MAMEIronXP

MAMEIronXP is a cross-platform MAME front-end built in C#/AvaloniaUI.

This is a Work In Progress in the beginning stages of development. Ideally it will scale across different sized-screens, and function the same across operating systems.

Getting Started

Windows

1. Download the MAME binary and extract it to a directory of your choice (e.g. C:\MAME). You'll want to download a version of MAME that matches the version of your roms. I'm using version .258 https://github.com/mamedev/mame/releases/download/mame0258/mame0258b_64bit.exe
2. Download a full set of Snapshots and extract them (just the .png files) to your MAME "snap" directory (e.g. C:\MAME\snap). https://www.progettosnaps.net/snapshots/
3. Download & install the .NET 8 SDK (not runtime): https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/8.0
4. Download MAMEIronXP and extract it to a directory of your choice (e.g. C:\MAMEIronXP).
5. Edit the App.config file and tell it where you extracted MAME.
6. To build MAMEIronXP, open a command prompt/terminal and navigate to your MAMEIronXP directory (C:\MAMEIronXP). Type: dotnet build
7. To run MAMEIronXP, navigate to the output directory (C:\MAMEIronXP\bin\Debug\net8.0) and double-click one MAMEIronXP executable, or at a command prompt/terminal type: dotnet run

Ubuntu**

**.NET 8 is a pain to install on older Ubuntu distributions because .NET 8 isn't in Ubuntu's package management system (apt). The "snap" install is quirky and doesn't install all the necessary dependencies. Therefore I'd recommend using Ubuntu 23.10 - that version does include .NET 8 in the apt repositories.

1. Download the MAME source code and extract it to a directory of your choice (e.g. ~/MAME). You'll want to use a version of MAME that matches the version of your roms. I'm using version .258 https://github.com/mamedev/mame/archive/refs/tags/mame0258.zip
2. Compile MAME. Follow the directions here: https://docs.mamedev.org/initialsetup/compilingmame.html

In short, change to your ~/MAME directory and run the following commands:

• sudo apt-get install git build-essential python3 libsdl2-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev libfontconfig-dev libpulse-dev qtbase5-dev qtbase5-dev-tools qtchooser qt5-qmake
• make -j 5 (you should set this value to the number of CPU cores you have + 1)

If everything goes well, you'll have a working "mame" executable

3. Download a full set of Snapshots and extract them (just the .png files) to your MAME "snap" directory (e.g. C:\MAME\snap). https://www.progettosnaps.net/snapshots/
4. Install .NET 8

sudo apt update && sudo apt install dotnet-sdk-8.0

5. Download MAMEIronXP and extract it to a directory of your choice (e.g. ~/MAMEIronXP)

git clone https://github.com/MrChrisWeinert/MAMEIronXP.git

6. Overwrite the default "App.config" file with a version suitable for Linux: cp App.config.Linux App.config
7. Edit the new App.config file and tell it where you extracted MAME.
8. To build MAMEIronXP, open a terminal and navigate to your MAMEIronXP directory (~/MAMEIronXP). Type: dotnet build
9. To run MAMEIronXP after building, you run it like any other executable ~/MAMEIronXP/bin/Debut/net8.0/MAMEIronXP

Running MAMEIronXP

"C" on the keyboard will mark a game as a Favorite and a little Pac-Man icon will show up to the left of a game. The game will show up at the top of the Games list so it's easily accessible. The game will still show up in the list in alphabetic order. Pressing C again will unfavorite a game. TODO: make this into a long-press to prevent accidental favorite/unfavorites.

"1" on the keyboard will make a selection (start a game, or make a selection on the Exit menu)

"ESC" on the keyboard will bring up the Exit menu. Pressing it again will exit out of the Exit menu.

"Up/Down" on the keyboard will scroll the games list. TODO: Implement "acceleration" so you can navigate the list VERY fast when holding down the Up/Down button.

Known Issues

Currently limited to the following resolutions with more on the way:

• 2560x1440
• 1920x1080
• 1600x900

Games list items have a fixed font size and Favorite icon size.

Where did this name come from?

MAME = Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator

Iron = This is a MAME Front-End ("Fe") and Fe is the chemical elemental symbol for Iron.

XP = X-Platform, or cross-platform