Mamewah Theme

I fixed the link in the post below for the Niobe theme I created for Mamewah. Here is the direct link to it. Niobe.rar
I like to use Rar archiver, if you don't have it or have trouble opening the skin, you can download WinRar for free from here. http://www.rarlab.com/

DancePad / GamePad

Kraft Foods is offering their version of a Dancepad called the Kraft Gamepad. Check it out here. It's available for only $6 and it comes with 4 games that you can download from their web site.
It will also work with Stepmania but it suffers from the joystick axes problem, which is correctable. Make sure to check out the Stepmania site for links on how to modify the pad.

Mamewah configuration Cont...

The next file I modified was the Mame.ini file located in the Ini directory of your Mamewah install. For me it was here: c:\games\mame32\mamewah\ini\mame.ini
Edit this file with Notepad. The first change needed is the "rom_path" option. Type the path to your Roms directory for Mame.
Next find the "emulator_executable" option. Type in the path to your mame executable file. For example: c:\games\mame32\mame32.exe
This may vary depending on what version of Mame you are running.
For the custom skin to work the Artwork_1_image_path has to be set. If your skin uses more than 1 image, then make sure to type in the appropriate paths. These paths correspond to the Mamewah Layout Designer Artwork Image #1, #2, etc. For my skin i used Artwork 1 & 2, Titles and Snapshots respectively. So my paths would look like this.
artwork_1_image_path c:\games\mame32\titles
artwork_1_image_path c:\games\mame32\snaps
Of course you can have more or less and change the types of images displayed.
Again, there are other options in this file but i didn't need to change them to make my setup work.

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Setting up Mamewah with new skin

First things first, make sure you're Mame program works before attempting to setup Mamewah for your front-end. I use Mame32qa.
You can get Mamewah from here.
Make sure to download the Systems Files if this is a new install for Mamewah
To see a preview of my skin see my previous post. You can get the jpg and layout file in rar format from this link. This skin is for 1024x768 screens.

1.) Extract the systems files to a temp folder and run the "setup.bat" file.

2.) Now simply extract the mamewah_v161.zip file where ever you want to run mamewah from. I extracted it inside my mame32 directory. so my install locks like this:
C:\Games\Mame32\Mamewah

3.) Create a folder called Niobe in the Layouts directory in Mamewah. Extract the Niobe.rar file into the new Niobe folder. so your directory structure should look like this. C:\Games\Mame32\Mamewah\Layouts\Niobe\"files go here"

4.) Now, at the root of your Mamewah directory, open mamewah.ini in notepad.
Here you can set different options.
- Music_Path: for example c:\mp3s. when you open Mamewah, it will start playing random mp3 files from this path.
- Under ### Misc Options ### find the "layout" option. Erase what is there and type: Niobe This will select the Niobe skin.

there are many other options you can play with in this file, but that's all i changed.
My next post i will go over the changes needed in the Mame.ini file for Mamewah.

Mamewah and Mame32 v.106+

Well, after reloading my Mame computer I found that Mame32 and Mamewah 1.61 don't work together like they used to, plus I found some things that I needed to document for Mamewah to make my skin work. I forgot to backup my config files before I reloaded my computer, so I had to recreate some stuff. So here it is, hopefully this will help anyone having problems setting up Mamewah.

Apparently, somewhere around Mame v.106 the xml2info.exe was removed from the distribution. Mamewah relies on this file to generate the game list. I tried using an older version that came with Mame(v.102) but this caused Mamewah to spit out errors because I was running Mame v.110. There must be some sort of incompatibility with xml2info.exe and new Mame versions. So I found this link for a new version of Xml2info. Simply extract the files to your Mame directory, that's it. When you start Mamewah, go to the Game List options and then Generate List.

In my next post I'll document what i had to do to get my custom skin working in Mamewah.

Mamewah Themes

Just surfed over to the Localarcade.com website and found that they now have Mamewah themes/skins available for download. They also have some tutorial videos online and some sample config files with instructions. Make sure to check them out if you are interested in using Mamewah.

Act-Labs Light Guns

I purchased the Act-Labs PC USB Light gun for my Mame project. There is an updated review of the latest gun over at Retroblast.com. I strongly recommend watching the video online for help on calibration. Act-Labs has also posted instructions on how to make more than 1 gun work on a single computer with Mame. Definitely gonna have to try this out. If anyone has already done it please let me know how well it works and if there are any problems. I'm mostly interested in getting House of the Dead 2 or 3 working with 2 guns. Not sure if this is possible since the article only talks about Mame.
I would also love to know if anyone has ever been able to get CarnEvil working with a light gun.