This is the first part of a mini diy series on making your

every own MAME arcade system. Now the first part is going to be the cheapest part of this and the second part is going to be a bit more cash to make. But lets get started.

For those of you who miss the good old days of going to the arcades and playing some of the best games ever. But those days are gone and arcades are now hard to find. Now you can buy the old arcade system online in all their glory, but the price tag is too much and most of you don’t have the room for these big thing. So that is where MAME emulators come in.

For those of you who don’t know what a MAME emulator is. Its software that you can download for free online that allows you to play the ROM’s of different games. ROM’s are the software of the games and are key to play them. You can find them online for free for almost any game you are looking for. But a disclaimer.

I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE GAMES FROM THESE SITES. ALL RIGHTS AND PROFITS FROM THESE GAMES BELONG TO THEIR ORIGINAL CREATORS AND OR CURRENT OWNERS OF THESE IP’S.

Step 1: What You Will Need

Now here is the list of things you will need for this.

Hardware:

· Computer( any pc will work, but the small it is, the better. Just have a good video card and plenty of hardive space. Some emulators may not work depening OS)

· USB controller ( almost any PC or system usb controller like wired ones for ps3 or 360 will work with the mapping software.)

Software:

· Xpadder (mapping software) $10.00 http://www.xpadder.com/

· MAME Emulators

o FB Aplha http://www.barryharris.me.uk/fba.php

o WinKawaks http://www.kawaks.net/

o MAMe64 http://mamedev.org/release.html

o MAMEUI64 http://www.mameui.info/

· Nintendo Emulators

o SNES9X http://www.snes9x.com/

o Higan http://byuu.org/higan/

· Sega Emulators

o Gens http://www.gens.me/

· Stand Alone Freebys

o Pokemon type Wild http://oneweakness.com/pokemon-type-wild.html

o Street Fighter X Mega Man http://www.capcom-unity.com/mega_man

o MLP fighting is Magic Tribute Edition http://tinyurl.com/Tribute-Edition-w-KeyFix

· Compress readers

o 7Zip

Step 2: Getting the Controls Ready

Now lets first get your PC ready for the software you. Now

you may want you delet a few programs that you haven’t used in a while and file you no longer need. The more space you have the better. Now if you thought you were going to use an external hardrive for the files to save room, that may not work. Depending on the emulator you plan on using , they may have a file system set up that has a pre-set file for the ROMS that will only red from there, but others may have it set up where you could you a hardrive instead.

For all the programs we will be getting, save them in a file named Emulators in you documents.

All the emulatos go in EMULATORS

All the roms save in ROMS ( Make a file for each type that does not need to be in the emulators )

And one for Xpadder

All for the standalones

Make a short cut for each program so they will be easy to get to.

Now that you PC is ready to go. Lets start getting the programs we will need.

First is XPadder. This is a $10 application for PC that allows you to plug in any usb controller and map them to have keyboard commands. After you download it. Run the program. Now it is not an install so when you get it, copy it to on to a hard copy like a flashdrive, cd, or dvd. Safe then sorry. Now that it is up, plug in you USB controller and click new controller. Go through the steps for the buttons, d-pad, and sticks, depending on the controller. You can move the buttons around so they will be easy to find. Save the controller and now start mapping the commands. Just click on the button you want to map and a keyboard will pop up. You can hit the key or click it. You can even map mouse camands. After you have the controller mapped for the emulator/game, save it. I suggest that you make a file with the name of the usb controller and name the map file like this. Here is the save system

Documents\EMULATORS\Xpadder\(NAME OF CONTROLLER)\(NAME OF EMULATOR_PLAYER#)

Step 3: The Emulators

Okay now lets get the emulators we

will need. The first on is an install called WinKawaks. This emulator will be in you programs file in you computer built in hard drive. No if you have windows 8 it may not run. I have a desktop with 8 and it can’t run the program but it will on my laptop with 7. This one runs NeoGeo games, CPS1, and CPS2 (Capcom system) the site you get the program from has the some of the roms for it. Just download the zip and save the in the roms location in the program.

DON’T UNZIP THE FILE OR RENAME THEM. USE THE 7ZIP PROGRAM IF THE ZIP FILE IS IN ANOTHER ZIP FILE.

With the roms loaded, run the program and goto file\load. This will bring up a new window. If the files are in right place and have all the data they need, when you click scan you should have all the files ready to play. Just click it and go. Here is the mapping for this progam.

These emulators will play any arcade game not just NeoGeo and thos capcoms. This will be the same for MAMe64 and Mameui64. The first will just load them up when it runs but UI64 will be like Kawaks with and easy to scroll menu of your games.

Now FB Aplha can have the roms loaded in its rom folder in documents, but you can load from an external drive instead. In the load screen click on the first scan button and you can browse for the external rom location. Now the mapping will be different for each game. So when you run a different game. Click input\Map game inputs… or F5. Once you map the new inputs. It should be saved for the next time you play.

The last set of roms can run the roms from the rom folder in documents that we have set up. From before. SNES9X can only play snes roms and Higan can run roms from NES to GBA. Gens runs all USA Sega system games. Here is the mapping for each one.

Now the standalones are free downloads, pokemon and MLP use the same engine and SFXMMv2 will be a bit of a pain to map.

Step 4: The Roms and Play

Now you may want to know where you can download the roms for

these systems. Well here are the sites. Now when you download the files, some of the may give you an install file. Run it and read each window. Some may want to ask you install extra files with you ROM file. Don’t just hit yes for the roms and no for the others.

Now this site has almost the whole arcade collection. You can grab the whole 42GB file or just the roms you want.

http://kawaks.net/

http://coolrom.com/

http://www.freeroms.com/

http://www.emuparadise.me/

https://archive.org/details/MAME_0.151_ROMs

I hope this helped you and if you have the cash to spend, I hope you join me for part 2.