HELPFUL.HINTS

I CAN START A GAME, NOW WHAT?

This section assumes that you've followed the installation instructions and can now launch a game from the MAME32 interface.

While MAME32 has general documentation, there are a few tricks and settings that can optimize performance on slower computers and make your games run smoother, or faster, or both.

DON'T BE AFRAID TO CHANGE DEFAULTS

Start customizing MAME by editing the Default Options. Select Default Options under the Options menu. Tweak these settings until to find what works well with the majority of games. Then on games that don't work as well with default settings, you can configure on an individual basis.

These Default Options will be used for every game listed, unless you manually edit a game's Properties. Just right-click on any game in the list, and then click on Properties. These options are identical the the ones in the Default Options menu, but will only apply the one particular game.

Unless you have a very current processor (500+ MHz), most of the tweaking you'll be doing to MAME's settings will be to increase speed. As a general rule, the newer & more complex the game, and the more resources it demands, the slower it will run with Default Options.

SOUND ADVICE

If you have a sound card, you'll most likely want to enable Direct Sound on the Sound tab of the Default Options.

Most all games will run faster without sound, but sound is such a huge part of the gameplay experience that you'll want it turned on. If you find games to run noticably slower with sound, try lowering the sample rate. A lower sample rate may not sound quite as clear, but it uses less processor power and should bring the game's speed back up.

JOYSTICK & MOUSE SETTINGS

If you're using a joystick, select your joystick type on the Controllers tab of the Default Options.

Beware that the more input devices you have selected, the slower emulation will be. If a game is too slow using your joystick, try turning off joystick support and using the keyboard.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE FRAME-SKIPPING

Actually, frame skipping can be both good and bad (and sometimes ugly too). While enabling frame skipping will definitely speed up sluggish emulation, but too much frame skipping can make a game unbearably choppy.

If a game is running painfully slow, you can increase its speed by using frame skipping. A game running at full speed should be able to pump from 30 to 60 frames per second to your monitor, but if the processor is labored, the game will run slowly because the individual frames take too long for the computer to produce.

Frame skipping tells MAME to skip some frames to speed up the action. This is a trade-off, because with skipped frames comes choppier animation. Skipping one or two frames is usually not too bad, but the higher you set the frame skip, the more intolerable the game will be to play.

You can manually control the frame-skipping in MAME32 under the Advanced tab of the Default Options. Unless you're having trouble with frame-skipping, it can usually be left on Automatic to let MAME decide the best degree of frame-skipping for your PC.