README

Please print this file as it will help you with the Installation, with a step by step guide. 6-7 page

There is also a copy of this readme file in the MameOS.zip download, in html and txt format.

WARNING! - By reading this you accept the terms and MAME's licence conditions before using the software. This software is without any warranty and Arcade Emulator take no responsibility for any damage to equipment, loss of data or personal injury. It has been tested on most hardware configurations and found to be trouble free but you use it at your own risk. The MAME core software is in line with the MAME developers licence agreement and has not been changed in any way for this CD. If this CD is to be re-distributed it MUST NOT BE SOLD. The only purpose for this CD is to help people install a DOS MAME operating system and nothing more.

Redistribution and use of this code or any derivative works are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

Redistributions may not be sold, nor may they be used in a commercial product or activity.
Redistributions that are modified from the original source must include the complete source code, including the source code for all components used by a binary built from the modified sources. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.
Redistributions must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

WARNING! - This disc can "DESTROY" data. It has options within that can format drives. BE CAREFUL if you have any other drives installed in your machine that contain data.

UPGRADING! - This software can be upgraded easy E.G If you have downloaded my earlier version of MameOS and you want to upgrade to the new V100, all you have to do is download the latest version of my mame operating system v100 and install it over the top of the earlier version. At the part of the installation process where it asks if you want to format C: Drive press N and Enter then Mame will be updated with the new version and all your hi scores plus your favorite lists should not be deleted.

NEXT UPGRADE! - As soon as the MAME website releases an updated to the latest DOS version, Mame core system software. Sorry for any delay in upgrades as my MAME O/S software is dependant on MAME's upgrades. DOS MAME no longer being supported by the MAME team at present.

BEFORE REPORTING ANY BUGS! - please see http://www.mametesters.org/ Some games that did work in earlier versions may suffer from bugs in later versions, the bugs will be found by official MAME testers and fixed in the next issue of MAME. The bugs are fixed A.S.A.P but some times problems can take time to sort out. You may find that the game or games in question will be fixed some time in the future or added to the "not working list", for future investigation.

After your MameOS disk is made, set your arcade p.c B.I.O.S. settings to the following:-

After you have read the licence agreement press "F10", To accept the terms and conditions:

1- PCI Sound Blaster 128 , Will support most SB PCI 128 cards. Also see FAQ

3- ISA Sound Blaster 64, To SET-UP MAME/ArcadeOS for any SOUND BLASTER ISA CARD.

After ArcadeOS has loaded, Exit and use the menus to install extra ROM'S, snap shots and sound samples:-

Configuring Game Launcher

For your convenience this installation CD has had all the configuration done for you. Please read on to find out how to change global options in Game Launch.

The glaunch.cfg file contains the global configuration options. It contains a list of emulators to support and what kind of background music is desired. All other configuration options are emulator specific and are contained in the config/ directory.

Each emulator listed in glaunch.cfg must have a corresponding cfg file in the config/ directory. For example, if "mame" is listed in glaunch.cfg, then config/mame.cfg contains the configuration options for MAME.

Please look at config/template.cfg and the other examples I use provided in the config/ directory. I've tried to make the config file self-documenting.

Using mamescan.exe

When you exit Game Launch you will see a menu for helping you to install ROM's etc, After you have installed your ROM sets Mamescan will run automatically when you press option 2 to exit :-). Your arcade machine will reset and when game launch starts up you should see all your games listed :-).

mamescan.exe is a command line tool that automatically creates a .map and .rom file for MAME by scanning the ROMs you have installed. It uses the MAME executable to figure out which ROMs are buried inside merged ROMs. By default, only the primary ROMs are included and all clones are skipped. Individual ROMs may be included and excluded by using a constraint file.

A mamescan config file, by default mamescan.cfg specifies the path the a MAME executable, the path to MAME ROMs, and the configuration file to use for Game Launcher. The configuration file to use is really the base pathname of the configuration file to use. Two configuration files are created by mamescan. If the base path name given is config/mame, then the files created are config/mame.map and config/mame.rom. This path may be relative or absolute.

You can force the inclusion and exclusion of individual ROMs in the configuration file if you want to override the default choices. In the constraint section of the config file, any line beginning with a '+' forces inclusion and any line beginning with a '-' forces exclusion. For example, the pacman.zip file contains the games pacman (the Namco version) and pacmanm (the Midway version). The "primary" ROM is pacman and the clone is pacmanm, so mamescan will include pacman and exclude pacmanm. Say you do not want to include pacman, but want to include pacmanm. You can add the following lines to the constraint section of the configuration file:

Configuring Screen Resolution. "important"

Any resolution available by your DOS VESA driver should be available to use. If the chosen resolution is not available, Game Launcher will not run. Not all resolutions look that good, though, especially depending on the menu orientation. For horizontal orientation, I would recommend either 800x600 or 400x300. 800x600 looks much nicer because the anti-aliasing of the fonts is much less noticeable. For vertical orientation, I would recommend either 640x480 or 320x240. 640x480 looks nicer again because of the anti-aliasing.

The "glaunch.cfg", in this installation CD is setup to run on an arcade monitor or PC VGA monitor:

For 15Khz Arcade Monitor the resolution is set to 320*200 and a font size of 8. On some Arcade Monitors 640*480 resolution can be used.

Also higher resolutions may result in slower animations. This can be caused by running out of VRAM or processing power. The lack of VRAM causes slower animation because Game Launcher will use VRAM if your video card supports hardware acceleration. If you're curious if VRAM is being used, check the log file. If your video driver does not support hardware acceleration, then VRAM will not be used under any circumstances.

Configuring Fonts

Any TrueType font is supported, although very thin and/or small fonts may show some pink spots. The font size is fully customizable by choosing the point size. An appropriate size is mostly personal preference. I prefer an 18 point font in horizontal orientation at a resolution of 800*600 or vertical orientation at 640x480, but smaller fonts look OK, too. For smaller resolutions, I prefer a 10 point font for horizontal orientation at 400x300 or vertical orientation at 320x240. You really cannot go any smaller than 8 point without the font looking terrible. Any larger than 10 point results in only a few menu items to fit on the screen. 10 points seems like a nice compromise.