Arcade emulators

Arcades were venues in which many games were played at, often containing thousands of games. Arcades often got their revenue from players who paid to play games. Most arcade emulators focus on emulating many systems in one program, the scope of which varies between projects.

Example of a Ms. Pac-Man arcade cabinet.

For the compatibility list of arcade games, see Arcade game compatibility list.

GCA3A

The birth of GCA3A

On January 2, 2024, mom.txt was created. It was mainly Konami (573) arcade games and PC Engine (PCE) related arcade games. Blood Wolf, published by Data East (Deco), was added. It couldn't be just this one game, and later Deco games were added. Captain Lang also had a Mega Drive (MD) port, and the MAME team still didn't get the original ROM, and High Seas Havoc was still not emulated. Sega (Service Games) arcade games and consoles were added. After a while, MIOMI was created, and no one knew why it was called this. The name MOM would definitely not be accepted, so it was changed to MIOMI. But why was it called MOM? Forgot! It wasn't until a long time after GCA3A was created that I remembered that there was a arcade game called "Come 'on Mama" or "Com'on Mama" by 573? To this day, no one can prove that it really existed. MIOMI was changed to a very long name, which was not good. MESIS.txt or MISIS.txt was created, and fruit machines and pinball machines were added. Later this name was abandoned, and it also came from 573's arcade game Nemesis. Since MIOMI was renamed, GCA3A was created. It is not an abbreviation, and the naming method also refers to the 573 PCB. 573's early arcade games started with GX, which was earlier than System GX. Other 573 arcade PCBs were named GC, GE, GG, GK, GL, GM, GN, GO, GP, GQ, GR, GS, GU, GV, GX, GY, GZ, ZV, and ZR. GCA3A was not completed in the three months originally expected, and everything needed to be rewritten.

For some reason, not many software or patches for running computer (especially Windows PC) games will be added. Only software developed for computers will be added, and other platforms are mostly unofficial ports from MS-DOS or Windows, unless it is an official port or the emulation is more accurate than MAME. Commercial emulators (and simulators), music emulators, fruit machine emulators (and simulators), and pinball machine emulators (,simulators and engines) have all been removed.

Computers: Amiga, Acorn, Amstrad, Apple, Atari, Be, CBM, descendants of IBM PC compatibles, Raspberry Pi

For mobile users, you'd better have a tablet or foldable phone to access this page. The browser must support JavaScript. One more thing: Arcade emulators developed for JavaScript have also been removed.

There is also a TODO list of hardware that runs about 900 arcade games that is not yet completed or fixed.

Editing GCA3A takes a lot of time and you have to know them very well. If you know some original software developed for computers to run arcade games, you can add it to Talk:GCA3A. You must have tested it and have screenshots, videos, official documentation and official websites (archived) to prove its existence and compatibility. They must be easy to use and do not require too much extra operation. It would be best if all the file names, sha, crc are included. They may be added after GCA3A is completed.

In order to save mobile data and battery consumption, it is necessary to reduce unnecessary code and white background damage to the eyes.

Emulators

Name	Platform(s)	Latest version	# of Emulated systems	Libretro	Retro Achievements	License	Active	Recommended
PC / x86
MAME		git artifacts 0.289 0.289 (GroovyMAME) 0.289 (HBMAME)	Thousands	✓	✗	GPLv2 BSD-3-Clause	✓	✓
FinalBurn Neo		libretro core nightly stable	Hundreds	✓	✓	Non-commercial	✓	✓
Hypseus Singe		3.0.2	1 (LaserDisc)	✗	✗	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✓	✓
TeknoParrot		TPBootstrapper [https://teknoparrot.com/home/download This page is a candidate for deletion. The reason is: "typo in title" If you disagree with the candidate, explain why at the talk page or improve the page and remove the {{delete}} tag. Remember to check for any active links to the page and its history before deleting. ]	20 (PC based)	✗	✗	Proprietary	✓	✓
Model 2 Emulator		1.1a	1 (Sega Model 2)	✗	✗	Proprietary	✗	✓
Supermodel		model3emu-code-sinden 0.3a git SVN	1 (Sega Model 3)	~ (WIP)	✗	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✓	✓
DEmul		0.7 Build 180428	6 (Sega NAOMI and variants)	✗	✗	Proprietary	✗	✓
Visual Pinball with Visual PinMAME/vPinMAME		VPX installer 10.7.2 Visual PinballX Standalone vPinMAME 3.5	68 (Pinball)	✗	✗	MAME license (Non-commercial	✓	✓
DICE		0.9	20 (Discrete circuitry-based)	✗	✗	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	✓
Flycast		CI Builds libretro core Flycast Dojo (Flycast道場) nightly (Flathub) 2.7 (Stable)	3 (Sega NAOMI and variants)	✓	~	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✓	~
RAINE		0.97.6	1063	✗	✗	?	✓	✗
FinalBurn Alpha		0.2.97.43	Hundreds	✓	✗	Non-commercial	✗	✗
DirkSimple		libretro core	1 (LaserDisc)	✓	?	zlib License (Permissive	✓	✗
DAPHNE		1.0.12	1 (LaserDisc)	~ (WIP)	✗	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
ZiNc		1.1	3 (ZN-1, ZN-2, Namco System 11)	✗	✗	Proprietary	✗	✗*
Calice		0.6.4	6 (Capcom, Sega, SNK, Gaelco)	✗	✗	Proprietary	✗	✗
Kawaks		1.65	3 (Neo Geo, CPS1, CPS2)	✗	✗	Proprietary	✗	✗
CPS3 Emulator		1.0a	1 (CPS3)	✗	✗	Proprietary	✗	✗
VivaNonno		22.0.3	1 (Namco System 22)	✗	✗	Proprietary	✗	✗
Callus95		0.42(official) 0.42 Patch 2.4(unoficial)	1 (Capcom System 1)	✗	✗	Proprietary	✗	✗
Kronos		2.7.5	1 (STV)	✓	~	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✓	✗
Nova		0.7.0	1 (STV)	✗	✗	Proprietary	✗	✗

Name	Platform(s)	Latest Version	# of Emulated systems	ROM Set	Libretro	Retro Achievements	License	Active	Recommended
Mobile / ARM
FinalBurn Neo		libretro core	Hundreds	1.0.0.2	✓	✓	Non-commercial	✓	✓
MAME		libretro core	Thousands	0.289	✓	✗	GPLv2 BSD-3-Clause	✓	✓
MAME4droid Current (0.273)		1.411.41	Thousands	MAME 0.273	✓	✗	GPLv2 BSD-3-Clause	✓	✓
MAME4droid (0.139u1)		1.16.9git	Thousands	MAME 0.139u1	✓ (mame2010)	✗	GPLv2 BSD-3-Clause	✗	✗
MAME4droid (MAME4All) (0.37b5)		1.5.3git	Thousands	MAME 0.37b5	✓ (mame2000)	✗	GPLv2 BSD-3-Clause	✗	✗
FinalBurn Alpha		SVN	Hundreds	FBA 0.2.97.42 (based on MAME 0.187)	✓	✗	Non-commercial	✗	✗
Consoles
MAME4All		1.0 ? git 0.3.0	Thousands	MAME 0.37b5	✗	✗	Non-commercial	✗	✓
FinalBurn Neo		libretro core	Hundreds	1.0.0.2	✓	✓	Non-commercial	✓	✓
Virtual Console		?	Various	?	✗	✗	Proprietary	✗	✓
pFBN		git	47	1.0.0.2	✗	✗	Non-commercial	✓	✓
NJEMU		2.3.5	4 (CPS1, CPS2, Neo Geo, Neo Geo CD)	MAME 0.152	✗	✗	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✗	✓
Unofficial Mod		2.3.1	4 (CPS1, CPS2, Neo Geo, Neo Geo CD)	MAME 0.120	✗	✗	?	✗	✓
FBA4PSP		v12.4.0	1 (CPS1)	MAME 0.141	✗	✗	Non-commercial	✗	✓

Comparisons

MAME

Very extensive in scope, with the majority of arcade system boards from the 1970's, 1980's and early 1990's supported, with a minor amount of games from the 2000s being bootable and another minority of thise being playable, but buggy. Do not expect support for more recent boards, such as Atomiswave. MAME focuses on accuracy and preservation, meaning usability comes second for the end user. Only the most up to date ROM dumps will work in the latest MAME.

FinalBurn Neo

A fork of the now-inactive FinalBurn Alpha. Supports many boards, such as Neo Geo, Capcom CPS1-3, and others. It is very good for the boards it supports. The Neo Geo X system, in fact, uses FBA. It offers much better speeds on lower-end hardware than MAME and has been ported to many different devices. It has a smaller ROMset than MAME, but the ROMs are identical for the machines they share. If you have a system that is incapable of running the newest version of MAME, it is generally recommended to use FinalBurn Neo instead of a very old version of MAME.

Visual PinMAME

An emulator for the electronics of pinball systems. The simulation of most modern pinball machines (especially those made after 1992, using large portions of DMD animations and digital sound samples) require the PinMAME (sometimes referred to as VPinMAME or VPM) program in order to behave as close to the physical machine as possible. PinMAME is a fork from old MAME code and can be loaded as a DLL in Visual Pinball. MAME can emulate the electronics for quite a few pinball systems aswell but doesn’t include physics simulation for the pinball table part and no simulator supports using MAME for emulation.

DICE

Emulates old arcade machines from the early 1970's at a very high level of accuracy. Since these machines had no CPU, the emulator instead emulates discrete logic components in the circuit board. This method is very system-intensive, and getting full speed requires at least a mid-range gaming PC along with the 64-bit version of the emulator. Due to incompatibility with the newest Windows, the program will need to be run in compatibility mode or else it would crash when attempting to run a game.

Supermodel

Emulates Sega's Model 3 arcade platform focusing on accuracy. Presently, Supermodel is in a very early "alpha" stage of development, meaning it lacks many planned features. It does not yet have a user-friendly graphical interface, and all CPUs are emulated using straightforward (and slow) interpretation rather than fast just-in-time translation. Game compatibility is quite good. It has an experimental multi-player network build.

Model 2 Emulator

Emulates, as per its name, Sega's Model 2 arcade platform with a focus on speed over accuracy. Despite this, however, it still manages to play games for that hardware with far higher accuracy than MAME currently can.

Virtual Console

Emulates Sega, Namco, Capcom and Tecmo arcade games, as well as the Neo Geo. It is a viable method for official emulation, but forces you to play like you would on a real arcade machine.

Arcade Archives

Emulates Namco, Tecmo, Konami, and Taito arcade games, as well as the Neo Geo. It is a viable method for official emulation, but forces you to play like you would on a real arcade machine.

Machines

Machines often varied by their design and, unlike consoles, were often tailored to just one game. Games were designed to eat as many quarters as possible, which is emulated with the "Coin" key. Some games have a service mode (mapped to F2 in MAME) with menus meant for the arcade owner to set dipswitches for difficulty, censorship, language, and most importantly a "Free Play" mode that allows players to continue as many as they want without requesting more coins. Sometimes, similar menus meant for developers (labeled debug or test usually, sometimes requiring a developer BIOS like with some Neo Geo games) are left in the game too.

Discrete circuitry-based

The earliest arcade games lacked any type of CPU, consisting only of discrete logic components. The first arcade video game, as well as the first commercial game, released was Computer Space in 1971.

Comparisons

DICE

The emulator works by simulating each logic chip on the board individually.

MAME

As of version .208, Breakout, Galaxy Game, Pong, Pong Doubles, and Rebound are working in MAME.

HBMAME

HBMAME is a derivative of MAME, and contains various hacks and homebrews. It is based on the latest MAME source at the time of release. Has support for a remake of Monaco G.P. which was Sega's final game to rely primarily upon discrete analog circuitry - an oddity for a game made in 1979, some three years after microprocessors were introduced to the market. As this was among the most complex games of its kind, don't bet on seeing it working in MAME anytime soon.

For emulating these hardware, see #Emulators.

Arcade Original Hardware

Hardware made specifically for the arcade to provide for graphics and performance unseen on home consoles. Extremely common in the golden age of arcades but became much less frequent as companies used modified existing hardware instead to save on R&D costs and easier cross-platform development, or tried to differentiate between the home and arcade experience with control scheme gimmicks instead.

MAME's purpose is to cover most of these. Older arcades as well as select popular arcade machines, the Neo Geo and Capcom's CPS series, in particular, received their own standalone emulators. Sometimes, they received their own console versions but those are mostly ports, not emulation, with very few exceptions.

Main article: Arcade

For emulating these hardware, see #Emulators.

Converted Home Console Hardware

Those arcade boards share most of the hardware specifications with existing home consoles, with the addition of a coin slot and occasionally DRM and some changes. While MAME supports most of those, standalone emulators for the base home console are more mature and often (but not always) support the arcade variants.

Original Developer	System
Nintendo	NES/Famicom
	VS. System
	PlayChoice 10
	Super Nintendo/Super Famicom
	Super System
	Nintendo 64
	Seta	Aleck 64
	Nintendo GameCube
	Namco Sega Nintendo	Triforce
	Wii
	Capcom Eighting	Tatsunoko vs. Capcom
Sega	SG-1000
	Master System
	Shooting Zone
	System E
	Sega Genesis/Mega Drive
	Mega-Tech/Mega Play
	System C System C2
	Sega Saturn
	Sega Titan Video
	Dreamcast
	NAOMI NAOMI GD-ROM NAOMI Multiboard NAOMI Satellite Terminal
	Hikaru
	NAOMI 2 NAOMI 2 GD-ROM NAOMI 2 Satellite Terminal
	System SP
	Sammy	Atomiswave
The 3DO Company	3DO Interactive Multiplayer
	Atari
	Panasonic M2
	Konami	Konami M2
Atari	Atari Jaguar
	CoJag
Sony	PlayStation
	Capcom Sony	ZN-1 ZN-2
	Namco	System 10 System 11 System 12
	Taito	FX-1A System FX-1B System
		G-NET System
	Konami	GQ System GV System
		System 573 System 573 Satellite Terminal Benami System 573 Analog Benami System 573 Digital
		Benami Twinkle
		Benami Karaoke
	PlayStation 2
	Namco	System 147
		System 246
		System 256 System Super 256
	Konami	Python Python Satellite Terminal Python 2
		Benami Python Benami Python 2
	PlayStation 3
	Namco	System 357
	PlayStation 4
	Square Enix Koei Tecmo	Dissidia Final Fantasy
Microsoft	Xbox
	Sega	Chihiro Chihiro Satellite Terminal

Main article: [System16's arcade museum]

Converted PC Hardware

Based on normal PC architecture with a variation of Windows 7 Embedded or Linux installed and tons of DRM and custom drivers. These can still be run on computers using the right launchers (Game loader All RH, SpiceTools, idmacx tools, TeknoParrot...) but most of them likely won't be emulated by MAME anytime soon, and not just because of their policies on what hardware is too recently commercialized to cover.

Original Developer	System
Microsoft	MS-DOS
	Taito	Wolf System
	Windows 98
	Midway	Quicksilver II
	Windows 2000
	Midway	Quicksilver II
		Graphite
	Windows XP
	Taito	Type X/X+ Type X7 Type X2 Type X2 Satellite Terminal Type X3
	Konami	PC Based Bemani PC
	Examu	eX-Board
	Sega	Lindbergh Blue
	Windows Embedded Standard 2009
	Sega	RingEdge RingWide RingEdge 2
	Windows 7
	Taito	Type X Zero Type X3 Type X4
	Konami	Bemani PC
	Namco	System ES1(A2) System ES2 PLUS System ES3 System ES4
	Windows 8
	Taito	Type X4
	Sega	Nu Nu 1.1 Nu 2
	Windows 10
	Konami	Bemani PC
	Namco	System BNA1
	Sega	ALLS
	Unknown
	Raw Thrills
Linux	Linux (32-bit) (Debian based)
	Namco	System N2 System N2 Satellite Terminal
	Arcade Linux (32-bit) (Debian 4.0 based)
	Namco	System ES1
	Montavista Linux
	Sega	Lindbergh Lindbergh Red (EX)
	Ubuntu Linux
	Raw Thrills	(Repurposed prebuilt PCs)

Main article: [System16's arcade museum]

The games first need to run on an operating system equivalent to that of the machine, which may imply Wine use on Linux or having to upgrade to 64-bit editions. Some GPUs or wrappers may be required. Additionally, the following need to be installed:

• Microsoft Visual C++ Runtimes: A one-in-all link for all editions from 2005 to 2015 may be found here.
• Microsoft .NET Frameworks: Any version from 1.0 to 4.8.1 may be required, the newer, the better.
• Microsoft DirectX 9.0: Offline installer here.
• PC Video Codecs: Grabbing the standard K Lite Codec pack from here is recommended.

Remember to backup data from the downloaded scene release before trying to fix it to run.

• Launcher: The game needs this to work at all. There are many: Jconfig, TeknoParrot... and each game requires a specific launcher. If you got the dump from elsewhere, not in a clean state that doesn't work, it may be because of conflicting launchers and you will have to delete all of them (typically Detoured.dll, Game loader Rh.exe, Typex_config.exe, Typex_loader.exe, TTXconfig 2.0, TTX-moniter.dll...)
• iDmacDrv32.dll: Needed in Nesica games. If present, do not delete it, copy Jconfig.exe and the replacement iDmacDrv32.dll from the Jconfig package, then double-click NesicaXlive.reg to import keys to your registry, and use the game executable to run the game. If not present, copy Jconfig.exe, JVSemu.dll, and jvs_loader.exe from the Jconfig package, and use jvs_loader.exe to run the game.
• Save Fixes: Some games can't save scores and data at all. For a bunch of machines, there are fixes (called "loaders pack") that enable that, but some machines (nesica) handle saving purely using official servers in which case there's not much (yet) to do about it.
• Unpacked exe/dll Files: Some games, especially SEGA games, can't be executed on regular PCs as their game logic is wrapped in dlls (htsysmnt.dll etc.) in the operating system comes with the arcade hardware. Unpacked exe/dll files unwrapped such game logic so they can be executed properly. Just drop these files to where the original exe/dll is located and execute/load these files in loaders to start the game.
• Local Server: Some games, especially recent Konami and SEGA games, require network service provided by manufacture in order to save progress, unlock game contents, or even start the game itself. Local server programs (Asphyxia, Minime, Aqua, etc.) emulate such network service on the local computer which makes games bootable and network-related functionalities work. These tools have to be started before starting the game, and kept running during the game session, and game launchers have to be configured to make games communicate with them. Notice that not all functionalities (especially corner case ones such as e-cash, player camera, etc.) in every version of every game work, and some games would require extra fixes to properly communicate with the local server. Check readme files provided by developers or game scenes for more information.
• Extra Fixes: Varies per game. Check the readme with the game scene release.

You can set your controls in Jconfig.exe, and it's recommended to disable Dsound and D3D Wrapper.

Some games can have DirectX related problems. For some, deleting the existing d3d9.dll or opengl.dll files can help. For others, they expect the older D3D8 codec and have bugs (crashes, uneven speed) that can be fixed with Reshade's d3d8to9 plugin.

LaserDisc

Main article: Arcade LaserDisc emulators

Pinball

Main article: Pinball

See also

• Arcade LaserDisc emulators
• Arcade database