Play MAME Games

4 Parts:

Download and Extract MAME

Loading ROMs

Configure a Controller

Comments

MAME is a favorite arcade game emulator for Windows, Linux, and Mac. The MAME acronym stands for; multi-purpose emulation framework and does an excellent job of emulating classic arcade cabinet games such as; Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Frogger, Double Dragon, Mortal Kombat, and many more. Although MAME is typically operated from the command prompt, it can also be used right out of the box by running the applications main exe file. Once you get used to running MAME, there are a wealth of customization options that can help enhance game play.

In the following VisiHow tutorial, we're going to show how to download and setup MAME, in addition to using a controller. For this article, we used a Clevo laptop running Windows 10 Professional.

1. 1
   Open your preferred browser and visit the official MAME development site

   .

   Once on the homepage, scroll down and click or tap the platform you wish to download MAME for (we used Windows in this guide).

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
2. 2
   On the MAME Latest Releases page, scroll down and click or tap either the 32bit or 64bit version.

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
3. 3
   When the open dialog window appears, click or tap "Save File".

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
4. 4
   In your browser, click the download location icon

   .

   If your browser doesn't have a download icon, navigate to the folder that stores your downloaded file.

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
5. 5
   Once in your downloads folder, copy the "mame zip".

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
6. 6
   For this tutorial we created a new folder directly on the desktop called "MAME"

   .

   You can call the folder anything you like, create one to store the MAME emulator.

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
7. 7
   Once inside the folder you just made, Paste" the mame zip file.

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
8. 8
   Now that the mame zip package is pasted, right-click it, then select "Extract Here".

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help

MAME functions by running what is known as ROM files or images. There are many places around the web where you can download ROMs. One such place is on the MAME developers site. ROM files will typically be in zip files, and you don't have to extract them.

1. 1
   Once you've collected a few ROMs, navigate to the location you're storing them.

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
2. 2
   Select all the ROMs you wish to use and copy them to the clipboard (Ctrl + C).

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
3. 3
   With your ROM files copied, open the folder where you extracted the MAME archive earlier

   .

   Locate the folder called "ROMs", then paste your ROM files in there.

   

   You'll see a .txt file called "dir".

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
4. 4
   MAME is usually operated via the command prompt, however, to keep this tutorial simple, we're going to run the directly run the MAME.exe file

   .

   Double-click the file called; "mame64" or "mame32".

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
5. 5
   Once the MAME interface opens, double-click "Available" in the left menu pane

   .

   Now, double-click one of the ROMs you copied over earlier to launch the game.

   

   To start a game, you may have to press the "6" key to Insert a coin. To see the default keys for your keyboard, see this.

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help

If you have a wired or wireless controller, you can use it to play games instead of the keyboard.

1. 1
   Ensure that your controller is connected to your computer

   .

   Next, double-click mame32 or mame64.

   
   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help