
Pause |
Command-O |
Return to the MacMAME window
to select a different game to play |
Command-Q |
Quit MacMAME |
F2 |
Put the game into "service
mode" (press F2 again to return to game
mode) |
F3 |
Reset the game |
F4 |
Show graphics (use arrow keys
to look through the game's graphics, F4 to return
to the game) |
F6 |
If cheats are allowed, this
key toggles them on and off |
F8 |
Cycle through frameskip options |
F10 |
Toggle speed throttling (you
normally want to leave this on) |
F11 |
Toggle the frames-per-second
display on and off |
F12 |
Save a screenshot (the image
file is placed in the 'Screenshots' folder) |
Tab |
Access MacMAME's configuration
menu, where you can adjust key settings and
dipswitches |
` (backquote) |
Adjust volume, gamma, and other
sliders (use up/down arrows to move to other
sliders) |
Command-Option |
Temporarily throttle the game
to maximum speed (useful for speeding through
startup tests) |
Command-1 through 5 |
Change the screen size and turn
scanlines on/off (if you're using the'Software
(built-in)' renderer) |
The keys may be configured for each game. Most games
use the arrows to move and control,
option and space to fire.
.:6. CONFIGURING CONTROLS:.
Hit the TAB key. It will bring up a menu like
this:
Use the UP and DOWN arrow keys to
select Keys (this game).
Hit RETURN.
You'll get a menu like this:
The left column are the arcade controls, the right
column are the Mac keys used for those controls. Use
the UP and DOWN arrow keys to select
a control you want to change. Hit RETURN and
the item in the right column will disappear. Hit the
key you want to assign to that control and its name
will appear in the right column. Repeat the process
for other controls. When finished, hit TAB
a couple of times to you get back to the game.
There are a few other features which need to be documented.
Preferences. MacMAME will
look first in the same folder as the application for
a file called "MacMAME Prefs" and use this
file. If it's not found, it looks in the Preferences
folder. This is useful mainly if you keep multiple
versions of MacMAME around and don't want your prefs
to get out-of-sync.
High Scores and Dipswitches.
The high scores are stored in a folder called "Scores"
while the Dipswitches are stored in a folder called
"Config". Both of these are located in the
same folder as the MacMAME program. If you were using
an older version of MacMAME and have your files in
a folder called "Settings", MacMAME will
look there first and migrate these old settings into
their new locations. This was changed so that scores
and dipswitch files can be exchanged with PC users
with little hassle.
Sound Samples. Some games
don't emulate all the sounds, rather they play sample
sound files. In these cases, the sounds are placed
in a folder called "Sound Samples" which
is found in the same folder as the MacMAME application.
Like the ROM files, they can be .zip files or folders.
There is no equivalent to the "Super ROM"
format for samples. Also, the .zip and folder names
must match those of the ROMs. For example, the Asteroids
samples must be named "asteroid.zip" just
like the ROM file.