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|title = Multiple Arcade Machine EmulatorMAME|logo = MAMELogo-mame.jpgpng|logowidth = 135254

'''[[wikipedia:MAME|MAME]]''' (originally an acronym for '''<u>M</u>ultiple <u>A</u>rcade <u>M</u>achine <u>E</u>mulator''') is a multi-platform, open-source, [[Multi-system emulators|multi-system emulator]] written in C++. The philosophy behind the project is to recreate the workings of machines through emulation, and thus the ability to actually play the games is "a nice side effect". MAME is incredibly large, [[MAME compatibility list|supporting thousands of machines and ROM sets]], though what is supported is not what's playable; your mileage may vary. In the event you don't like MAME's own interface, there are [[Frontends#MAME|many alternative front-ends frontends]] available.

Much like the name says, MAME was supposed to be for arcade machines like Pac-Man back when it was released in 1997. A Over time, MAME has incorporated similar projects out of a necessity to keep development active and prevent duplication of work (as some arcade machines often shared hardware with consoles to ease development of games); the first project called to be merged was [[MESS]] was made to do essentially at the same thing end of May 2015 starting with version 0.162 and it functioned almost exactly like MAME but for home consoles and other esoteric devices that never got emulatedelsewhere. MAME also had a policy against emulating gambling machines, but it that decision has since been merged into reversed and the project that aimed to get them working, <abbr title="Arcade Gambling Extensions for MAME by the end of May 2015 in version 0.162">AGEMAME</abbr>, and now it supports ''a whole lot more'' than arcade machineshas also been merged.

{| cellpadding="4"|-|align==Windows===center|{{Icon|Win-big}}* |[httphttps://www.mamedev.org/release.html php '''Official release''']<br/><small>Stable</small>|-|colspan="3"|<hr/>|-|align=center|{{Icon|Lin|Mac|BSD}}|[https://wiki.mamedev.org/index.php/SDL_Supported_Platforms SDL Supported Platforms]|-|align=center|{{Icon|Win-big}}* |[http://ashura.mameworld.info/nightlybuilds/builds.html Nightly builds] (compiled <br><small>Compiled by Ashura-X)* [http://www.emucr.com</search/label/MAME-SVN Nightly builds] (up to November 27, 2015)small>* [http://www.t2e.pl/pl/466/134/466/Automatyczne-edycje?tsearch=mame,svn,not|plus,not|mameui,not|mewui T2E builds] (Polish, up to March 2015)}

===macOS=Overview==* MAME is the prime example of a jack of all trades; it can technically emulate consoles like the [http://sdlmame.lngn.net/ SDLMAME port[PlayStation emulators|PlayStation]] (and [[Nintendo 64-bitemulators|Nintendo 64]], provided by lngn.net)* but for those consoles you're better off going with our [[http://ashura.mameworld.info/nightlybuilds/sdl_buildsRecommended Emulators|recommended emulators]] as they may be more performant or more compatible than MAME's own drivers.html Nightly builds] (compiled by Ashura-X)

==Overview==MAME was first put out The project and its team focuses on February 5, 1997 by Nicola Salmoria as a Pac-Man emulator,<ref name="worldofstuart">[http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/mameover.htm MAME OVER[Emulation Accuracy|accuracy]] (0.99preferably cycle-accuracy)</ref><ref name="History">{{cite web|url=https://wwwand preservation, which often puts usability at a much lower priority for end users, so don't expect support for more recent boards like Atomiswave.youtube.com/watch?v=VgJF18Pm7MA|title=A Brief History of Emulation: MAME|publisher=Youtube|accessdate=2018-09-14|date=2017-12-02}}</ref> but before he could do any more work on the projectFor some systems, he handed it over to Mirko Buffoni in April 1997 after requiring to do National Service in the Italian armydevelopers may not have everything implemented.<ref name="worldofstuart"/> Since then, even as early as 2003, the emulator has become very extensive, with The native interface will tell you about the majority emulation status of arcade system boards from the 1970'schosen driver, 1980's and early 1990's supported. On February 2016 in version 0.171, a new GUI was integrated into MAME which allowed users to launch games in it without the need for a third-party GUI applicationwhat components are considered lacking.

However... don't expect support for more recent boards like Atomiswave; the project and its team focuses on We have an outdated compatibility list [[Emulation AccuracyMAME compatibility list|accuracyhere]] (preferably cycle-accuracy) and preservation, which often puts usability at a much lower priority for end users. The program is also '''very strict''' about what components of a ROM dump it needs to even function, and it may tell you if something is wrong with the files (i.e. a failed checksum); once developers know more about a system, they'll often have to dump more components like ROMs and BIOSes if necessary, and obtaining newer dumps from the boards isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world for users who only have traditional desktops, and the same goes for anyone with the actual arcade boards. Something as popular as Pac-Man will probably never need newer dumps beyond You can see the current ones because itupcoming version's been continually researched, and the dumps have been pretty widespread, but other machines you've probably only seen once at an arcade will probably need new dumps for a reasonchangelog [http://mameinfo. Only ROM dumps with all the newest information will work in new versions of MAMEmameworld. Even then, programmers may not have everything implemented. The native interface will tell you about the emulation status of the chosen romset, and whether the one you're using is even emulated at the current timeinfo/ here].Other compatibility lists:

Also see * [http://unmamed.mameworld.info/ List of arcade games that DON'T work] Last updated February 2014. Don't expect the incomplete most recent games (like [[MAME compatibility listSega NAOMI and variants|Sega Naomi]] internally hereones) to run at full speed, MAME is very resource intensive.* [http://nonmame. And the latest in-progress retrogames.com/ NonMAME] ([http://mameinfoweb.mameworldarchive.org/web/20150306213522/http://consume.retrogames.infocom/ changelog update2015 Mirror]) This is a list of arcade systems that currently are not emulated by MAME or are emulated better by other emulators.

MAME either has lots of standardization on how When developers know more about a system, they often have to dump more components like ROMs and BIOSes if necessary. It's highly recommended to organize the use a ROM dumpsmanagement tool such as RomCenter or ClrMamePro. Without these programs, or it has very little, and sometimes 'll take you a lot longer to find the given information can be vague and confusingnecessary files for a game. A single game may  Something as popular as Pac-Man will probably never need lots of files for newer dumps beyond the current ones because it's been continually researched from the dump to even registerbeginning, and separate folders the ROMs have been pretty widespread, but for very rare machines, MAME will see continuous changes in the BIOS files of consolesit needs as more information is discovered about the system. For machines that use stuff like hard drives and optical disks You can expect these ROMs to store its datasurface online in some form, MAME has a special format called Compressed Hunks of Data (CHD) which uses a number of compression methods to reduce but you may as well never get them directly from the size of a raw image filedevelopers themselves.

It MAME is highly recommended '''very strict''' about what components of a ROM dump it needs to even function, and it may tell you if something is wrong with the files (i.e. a failed checksum); only a ROMset with all the newest information will work in recent versions of MAME. For machines that use stuff like hard drives and optical disks to store its data, MAME has its own format called Compressed Hunks of Data (CHD) which uses a number of compression methods to reduce the size of a raw image file. This format also allows MAME to use 7-Zip archives for ROMsets in place of Zip files. ===Frontends===MAME used to be a command line application that was launched by a separately licensed frontend. However, with MAME relicensing as open source in 2016, the developers have since incorporated MEWUI as its built-in interface. However, it still accepts command-line parameters, allowing most frontends to keep working. You can see a ROM management tool such list of them '''[[Frontends#MAME|here]]'''. ===History===MAME was first released on February 5, 1997 by Nicola Salmoria as RomCenter or ClrMameProa Pac-Man emulator,<ref name="worldofstuart">[http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/mameover.htm MAME OVER] (0.99)</ref><ref name="History">{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube. Without all com/watch?v=VgJF18Pm7MA|title=A Brief History of Emulation: MAME|publisher=Youtube|accessdate=2018-09-14|date=2017-12-02}}</ref> but before he could do any more work on the project he handed it over to Mirko Buffoni in April 1997 after being required files to do National Service in the Italian army.<ref name="worldofstuart"/> Since then, even as early as 2003, the emulator has become very extensive, with the majority of arcade system boards from the 1970's, 1980's and file versionsearly 1990's supported. MAME originally used a custom BSD license that prohibited commercial use in a few ways. This was mainly used to deter arcade operators from monetizing an emulated version of a widely available commercial title like Pac-Man. However, the MAME team didn't have the funds to afford prosecutors, so this was never effectively enforced. Through an extensive relicensing process in 2016, the game simply will not workproject completely changed to a combination of GPL/BSD where applicable. This allowed them to merge the codebase for the MEWUI frontend into the main application starting with version 0.171.

|Something like this should work in theoryThe following is a non-destructive one-liner to decompress and recompress your files from zip to 7z. '''It has not been testedPlease account for at least a 3:1 space requirement, and about 3 seconds time per file (give or take). Keep in mind, proceed with cautionif you have any other folders present in the working directory it'll snag those too during the second step.'''

7z e (romset)for y in *.zip ; do 7z x "${y%}" -o (romset)/ *; done && for i in */; do 7z a (romset)"${i%/}".7z (romset)"./${i%}*"; done

Just After it's done, be sure to check and make sure that you've installed 7-the 7z and zip and it registers to the environment path, that youfiles're in contents match before deleting both the folder, zips and that you substitute (romset) for the name of the romset in the commandtheir extracted folders.

==List of Arcade systems emulatedForks=====MAMEUI64===* [http://unmamedMAMEUI64 is the current name of MAME32, the original MAME GUI for Windows.mameworldAs it traces its lineage to MAME32 0.info/ List 27 from 1997, it has additional bugs compared to mainline MAME, lacks several features of arcade games that DON'T work] Last updated February 2014modern MAME or makes it difficult to use them via GUI, and does not scale properly to high resolutions. Don't expect The MAME developers do not recommend using any derivative of MAME32 for these reasons, instead suggesting mainline MAME with an external frontend if the most recent games (like internal MEWUI is not sufficient. ===[[Sega NAOMI and variants|Sega NaomiGroovyMAME]] ones===GroovyMAME (or GroovyUME) is a fork of MAME/UME made primarily to run at full speed, MAME is very resource intensivesupport arcade CRT monitors for AMD cards. It also includes input lag reductions that can be taken advantage of on CRTs or LCDs.* [http://nonmameforum.retrogamesarcadecontrols.com/ NonMAME] ([http://webindex.archive.orgphp/web/20150306213522/http://consumetopic,128879.retrogames.com/ 2015 Mirror]) This is a list of arcade systems that currently are not emulated by MAME or are emulated better by other emulators0.html?PHPSESSID=domm2c4q77esu0j9uohc5vrqn5

==Frontends=PinMAME===PinMAME is a fork of MAME32 0.76 that exclusively runs ROMs for pinball machines. It can be used to launch these ROMs standalone, like with MAME . However, unlike MAME, it also has many third-party front ends. Please help expand this sectiona COM module called VPinMAME that can be used with the pinball simulator Visual Pinball, or to drive real hardware.

[http://arcade.mameworld.info/ ARCADE]ARCADE is a maintenance-only continuation of the MAMEUIFX project, which was in turn forked from MAMEUI/MAME32. MAMEUIFX included unique drivers and games compared to mainline MAME, but these are now integrated into [[HBMAME]] instead.

* [https://mamedev.emulab.it/haze/ Developer coverage] from [https://wiki.mamedev.org/index.php/David_Haywood David 'Haze' Haywood]. (A media-heavy blog with few articles per month on average. Goes more in-depth than MAME's changelogs and can be fun to read. Also see his [https://www.youtube.com/user/ShootBoomBoom YouTube channel] & [https://twitter.com/MameHaze Twitter feed]. Former project coordinator, 2003-2005.)

* [https://www.youtube.com/user/LambShanks YouTube channel] from [https://wiki.mamedev.org/index.php/Phil_B%27s_To-Do_List Philip Bennett] (His [http://philwip.mameworld.info/ website] is not updated anymore, but his [https://twitter.com/PhilBennett3D Twitter feed] is active. He tends to research early 3D arcade systems from the mid-1980's to 1990's, and uploads some dumps of machines and clones to MAME.)* [https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCVnS-HQL-pzFku5ZVCGnvBA/videos YouTube channel] from [https://wiki.mamedev.org/index.php/MooglyGuy%27s_To-Do_List Ryan 'MooglyGuyTheMogMiner' Holtz], [https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Ryan_Holtz former Minecraft developer] (Note: His Twitter feed has lots of fillers unrelated to his MAME work)* [https://www.youtube.com/Sterophonick YouTube channel] from [https://sterophonick.github.io/sites Sterophonick] (Began working on 2018 Gigatron TTL Microcomputer for MAME on [https://twitter.com/sterophonick/status/1290524729825062913 Aug 4, 2020].)* [https://twitter.com/aaronsgiles Twitter feed] from [https://aarongiles.com/ Aaron Giles] (His older [https://aarongiles.com/old/ Aaron's Almanac] website for MAME work was last updated in 2012. However, he "came back from the dead" to work on MAME again on [https://twitter.com/aaronsgiles/status/1286054480056786944 July 23, 2020]! Former project lead, 2005-2011. Wrote drivers for 11 CPUs, 7 sound chips, and 100+ arcade games.)* [https://twitter.com/algestam Twitter feed] from Henrik 'algestam' Algestam (He is well noted for dumping and emulating those Nintendo [[Game & Watch]] LCD handheld titles to MAME)