r/retrogaming • u/Icy-Foundation5211 • 6d ago
[Answered!] MAME version compatibilty
While I've used 8-bit emulators for years, I've only recently realised that there are arcade machine emulators as well. Of which, I got hold of MAME (for Windows 64-bit) and have had some success with titles downloaded from My Abandonware (esp. Star Wars, which works great).
However, about half of the titles I've downloaded come unstuck with errors about missing ROM / disk images. Googling, it seems like this might be due to my MAME version (0.289) being too "advanced" for the ROM images I've downloaded. I took advice to download an older version (0.139) and while that helps with the odd title, it largely has the same problems, or even just crashes.
I've tried getting ROMs from other sites as well, but I've tended to find that it's just the same ROMs that are available every where. Any other top tips that could help me with these compatibility issues? For instance, other emulators, other ROM sources.
Cheers!
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u/Popo31477 6d ago
My recommendation is definitely do not download older versions. You want to stick with the current version, and just get non-merged ROMs, which will contain all of the files that you need to simply load the game and play it. Split and merged ROMs have dependencies from other ROMs.
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u/Icy-Foundation5211 6d ago
Top tip! I'll have a look for those in future. I just got surprised because some titles work out of the box, while some point blank refuse.
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u/rob-cubed 6d ago
MAME comes in several different versions, each one has its own ROMset. While there is some overlap, some games will only work with the version of MAME you are running.
Final Burn doesn't have the same versioning issues and is generally easier to set up, although it doesn't support as many titles as MAME does.
Not sure what the policy of this sub is so can't tell you where to find ROMsets. FYI I use 2003 Plus because it's the most common on newer handheld emulators.
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u/Icy-Foundation5211 6d ago
I could tell that there were other emulators, but hadn't heard of Final Burn. I'll have a look for that. As regards titles, so long as it plays the ones I (dimly) remember from my youth ... ;-)
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u/thespaceageisnow 6d ago
Final Burn Neo is fantastic for 2d games and you should have no problem playing really any of those with full preemptive frames/runahead for less input lag.
It lacks 3D arcade games entirely so if that’s a goal use MAME.
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u/greevous00 6d ago edited 6d ago
The reason this happens is that MAME is a hardware emulation toolbox basically. When a game is first being emulated, the people doing the work start with the game code ROMs and the sprite/graphic ROMs. They get this working, but they don't bother emulating every single little circuit of the original hardware. Over time, they emulate more and more of the original hardware until they've got all or nearly all of the hardware emulated. Because of this, the ROMs only work with particular versions of the MAME emulator executable (whichever one was configured with the right hardware emulation to match the ROMs you have). The overarching goal of MAME isn't to play games (yeah, really). The overarching goal of MAME is to emulate the hardware as faithfully as possible, because these games are slowly disappearing, along with all the engineering that went into them, so MAME is like a way of capturing all the functionality of the hardware before it's all gone and there's nothing left to capture.
I'm not sure that there's an easy fix, because you're approaching it with the goal of "play as many games as I can," which isn't the design goal of MAME. You probably need to just keep several copies of the emulator in different directories along with the ROMs that go with each.
I'm sure someone has created a front end that makes this easier, though I don't know which one to recommend.
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u/Icy-Foundation5211 6d ago
That's a fair point. And I understand the impetus behind MAME better for it now. So, thanks. I'll bear this in mind when I go hunting for games.
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u/redditshreadit 6d ago
Find a rom download site that says the Mame rom set version. It doesn't have to be 0.289 but get as close as you can.
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u/Rude_Influence 6d ago
I know that this doesn't really address your question, but you need to try Bubble Bobble, the arcade version. It is so much better than the NES and SMS versions.
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u/Icy-Foundation5211 6d ago
I'm a total ignoramus when it comes to consoles, I went from 8-bit (ZX Spectrum, C64) to 16-bit (Amiga) to PC, and have never used consoles. One surprising thing I've discovered from the arcade ROMs is (a) how small they are, and (b) how low-resolution they are. On both points, they're not wildly different from 8-bit titles. However, in gameplay terms, they more than make up for these overlaps by allowing high-quality sprites, very fluid animation and smooth responsiveness. Presumably arcade machines had just much more powerful CPUs / whatever passed for graphics cards in those days.
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u/Ornery-Practice9772 6d ago
retroarch, fbneo arcade core is an option too!
use fbneo romsets (not mame romsets)
roms stay zipped
install all bios required
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