Before Running ArcadEmu

You must have the following in place:
  • At least one supported emulator unzipped in a directory
  • At least one set of ROMs, zipped (multi-game emulators only) or unzipped in the correct directory location
  • PKZIP and PKUNZIP from PKZ204G.EXE, available at various sites on the web (unless you are not planning on using ANY zipped ROMs)
  • AE26.ZIP exploded into a directory

What's New

What's new in Version .26

  • Print missing ROMs!
  • Print missing Pictures!
  • MAME automatically generates its own .MRG file!
  • Consoles can now use zipped files!
  • Loads faster!
  • Cleans up after itself better!
  • Controls are more responsive!
  • By Emulator now shows duplicated games on both panels! (For example 1941 will now show on the MAME and Callus tabs!)
  • Did Count work in .25? I don't remember, it's been too long.
  • All "List index out of bounds" errors should be solved.
  • More bug fixes

What's new in Version .25

  • Multiple graphic formats and anti-aliased pictures (but you have to update the Picture List each time you get new pictures)
  • Support for emulators which use multiple extensions (no periods, delimited by spaces--refer to GENECYST.INI--see, Scoot, I didn't forget you!)
  • Path display to ensure you have the correct ROM set
  • WAY faster searches with improved results
  • Platform.LST files allowed
  • Deleting ROMs works again
  • Can run ROMs from CD
  • Better support for files with the Read-Only bit set (think about it...)
  • Bug fixes
Still to come:
  • Displaying shared games in each emulator's tab
  • Printouts of missing games and pictures

What's new in Version .24

  • Tabs
  • Full support for Z26 and non-bitmap support for other consoles
  • Bug fixes

  • INI Authors:

  • Added Platform= under the Emulator section. This should be the name of the platform, such as 2600, NES, Genesis, SNES, etc. The bitmaps for this emulator go in a subdirectory of BITMAPS by this name (i.e. Z26 bitmaps go into ARCADEMU\BITMAPS\2600).
  • Added GSFilename= under the Keyhelp section. This is the file that AE should open for key-specific help, if it differs from the README. For MAME, it is GAMELIST.TXT.

Emulators

What is an arcade emulator?

An emulator is a program that runs on your PC that acts like another computer. An arcade emulator is a program that specifically acts like one or more arcade cabinets, which lets you play exact (or nearly exact) versions of these games on your computer.

Where do I find emulators?

There are lots of sites on the web which have arcade emulators to download. Currently, ArcadEmu supports the following emulators:
  • MAME (DOS version) .27-.35ß
  • KEM
  • System 16
  • RAGE
  • Williams Arcade Classics (commercial product, so you'll find this one in stores)
  • Juno First
  • Callus
  • JAS
  • Raine
  • NeoRage
  • Anything else you want, just e-mail me the INI, LST and BMPs

How do I make it work?

To make an emulator work, you need ROMs. These are the actual program code that ran on chips inside the arcade cabinet. Williams Arcade Classics comes with ROMs. If you own an arcade game (or the board from one) you can make files out of them on your PC. Other than that, I don't know where to find ROMs. Maybe the site you downloaded the emulator from knows. ;)

So, before ever running ArcadEmu, you need to download at least one emulator and at least one ROM!

ArcadEmu can use zipped ROMs for every multi-emulator if you have PKZIP and PKUNZIP on your hard drive. Do not place your zipped ROM files where the unzipped ROM files would go. This will delete your zipped ROMs. For example, if you have DKONG.ZIP, do not put it under C:\MAME\DKONG or it WILL BE DELETED after playing it once. This assumes that C:\MAME is your MAME directory. You could put it in C:\MAME or perhaps C:\MAME\ROMS or whatever.


ArcadEmu

What is a front-end?

A front-end is a program like ArcadEmu that runs emulators for you. You see, emulators are DOS programs that use all kinds of scary-looking command-line options to do what you need them to. There are various options you can (and sometimes should) change when running an emulator. ArcadEmu makes it easy because it presents you with point-and-click controls instead.

This takes forever, what's going on?

The first time you run a new version of ArcadEmu, and only the first time, it searches your hard drive(s) (C:-E: by default) for emulators and ROMs. The emulators and ROMs can be anywhere on your hard drive (unless you select the option that says that all ROMs are in subfolders), as long as the emulators have been unzipped. To unzip the emulators, use a program such as PKUNZIP or WinZip, which can be downloaded from the internet at various shareware sites.

This process should take between 2-15 minutes, depending on the speed of your computer. After the first time, it will load within 5 seconds.


Controls

Game list

The game list is the box on the far left of the window. It contains the name of each emulator and each ROM (for multi-game emulators). Each emulator and ROM have various options. Only valid options for a given emulator will be displayed.

Make the changes to the emulator's entry first, then to each game as need be. The emulator will set the defaults for all it's games, so for example, you would want to select MAME in the game list and set your sound card and then all 300+ MAME games would default to that. Then, if you wanted to turn off sound in one game (this can speed up a game even if it doesn't play any sound) then go to that game and select No Sound.

Single-game emulators only have one entry. Use this entry to set its options.

You can add new games by editing the *.LST files. For instance, if Callus comes out with 10 new games, you can carefully add these 10 games to CALLUS.LST and then Update Game List. This works for all emulators except MAME and Raine, which ArcadEmu queries for their current game list.

If you add a new game, do NOT use the square brackets '[ ]' or braces '{ }'. This will confuse ArcadEmu!

You can also add bitmaps for the games. Simply save a screen shot with your new game (usually F9 or F12 or something, check Game | Keys on the emulator). Load the resulting .PCX file into Paint or some other editor and save it as a .BMP in the ArcadEmu directory. To save space, you may want to do what I did and save them as RLEs with a BMP extension. The search logic for bitmaps is as follows:

  • Long name
  • Long name minus anything in parentheses
  • Short name
  • Short name repeatedly shortened by one character down to a minimum of 2 characters
  • Emulator's bitmap
  • Come to this site and get bitmaps message

You can select games in the game list using the joystick. Up and down move the selector up and down one game at a time. Left and right move up and down a screen at a time. Button 1 starts the game. Button 2 selects the random feature.

Resolutions

Resolution means how many pixels (dots) you have on your screen. Custom means that the emulator will use it's default resolution. Other entries list horizontal and vertical pixel in the format H x V. Unlike Windows, emulators usually look better with smaller values, since the screens originally had fewer pixels.

If the screen doesn't come up or if it's too small on your monitor, try changing to a different resolution.

Vector graphics

Vector graphics games are ones that used lines instead of pictures. Asteroids was the most popular vector game. Your ship was drawn as a triangle of 3 lines. When running vector games, click the vector box, they'll look much better. In MAME .29 and later, this option selects Anti-Aliasing for vectors. Try with and without it to see which is better.

Frame skipping

Emulating graphics is very time-consuming. If you have a slower machine (Pentium 100 or less), then the computer will bog down drawing all those graphics. The emulator authors allow you to skip frames, which means that instead of drawing the entire screen 60 times per second, now they only have to draw 30 or 20 or 15 or whatever. Considering that your eye has trouble differentiating much over 22 frames per second, you will probably not notice anyway.

If your game is too slow, try a different frame skipping value. Experiment until the game is as close to actual speed as possible. There is usually a way to tell how close you are to actual speed. Check the keys for the emulator (F11 on MAME).

Synchronizing

Synchronizing means that if your graphics are supposed to run at 60 fps and your monitor is already updating at 60 fps then why not wait until just before the monitor draws the image to update? Well, it's much slower. So, if you've got power to burn, turn this option on for crystal clear graphics.

VESA

VESA is a group of computer makers that set standards. This setting refers to VESA graphics modes. There are two standards that your card may support: VESA 1.2 and VESA 2.0. Your card may come with these drivers in the BIOS. If not, you can download SciTech Display Doctor's UNIVBE which gives VESA support for most cards. On some systems (like mine) it crashes Windows, so it may not be good for you.

ArcadEmu will automatically load and unload UNIVBE.EXE if it finds it on your hard drive.

VESA modes give you faster graphics, so you probably want this functionality. However, some programs may lock while using these drivers with some cards.

Generally, the Custom choice will choose the best available graphics mode for you automatically. But, if it doesn't, you can choose it here. VESA 2.0 is faster than VESA 1.2. Linear and banked modes work differently with different games so you'll just have to experiment. Some emulators allow you to disable VESA features altogether, and you'll find that here.

Extra graphic options

Here's where you will find support for other graphic options, such as scanlines and pixel doubling.

Pixel doubling is used to make graphics bigger. Some original arcade games had resolutions as small as 256x256, which is a far cry even from standard VGA's 640x480. Emulator authors draw a box of 4 dots for every one which makes the image 4X as big (2X in each direction). This can be a little slow, however. To speed it up they draw scanlines instead.

Scanlines are the black lines that naturally ran across the TV-quality monitors used in the original arcade cabinets. In order to spped up pixel doubling, emulator authors will double horizontally (which is fast) and then draw a black line for the next vertical line instead of repeating the previous one. This looks authentic, since the original monitors had lines like this anyway.

Without pixel doubling, you can play miniaturized, which is even faster than scanlines.

Sometimes scanlines can cause or solve problems. If you get no picture or double pictures, try turning on/off scanlines.

Rotate

In the arcades, some games had the screen mounted vertically. Some emulators will allow you to rotate the image so that you can turn your monitor sideways and play like it was in the arcade. Personally, I feel like unless you have money for a new monitor laying around, I wouldn't do this. If you do have money laying around, buy the arcade cabinet and play it right!

Sometimes some games are barely finished by the author and appear sideways. In these cases, Rotate may cause the screen to appear correctly.

Up 8 lines

Back to our example earlier, if a game was 256x256 and you run standard VGA 640x480, the image will double to 512x512, which will go off the bottom of your screen by 32 lines. Sometimes, just moving the screen up a few scanlines will make the game playable. Try different values for each game. The default of 8 will cause the first line of text to disappear. Obviously, 16 is also a good choice, since it will cause equal amounts of lines offscreen at the top and bottom.

Sound/Music

Choosing the wrong sound card will cause ArcadEmu to return without playing the game. Try "No Sound" to see if this is the problem.

The sound options will allow you to choose your sound card or just to turn sound off. Choose your card from the list of available cards. If it doesn't work, try different cards. The AWE32 sound card may slow down emulation quite a bit and cause an echo. Use Sound Blaster instead.

Some emulators will list ports of 220 (the default) or 388. Leave it at 220 unless you think you are missing some sounds or sound quality is bad.

FM Music is a separate setting in most emulators. Turning this off allows you to play with sound effects but not music (for instance if the music is very annoying).

Controllers

Allows you to select Joystick, Mouse or Trackball. Use the controller that works best for the game. For arcade games that originally had a trackball, use Trackball with your mouse for best results (experiment with Mouse checked or unchecked). 4-way Joystick is for playing games that only went 4 ways in the arcade with a gamepad or analog joystick.

Turning off all controllers will speed up emulation. Use the keyboard for control.

JoyCP & JoyEmu are a set of programs that will allow you to act as if you are pressing keys when in fact you are moving your joystick. JoyEmu must be downloaded separately. To use it, first run JoyCP. First, set all the options for your joystick(s). Set all the options so that the correct keys are emulated. (Use Game | Keys to see the keys for the current game.) After creating a .KS file, select that file in the box below JoyEmu keyfile. ArcadEmu will automatically load and unload JoyEmu with the selected keyfile.

Additional Options

This box allows you to manually type any command line options not supported by ArcadEmu. Since almost all of them are supported, there should be very little need to use this box. It's mostly there so that you can use a new version's options before I get a chance to code them.

Menu commands

File | Locations...

This option lets you manually set the location of ZIP utilities, JOYEMU files and UNIVBE. It also allows you to add other drives to the search list. If you add drives, you can search for the utilities by pressing the Search Drives button.

File | Update Game List... & Rebuild Game List...

This option will retain all your settings for your current games, and add any new games that it finds. This option is selected automatically every time you update ArcadEmu, but you can do it manually after downloading some new games.

This option will remove all settings and start completely over from scratch. I can't think of any reason that you would need to do this anymore (there sure was while writing ArcadEmu). But if you feel the need to get a fresh start...

By the way, this will take a long time.

File | List Box Cleanup

List box cleanup purges your game lists of outdated entries by comparing the current game lists against your current .LST files.

File | Lock/Unlock

This option grays out the majority of the menu options. In particular, it is designed to disable the ability to delete ROMs. Think of it as a parental lock, in case you or someone else you know uses ArcadEmu as a babysitting aid. It is not intended to be extremely secure: the password is stored as readable text in the Registry. If you need extra security, use PolEdit (on the Windows CD) to disable Registry editing.

Game | Choose Random

Are you like me? You love about 300 out of the 400 games out there. Do you find that you never get to some games because you always start at the top or the bottom? Want to try something new?

Selecting Choose Random will cause ArcadEmu to move the game selection to a random spot in the list. This is also great for fair tournaments with your friends, since ArcadEmu is choosing the games, instead of your cheating friend.

Game | Keys...

This option will show you which keys to use for your emulators. If you are highlighted on an emulator, it will show you generic emulator keys. If you are on a game, it will show you game-specific controls.

The README file for the appropriate emluator must be present in the same directory as the emulator in order for this feature to work properly. If you unzipped it properly, it should already be there.

Game | Add Sound Samples...

Some games have sound effects files called samples which can be downloaded separately. If you have zipped samples for a game, select the game and then select Game | Add Sound Samples and select the name of the zipped sample. It will automatically be installed.

Delete Configuration Files >

All emulators store configuration files: saved high-scores, remapped keys, dip switch settings, etc. Use these options to delete these files.

Sometimes a new version of an emulator will require you to delete .CFG and .DSW files. If a game doesn't work, try deleting the Config file and the Dipswitch file.

Fix ROM

This menu option will fix a common ROM problem, specifically when the actual ROM exists in a zipped subdirectory. You can see this problem when an emulator fails to load and you see the shortname repeated in the unzip procedure:
  Inflating: C:\MAME\TheGame\TheGame\TheGame.A07

What this option does is to unzip the ROM ignoring sub-directories and then rezip. This can cause problems with certain emulators (System 16) which expect their samples to be in a subdirectory.

Game | Change Emulator...

Some games are emulated by more than one multi-game emulator. If so, then this option will be enabled. Select it and then select the emulator you would like to use from the list.

Reset to Emulator Defaults

This will cause a multi-emu game to use its emulator's defaults again, instead of its own settings.

Remove From List

Removes the game from the current list and puts it on the missing list. You will have the option of deleting the ROMs for the game as well. Emulators cannot be deleted (yet)! If you do not delete the ROMs, the game will return on the next update or rebuild. You can also add a game back to the list. When you have a missing game highlighted, you can select the Add option to search for only that game. If it is found, it will be added to the game list as playable.

Display Options

You can sort the list either by Name, Emulator or Count.

Name is familiar to all of you that used previous versions of ArcadEmu. It simply sorts the list by game name as always. It is the default.

Emulator adds the name of the emulator to the front of each game, causing them to then be sorted by Emulator. This helps you to see which games you have for a given emulator. All single game emulators are under "Single".

Count causes a count of the number of times you've played each game to be added to the front of each entry. Don't be suprised if the count is not zero for all games, I've been tracking this for a couple versions now. A game is "counted" if 30 seconds elapses between the time you hit "PLAY" and the next time ArcadEmu loads (presumably right after you've finished playing or after a ROM fails to load). Needless to say, this is not a 100% accurate count, but is designed to give you a general idea of which games you never play, which ones don't work (try downloading the ROM again) and which are your favorites, which might surprise you!

[ Missing Games ] causes ROMs that could not be found to be shown in brackets. When sorting by Name, they will be at the bottom of the list. When sorting by Emulator or Count, they will be at the top so you can see what you're missing!


Blah Blah Blah

ALTHOUGH ARCADEMU ("SOFTWARE") IS FREEWARE, THE COPYRIGHT FOR IT IS MAINTAINED BY CELESTIAL COMPUTING. THE SOFTWARE MAY NOT BE SOLD. THE SOFTWARE MAY NOT BE DISTRIBUTED WITH EMULATORS OR ROMS.

IN NO WAY WILL PAUL REID OR CELESTIAL COMPUTING BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY LOSS OF DATA OR OTHER COMPUTER PROBLEMS OR MISHAPS RELATING TO THE SOFTWARE. THIS SOFTWARE IS NOT TO BE SOLD IN ANY WAY. THE SOFTWARE MAY BE COPIED WITH ALL COMPONENTS TO ANOTHER WEB PAGE FOR DISTRIBUTION AS LONG AS PAUL REID IS GIVEN FULL CREDIT FOR THE WORK.

If you have problems, please read this file first. If you still have problems you may e-mail me at paulreid@dnai.com, but I may not be able to respond. If I respond, "READ THE README", then do that.

Thanks for using ArcadEmu!