Getting started bare minimum

This page describes the minimal steps to get a working Advanced MAME Launcher information.

Table of Contents

Recommended directory layout
Notes for Windows users
Configuring AML
Setting up AML

Recommended directory layout

This is the recommended MAME directory layout. You have to create all the directories yourself, AML does not create any directory automatically.

Directory	Notes
/home/kodi/AML-ROMs/	Place MAME arcade ROMs and BIOSes here

Remember to update your mame.ini configuration file to point to the correct directories where you have placed your ROMs/CHDs. Otherwise MAME won't work at all. If you are runing MAME as the kodi user then mame.ini will be located in /home/kodi/.mame/mame.ini

...
#
# CORE SEARCH PATH OPTIONS
#
homepath                  .
rompath                   /home/kodi/AML-ROMs
...

Notes for Windows users

Configuring AML

AML supports merged, split and non-merged ROM sets.

Place your compressed ROMs ZIP archives in the /home/kodi/AML-ROMs/ directory.

Setting up AML

1. Install and run AML for the first time.

2. Open AML addon settings, in the tab Paths configure the MAME executable and the ROM path.

3. In AML root window select any item, open the context menu, select Setup plugin. Execute, in consecutive order:

   1. Extract MAME.xml ... extracts the MAME.xml database from MAME and counts the number of MAME machines.

   2. Build all databases converts the MAME XML database into JSON format, strips out unneeded information to boost performance, generates the filter parent/clone lists and processes the Software List XML databases.

   3. Scan everyting scans your MAME machine ROMs and sets all tags having a ? to the appropriate value.

Once the databases have been build you can start browsing all the MAME machines and launch machines. However, since you have not configured the INI files some of the filters in the root windows won't be available. MAME machines won't have any artwork displayed as well.