path: root/games/mame/man/mame.6

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.TH MAME 6 "March 4, 2009"

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.SH "NAME"
mame \- Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator

.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.B mame
.RI "[ Options ] [ ROM_name ]"

.SH "DESCRIPTION"
Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator using the Simple Direct Media Layer.
.br
This manual page documents sdlmame, which is a port of MAME(tm) (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) that uses SDL (Simple Direct Media Layer).
.br
.ad b
\fBMAME\fP is an emulator: it reproduces, more or less faithfully, the behaviour of several arcade machines.
But hardware is useless without software, so an image of the ROMs which run on that hardware is required.
\fBSuch ROMs, like any other commercial software, are copyrighted material and it is therefore illegal to use them if you don't own the original arcade machine\fP.
Needless to say, ROMs are not distributed together with MAME(tm).
Distribution of MAME(tm) together with ROM images is a violation of copyright law and should be promptly reported to the authors so that appropriate legal action can be taken.
.br
Keep in mind that you NEED the ROM images to play a game because MAME is not a game emulator, just an arcade machine one.
.br
More informations on MAME(tm) available at http://mame.net/
.br
\fBSDLMAME\fP original sources are available at http://rbelmont.mameworld.info/

.SH "OPTIONS"
.B \-showusage
Show a brief list of options.
.TP
.B \-showconfig
Show a list of configuration options.
.TP
.B \-createconfig
Create a default mame.ini file.
.TP
.br
Basic Startup Options:
.TP
.B \-rompath \fI/path/to/rom/files/zipped\fP
Specify path to ROMsets and hard disk images
.TP
.B \-samplepath \fI/path/to/samples\fP
Specify path to samplesets
.TP
.B \-artpath \fI/path/to/artwork/files\fP
Specify path to artwork files
.TP
.B \-ctrlrpath \fI/path/to/controller/definition\fP
Specify path to controller definitions
.TP
.B \-inipath \fI/path/to/ini/file\fP
Specify path to ini files
.TP
.B \-fontpath \fI/path/to/the/fonts\fP
Specify path to font files
.TP
See \fB/usr/doc/sdlmame-@VERSION@/config.txt for more information
on available options.

.SH "EXAMPLE"
.B mame
will launch the emulator in fullscreen mode with game list detected.
.B mame \fIgridlee\fP
will launch the game "Gridlee" in fullscreen mode.
.TP
.B mame -window \fIgridlee\fP
will launch the game "Gridlee" in a window.
.TP
.B mame -inipath \fI~/.mame/mame.ini\fP gridlee
will launch the game "Gridlee" using a custom "mame.ini" file stored in the folder ".mame" of your home directory (usually "/home/yourusername/").
.TP
.B mame -showconfig
will output all the mame current configuration.

.SH "FILES"
.B ~/.mame/mame.ini
Per-user mame config files. If present, this is used instead of the system-wide
config.
.TP
.B /etc/mame.ini
System-wide config file for mame, not used if ~/.mame/mame.ini exists.
.TP
.B /usr/share/games/mame/
This is the default location (set in mame.ini) where mame will look for the roms, samples,
artwork, ctrlr, font, and cheat directories. In other words, read-only
data. Note that these directories are initially empty when mame is
installed (except for the font directory).
.TP
.B /usr/share/games/mame/roms
ROM and CHD images. Normally ROMs are kept in zip files named after
the games, but they may also be extracted into subdirectories named
after the games instead. CHDs should be placed in subdirectories named
after the games. See the MAME FAQ for more information:
.TP
.nh
\fIhttp://mamedev.org/devwiki/index.php?title=Frequently_Asked_Questions\fR
.hy
.TP
.B /usr/share/games/mame/artwork
Cabinet artwork.
.TP
.B /usr/share/games/mame/samples
Audio samples for games whose audio hardware isn't emulated by mame.
You can find these at various sites on the web. One collection can be
found at
.nh
.TP
\fIhttp://www.arcadeathome.com/mamewav.phtml\fR
.hy
.TP
.B /usr/share/games/mame/ctrlr
Custom controller definitions.
.TP
.B /usr/share/games/mame/font
The systemwide mame user interface font lives here, as "ui.bdf". You can replace
the UI font by replacing this file with some other BDF font. To replace
on a per-user basis, copy the font to ~/.mame/ui.bdf and delete ~/.mame/ui.bdc
if it exists.
.TP
.B /usr/share/games/mame/cheat
.TP
.B /usr/share/games/mame/cheat.zip
Cheats database. Recent versions of MAME use an XML format for the
cheat definitions. Normally all the cheats are stored in a zip file "cheat.zip".
The cheat/ directory is for individual XML files (e.g. if you're developing
your own cheat for pacman, you'd put it in cheat/pacman.xml). There's no
need to unpack the cheat.zip unless you're planning to modify it.
Note that the old cheat.dat format is no longer supported. You can find
an XML cheat.zip at
.TP
.nh
\fIhttp://cheat.retrogames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3110\fR
.hy
.TP
(Note: the zip file you download from there needs to be unzipped. It
contains a cheats.zip file; this is the one you copy to /usr/share/games/mame/cheat.zip)
.TP
.B ~/.mame/
This is the default location (set in mame.ini) where mame will create its
cfg, sta, and other writable data directories (and the files therein).
See \fB/usr/doc/sdlmame-@VERSION@/config.txt for more information.

.SH "SEE ALSO"
MAME documentation in \fB/usr/doc/sdlmame-@VERSION@\fR
.br
The MAME web site at \fIhttp://mamedev.org/\fR

.SH "COPYRIGHT"
MAME(tm) - Copyright (C) 1997-2008, Nicola Salmoria and the MAME(tm) team
.br
MAME - Copyright (C) Olivier Galibert and R. Belmont.

.SH "AUTHOR"
MAME(tm) was written by Nicola Salmoria and the MAME(tm) team.
.br
sdlmame was written by Olivier Galibert and R. Belmont.
.sp 3
This manual page was written by Ludovic Lechapt <ludomatic@gmail.com>,
for the Debian project but may be used by others, like Ubuntu :)
.sp 3
This manual page has been modified by B. Watson <yalhcru@gmail.com> for SlackBuilds.org.