Mamewah Setup

Requirements

Mamewah requires the following in order to function properly:

Windows Operating System (95/98/ME/2K/XP)
DirectX 8 or higher
System Files (system.zip) from Mamewah Downloads Page
MAMEWAH v1.62b13 (mamewah_v162b13.zip) from Mamewah Downloads Page
Previously Installed Emulators

Installation

System Files Confirmation

The first thing you will need to do is install the required System Files from the link above. To do so, download the file, and unzip it to a temporary location. Once unzipped, double-click on the setup.bat to install. You should see the confirmation of this as shown to the left.

Mamewah with no Configuration

Next you will need to unzip the Mamewah Program Files. This can be unzipped into any location on your hard drive (for example, C:\Games\Mamewah\). Once you have unzipped this, you can run the mamewah.exe located in that folder. You will see the screen to the right. However, since no emulators are configured yet, you can see that it is not ready to use.

Many users don't understand what needs to be done at this point.

Remember, Mamewah is just a frontend to run many other programs; so we now have to configure Mamewah for those programs (emulators) to tell it how to run them. You can press ESC to exit for now.

Configuring Emulators

Configuration for running emulators through MAMEWAH is done via .ini files. You must have an ini file per emulator, which contains all emulator-specific settings. For more specifics on the various ini files used in MAMEWAH, see the ini files section.

MAME

We'll start with the default MAME .ini file.

Depending on your version of Mamewah, the location of the config files is as follows:

Version <= 1.61 : \ini Version >= 1.62 : \config\[emu] (i.e. \config\mame)

If you take a look at your mame.ini - open this file in notepad or similar text editing application. While this file is pre-configured as much as possible, filenames and paths will need to be altered, along with any other personal settings you may wish to adjust.

NOTE: do not confuse mame.ini with the mame-0.ini or mame-1.ini. These are list specific ini files which we will talk about later.

The important sections to modify here are the 'rom_path' and 'emulator_executable'.

rom_path is the location of your rom files, which should be something like 'C:\Games\mame\roms\'

emulator_executable is the full path to your emulator .exe, in this case, MAME, which should be something like 'C:\Games\mame\mame.exe'.

Note: It may also be possible to include some options after the command line. If there are already existing options, just make the appropriate change to the executable file, and leave the rest alone.

Generating a Game List

You can now run Mamewah again. Once started, press 2 to access the Options menu, goto 'Games List Options' and press 1 to select it. Then goto 'Generate List' and press 1 again to select it. This will generate a list based on the roms found in the folder provided.

By default, lists are generated by comparing your roms with an xml file. This is a setting called 'rom_folder_vs_listxml' in your .ini file.

For MAME, Mamewah will automatically generate the appropriate xml file, as long as your emulator path is correct. If Mamewah does not generate your list, verify that it is correct.

If you are configuring another emulator, and do not have an xml file, change the list_generation_method in the .ini file to 'rom_folder'.

Running a Game

At this point you should be able to run the games by pressing 1. Again, pressing ESC let's you exit the Mamewah program, however, if you launch a game, that emulator may require you to do something else to exit the game, such as access a File->Exit menu. Once that is done, it will return you to the Mamewah frontend. By default, MAME exits with ESC, so you can press ESC to exit the game, then press ESC again to exit Mamewah.

If MAME did not run, you may need to check or alter the command line. For my version of MAME, I had to specify the rompath,  
like so:

C:\Games\mame\mame.exe -rompath [rompath] [name]{nodosbox}

Additional Emulators

Version 1.61 and lower

For additional emulator configurations, you will need to create a seperate .ini file, just like the mame.ini. The easiest way to do this is to make a copy of mame.ini or mame folder and rename it to something like 'nes.ini', or whatever you prefer. You can optionally create an empty text file named as such, and then run Mamewah. It will then automatically populate all the information, and you can exit back out to make the changes.

You will then need to go back and modify this new .ini file, just as we did with MAME, to provide the rom path and executable location.

Once you have configured the new .ini file, you can run Mamewah again, and now use 4 and 6 to change between the previous and next emulator.

Version 1.62+

For additional emulator configurations, you will need a new folder with all of the config files for this emulator. The easiest way to do this is to make a copy of the mame folder in the \config directory.

You will then need to go back and modify the .ini file in that folder, just as we did with MAME, to provide the rom path and executable location.

Once you have added the new folder and configured the new .ini file, you can run Mamewah again. By default, Mamewah 1.62 does not have keys mapped to change Emulators (or Platforms) like the previous version did. You will need to press 2 to get to the Options menu, and select Platforms by pressing 1. Select your new Platform, and press 1 again. You can now generate your game list for the new emulator.

Notes

Do not forget to generate the game list, as described above in the Mame section, when you have configured a new emulator or made changes to an an existing emulators .ini file settings, particularly the location of the rom files (rom_path).

Some emulators require specific settings in order to work properly. See the Mamewah Setup Page for details on these settings.

Controls (for Mamewah 1.62 and higher)

By default, only the keyboard is configured to work in Mamewah. If you want to configure a joystick or mouse to work, you will need to edit the mamewah.cfg file in the \config folder of your Mamewah installation folder, and change the options for 'mouse' or 'joystick' from 0 to 1. Also note that you may need to activate them to work in your emulator as well, for instance, in MAME, you must edit the mame.ini file (created by running 'mame -createconfig'), and change the input device options from 0 to 1.

The following are the default keys assigned to navigate the frontend. Any of these keys can be modified, and even multiple keys can be assigned to a single action, by editing the mamewah.cfg in the \config folder of your Mamewah installation folder.

Many useful actions are not mapped to keys by default, so it is a good idea to edit this file to your liking.

For more information on the controller (ctrlr) configuration system, see the Mamewah Controls section.

Main Menu

Key	Action
UP	Move up one game
DOWN	Move down one game
LEFT	Move up one letter
RIGHT	Move down one letter
1	Launch Game
2	Menu Show
R	Move up one page
F	Move down one page
ESCAPE	Exit to Windows

Main Menu (Additional Keys)

Key	Action
TAB	Find Game
Left SHIFT	Random Game
M	Toggle Movie Preview Display
H	Toggle History.dat Display

Options Menu

Key	Action
UP	Up one option
DOWN	Down one option
LEFT	Up one option page
RIGHT	Down one option page
1	Menu Select
2	Menu Back / Close

Screen Saver

Key	Action
2	Show Track Name
1	Find and Select Game

Controls (for Mamewah 1.61 and lower)

By default, only the keyboard is configured to work in Mamewah. If you want to configure a joystick or mouse to work, you will need to edit the default.ini file in the \ctrlr folder of your Mamewah installation folder, and change the options for 'mouse' or 'joystick' from 0 to 1. Also note that you may need to activate them to work in your emulator as well, for instance, in MAME, you must edit the mame.ini file (created by running 'mame -createconfig'), and change the input device options from 0 to 1.

The following are the default keys assigned to navigate the frontend. Any of these keys can be modified, and even multiple keys can be assigned to a single action, by editing the default.ini in the \ctrlr folder of your Mamewah installation folder.

For more information on the controller (ctrlr) configuration system, see the Mamewah Controls section.

Main Menu

Key	Action
UP	Move up one game
DOWN	Move down one game
LEFT	Move up one letter
RIGHT	Move down one letter
1	Launch Game
2	Menu Show
3	Next Game List
4	Next Emulator
5	Previous Game List
6	Previous Emulator
R	Move up one page
F	Move down one page
ESCAPE	Exit to Windows

Main Menu (Additional Keys)

Key	Action
TAB	Find Game
Left SHIFT	Random Game
Z	Select Emulator
X	Select Game List
A	Add to Game List
S	Remove from Game List
Left ALT & 2	Menu Lock
Left CTRL & 1	Launch Game with Options 1
Left ALT & 1	Launch Game with Options 2
C	Launch App 1

Options Menu

Key	Action
UP	Up one option
DOWN	Down one option
LEFT	Up one option page
RIGHT	Down one option page
1	Menu Select
2	Menu Back / Close

Screen Saver

Key	Action
2	Show Track Name
1	Find and Select Game

Anywhere

Key	Action
Left ALT	Previous Track
SPACE	Next Track
Q	Rewind Track
W	Fast Forward Track

Further Tweaking

Layouts

The default layout for MAMEWAH is very generic. On the plus side, however, you have the ability to download additional layouts created by other MAMEWAH users, as well as creating your own layouts.

See the section on Using and Creating Layouts

Media

You can increase the visual appeal of the frontend by using Screens, Titles & Extras that are associated with the available games. It is recommended at the very least to download the screenshots, as most Mamewah layouts will use these images when displaying games, and if they are left empty, will look plain or boring. To do this, vist the Screens, Titles & Extras page to download the images. Once you have them, you will need to edit the appropriate lines in the ini files for that specific emulator to provide the location of the images on your hard drive.

List Specific Settings

Mamewah also allows you to have multiple lists for each emulator, to allow you to sort your games to your liking.

Version 1.62+ : These files are located in the \config\emu (i.e. \config\mame) folder

Version 1.61 and lower : These files are located in the \ini folder.

List specific setting ini files are named as the emu name with a -# following it, such as mame-0.ini and mame-1.ini. These files differ slightly from the main ini file in that mame-0.ini refers to the Main List (this is not filterable and is of fixed type), and mame-1.ini refers to Custom List 1 (all lists >0 offer more configuration options). See the ini files section for more information.

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