MAMEWorld Forums - News - Re: MAME 0.208

> OT I realize, but with the growing additions to Software Lists I figured I'd ask.
>
> Are there any tutorials on using and managing software lists in MAME? Any frontends
> support them very well?
>
> I'm using GameEx (or whatever it is called now) on my cabinet, and have yet to delve
> into the SW List world, but I have plenty of space to start gathering them up.
>
> Thanks in advance.

Software Lists are a broad subject to be fair. They're used wherever removable media is used.

For some things use is really simple eg

"mame64 jak_nick popsnow"
"mame64 popira2 sp04"
"mame64 genesis sonic"

is all you need (from the commandline) to run those respective systems with cartridges inserted. In the case of Nicktoons and Popira 2 if you run without a cartridge you only get the base game, in the case of the Genesis, a cartridge is required for it to do anything.

however since the Software Lists cover all sorts, including PC games, a lot of the time you need a full understanding of the systems in order to make use of them (all the above will do is insert a floppy or cassette in many cases, which might not be bootable or requires specific ways to load it)

stuff like NeoGeo multislot is also Software List driven, requiring slightly more advanced syntax than the base case

"mame64 neogeo -cart1 mslug -cart2 mslugx -cart3 mslug3"

of course a good frontend will probably make the easy cases even easier, but is unlikely to make the more difficult ones more accessible. There are loose plans for some extra scripting to help with them, which might be tied to the Software Lists, but no real date given for that, it's a very complex problem for the most advanced cases (eg full PC emulation)