MAME compatibility list

This is an incomplete list of compatibility issues that MAME has with different systems.

Atari

2600

Rivals Stella in most cases, and is even better in some cases.

5200

Doesn't boot for some reason.

7800

Pretty much the most accurate emulator for this system.

8-bit

Relatively inaccurate. INC WSYNC, for instance, waits 3 scanlines instead of just waiting 1 scanline like it's supposed to.

ST

No inputs anywhere, so you can't really use it.

Jaguar

Holy shit, this one has lots of weird bugs. One being Tempest 2000 overwriting the cart ROM region. Stay the fuck away from it.

Apple

Apple 1

Pretty much perfect.

Apple 2

Also pretty much perfect, and it's got good emulation of a bunch of peripherals too! The later versions do have some problems with inverted text it seems.

Apple 3

The only working emulator for this system, due to RBelmont reverse-engineering the weird banking system this one uses.

Commodore

Vic-20

Really slow, and also kinda inaccurate.

Commodore 64

Kinda slow, and also kinda inaccurate.

Commodore 128

Never even made it past the WIP stage. Don't even bother.

Amiga

Decent for OCS. Kinda iffy on everything else.

IBM

PC 5150

It works fine for anything that doesn't require the cassette port or timing. Don't expect to run 8088 MPH on it.

PC/XT 5160

It works fine for anything that doesn't require timing.

PC/AT 5170

It works fine.

AT clones up to 486

It works just fine, barring some rare CPU core bugs.

AT clones with Pentium

Don't even bother. It needs a pretty bad rewrite to actually work. It also doesn't emulate any Super I/O chips, either.

Microsoft

MSX

Works pretty well.

MSX2

Works pretty well too.

MSX2 Plus

Works okay.

Xbox

It doesn't work nearly as well as XQEMU, let's just put it that way. It's also ungodly amounts of slow thanks to no i386 dynarec.

NEC

PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16

It's only got one major problem. The game Air Zonk hangs due to imprecise timings. Other than that, it's fine.

PC Engine CD

Again, it's mostly fine, but you're gonna want to use the new video cores and also pray you have a good dump.

SuperGrafx

Works fine.

PC-FX

This doesn't even boot, due to issues with the CPU core that it shares with the Virtual Boy.

Nintendo

NES

The PPU for this core is per-scanline, so mid-frame effects generally don't work too well. The only reason it can even handle MMC5 games is because of hacks! It really needs a video system rewrite and BAD.

SNES

Many timing issues here. It's probably not even as accurate as SNES9x. It really needs to be reworked.

Nintendo 64

This whole system has tons of timing issues. Tread lightly.

Game Boy (Color)

Lots of slight timing bugs, but other than that, it's fine.

Virtual Boy

Sorta works, but some games just completely crap out. It's also really slow.

Game Boy Advance

Many atrocious timing bugs, though endrift and MoochMcGee have tried to help clean it up. 16-bit unaligned accesses also aren't emulated correctly, so most of endrift's hardware tests fail.

Sega

SG-1000

Nearly perfect.

Master System

Pretty damn accurate. MAME is quite a good emulator for this system.

Mega Drive

Runs most games fine. Some don't work that well, but it's got about a 95% compatibility rate.

Mega CD

Not that good. The extra processors throw in more timing problems.

32X

Lots of timing issues. There are also suspected SH2 core bugs that come up more frequently on the 32X due to most games being programmed in assembly instead of C like most other SH2 platforms.

Mega CD and 32X

This probably won't work that well.

Saturn

It's a little better than Yabause; but with much nicer code.

Dreamcast

Nowhere close to even nulldc. It's also very slow, and only started booting games thanks to what amounts to a miracle.

Model 1 Arcade

Reverse engineering isn't quite finished on the geometry DSP, so don't expect every game to work. Regardless, Virtua Fighter works fine.

Model 2 Arcade

Again, reverse engineering hasn't been finished on the first model's DSP, but there are plenty of other problems that also need to be worked out. Last I checked, Virtua Cop 2's textures just display black. Virtua Fighter 2 just freezes after a bit due to bugs in the DSP comms. Development on this core has also been sabotaged by the fact that the only known working Model 2 emulator is closed source. Some MAMEdevs have the source, but refuse to share it or do anything with it, thereby ensuring that this driver doesn't work well.

Model 3 Arcade

It's in better shape than Model 2, but it's slow and has lots of bugs. Virtua Fighter 3 either hangs or crashes a bit into gameplay, depending on what set you use.

Naomi Arcade

It's okay? I'm not sure if I can really call it that frankly. There are just too many bugs. It's also quite slow, as you can expect from most 3D games in MAME.

Chihiro Arcade

Basically an arcade Xbox. It boots OutRun 2, and not much else.

Sony

Playstation

It's got lots of bugs. Many games have SPU-related hangs, for instance. It's not even as good as pSX, and that emulator's ancient! It can run some games that PCSX-R can't though, like Parappa the Rapper.

Pocketstation

It works pretty well, actually. I daresay the emulation is perfect.