Mame

[sharp]

Well, as a totally clueless man in the realm of emulation, I was bound to stumble into it. Which brings me here. I'm tired of being clueless, so anythhing you can give me is great. You know, how they work, where to find a decent one, common problems, your favorite mame roms, etc. The more informative stuff'd be nice, but what I really want to geto out of this is a working emulator that plays something.

[Zorlon]

Grab the windows Mame32 version (set it to recognise control pads) then ingame use Tab for more options including key/pad config options

[SegNin]

sharp, welcome to the arcade side of emulation.

This is the site for you:
http://www.mameworld.net/easyemu/mameguide/mamemenu.htm

Here's the home page for that site-- shows how to get started using other arcade/console emulators:
http://www.mameworld.net/easyemu/

As Zorlon mentioned, MAME32 is an excellent choice, especially for a beginner. Get it from here:
http://www.classicgaming.com/mame32qa/

[Evans]

Not to be forgotten, screenshots of games for helping you in making your own library: http://www.mame.net/screenshotsNEW.html

Remember, some games require a pretty fast and powerful computer in order to work decently. Have fun.

[AKUMA™]

Not to be forgotten, screenshots of games for helping you in making your own library: http://www.mame.net/screenshotsNEW.html

Remember, some games require a pretty fast and powerful computer in order to work decently. Have fun.

You can get all the screenshot packs here: http://www.classicgaming.com/mame32qa/ look to the bottom of the page. You'll need a FilePlanet account, which is free to get. And if you really want to get into Arcade emulation, I have lots of links to guides and info sources at my website, just click the green link in my sig.

[sharp]

Ok. Forget all that. Anyway, I've got MAME32 and a game called Hot Gimmick 3. Anyway, I'll check the sites and see what I can figure out on my own, but please, if you know what to do, please, don't hesitate to tell me.

[Zorlon]

The best way to learn is to just look through the gui settings (the game choice thing is the gui) and then in game check through the menu you get after you hit the TAB key on your keyboard

[sharp]

The game came in several ".u##" files. Should I do something with those?

[polobunny]

Not extract them.

[Evans]

Mame plays the games as you get them, that is with their weird names and in zip format. Just put them in the games or roms or whatever directory or just make a folder and tell the emu to look for games in that particular one through the options or gui menu.