Frequently Asked Questions

What is MAME™ ?

MAME™ is an acronym for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator.
This emulator has been created in 1997 by Nicola Salmoria and runs today on a lot of platforms (linux, mac, cellphones, ..., and even Playstation3). The project is currently coordinated by Aaron Giles.
MAME™ software emulates the originals arcade hardware (cpu, sound chips, input controllers, RAM, data buses, etc). It uses "drivers" that define an arcade system: components emulated and the manner they interact with each other.
MAME™ primary goal is to preserve arcade games, the playability is considered as "a nice side effect". In consequence, most of 3D modern games emulation will be slow even on a fast computer. Specific tweaks on 3D games emulation are banned to allow portability on a multiple number of platforms.

A stable version of MAME™ is available monthly. Between two stable releases (ie "0.128" and "0.129"), the development team launch updates (marked with "u", ie "0.128u1", "0.128u2", "0.128u3", etc.) to MAME™ testers.
Many games (known as ROM) are modified, renamed, added, with bug correction from a stable release to an other. It means that a particular version of MAME™ works with a specific games list.

Original arcade circuit-board ROM (Read Only Memory) chips are dumped into game's data files knowns as ROMs. ROMs that run under MAME™ are then the original games, bit per bit, and not a re-writen simulation.
This is important because MAME™ is like a museum : it tries to preserve the vintage games from being forgotten (or even lost). The goal is NOT to have playable ROMs but to have a complete documentation about how the games runs.
ROMs are a zipped file of all dumped chips files.

MAME™ is the hardware, ROMs are games... and what about CHDs ? When a game uses a lot of data like video animations that are not part of the playable game itself (stored on hard disk, laserdisc or magnetic tape), it's easier to put those animations in a separated "CHD" file.
Those CHDs (Compressed Hunks of Data) may constitute big files but are absolutely necessary for a game to be playable.

A BIOS (Basic Input Output System) is the common part of arcade boards of the same manufacturer. Most of those boards are identical with the game added in a sort of cartdridge. A BIOS is a ROM that groups common chips dumps.
When a BIOS is available to a set of ROMs, such ROMs won't work at all if the BIOS is not present!

Because arcade cabinets are different from one region to an other and because it exists hacked version (known as "bootleg"), a ROM is choosen as "original" and all copies that differs are then "clones".
To simplify ROMs structures, an original (also known as "parent") ROM is built from complete dumps and a clone contains only the difference with the original one. It makes lighter ROM files but a clone ROM won't work at all if the original is not present!

MAME™ now includes a minimalistic GUI (Graphical User Interface) showing the list of ROMs found on given path but modern compfortable GUI is offered by a frontend.
A frontend is an optionnal software that shows available ROMs with search functions, filters and multiple data: icons, screenshots, cabinets, move list, etc. It then automatically launches MAME™ with the ROM selected.

Yes, the world is cruel : MAME™ is not developped to specifically let you play games and all ROMs (except a few ones) are under copyright.
It simply means that you cannot play with a ROM of an arcade game you didn't paid! Sad but true isn't it ? If you own the original game, the ROM is tolerated as a backup (and then you should know how to "dump" a ROM huh ?). Its said that even MAME™ developpers are waiting for a minimum of 3 years before adding a game; keep in mind that MAME™ is built like a museum and its goal is not to crash the arcade industry, it never will.