Welcome to The Official Site of the MAME Development Team

Today’s the day you get to experience MAME 0.274 for the first time! As previously mentioned, our Windows binary releases now require a CPU with x86-64-v2 functionality. The most anticipated feature completed this month is almost certainly the 64-bit ARMv8 recompiler back-end. It’s been tested on macOS, conventional Linux and Android, and provides some very welcome performance improvements when emulating systems with RISC CPUs, including MIPS III, PowerPC and SuperH. In addition to the new back-end, we’ve fixed some bugs in the existing back-ends and made some performance improvements for x86-64. Keep in mind that the actual performance benefits you experience will vary substantially depending on your CPU and the emulated system and software.

While that was happening, emulation work continued to progress. This release adds support for numerous digital pets, a couple more Tronica LCD games, and several synthesisers. Several CD-i graphics formats have been fixed, and speaking of Philips, video emulation for their Minitel 2 terminal has been improved as well. Our NEC µPD17771C emulation has been completely overhauled, which is particularly noticeable in Star Speeder on the Epoch Super Cassette Vision.

Lots has been going on in computer emulation this month. We’ve taken a few steps along the road to emulating the first-generation Power Macintosh systems; the Heath/Zenith computers now have hard-sectored floppy formats and working joystick support; the JUKU E5104 now has mouse support; the Silicon Graphics Professional IRIS 4D workstations are now considered working. There’s also been some work on Amiga graphics emulation, although some of the improvements missed this release.

As always, you can read about all of the month’s development work in the whatsnew.txt file. If you’re excited and want to try it out, head right over to the download page where you can find the source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages. See you all again next month for another thrilling MAME release!

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If you’ve been following along, you’ll no doubt realise that MAME development is off to a flying start in 2025. Perhaps the most exciting feature coming in the next release is a native recompiler for 64-bit ARMv8 systems. This includes Apple Silicon, recent Raspberry Pi models, and the most popular Android devices.

After several years, we’ve decided it’s time to start taking advantage of features of newer (or at least slightly less outdated) CPUs. Starting with MAME 0.274, official Windows binary releases will require so-called x86-64-v2 features. These features have been available in all popular x86-64 CPUs for close to a decade. They were introduced in the following CPU families:

• Intel “Nehalem” (2008), or “Silvermont” (2013) for low-power CPUs
• AMD “Bulldozer” (2011), or “Jaguar” (2013) for low-power CPUs
• VIA “Nano C” and “Eden C” (both 2015)

If you still want to run up-to-date versions of MAME on older systems running Windows, you’ll need to compile it from the source code.

It looks like MAME 0.273 has made it just in time for the end of 2024! First of all, if you want to build MAME with Microsoft’s IDE, you’ll need to switch to Visual Studio 2022 and ensure you have an up-to-date version of the Visual C++ compiler. (There’s lots more useful information about building MAME from source code on the relevant documentation page.)

Microcontrollers for Sun Electronics Kangaroo and Data East E.D.F.: Earth Defense Force have been dumped and emulated. This fixes several issues where the simulation was incorrect for Kangaroo, affecting gameplay and sound. Speaking of which, there have been quite a few fixes for sound issues in arcade games this month.

Regional variants of the Apple II computer line allowed the user to switch between US English mode and local mode, affecting the display character set and the keyboard layout. This release greatly improves support for language selection and adds support for several European Apple IIe and Apple IIc variants. In other Apple emulation news, the ’030-based PowerBook series is coming to life: you might want to try out the PowerBook 140, 160, 170 and 180 or variants thereof.

There’s lots more in this release, including more Amiga sound and video cards, CPU emulation fixes, and better DMA behaviour for emulated Sound Blaster cards. You can read about all the exciting developments in the whatsnew.txt file, or get the source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages from the download page.

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The end of the year is almost upon us, but before that happens, make sure you try MAME 0.272! We’re very happy to announce that the early SNK game Tangram Q is now supported. This game was never widespread, and working examples are rarer than ever. MAME now gives you the unprecedented opportunity to experience this piece of gaming history. Another obscure system that’s starting to take shape is the Estonian EKTA Juku. This 8-bit educational computer was powered by a Soviet 8080 clone and ran the CP/M-derived EKDOS operating system.

The French Thomson computers have been receiving some attention lately, and software compatibility is starting to improve. Progress on the NEC PC-98 family is still coming along nicely. Our CD-ROM drive emulation has been getting better, which has a positive impact on numerous computers as well as game systems. The Epoch Super Cassette vision also got some nice fixes this month.

Numerous reported issues were fixed in this release, including some long-standing issues that had eluded developers for years. There are lots of new working bootleg arcade games to try out. Several TV games have been promoted to working this month, too.

You can read about all the exciting work that went into this release in the whatsnew.txt file. As always, the source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages are available on the download page.

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It’s the end of October, which means it must be time for MAME 0.271! It’s been another good month for gambling system emulation. A few Excellent System games are now playable, including Miracle Seven and Fever 13. Several more games from IGS were dumped and emulated. As well as mahjong games, there are a few card games, including several variants of a dou dizhu game. Speaking of IGS, Mahjong Senpu is now fully playable. This game is interesting as it feels like a poor-quality imitation IGS mahjong game, although it runs on completely different hardware and doesn’t appear to rely on stolen game code.

Numerous issues with NEC PC-98 emulation have been fixed, many of them affecting graphics. This has resulted in dozens of software list items being promoted to working. The Research Machines LINK 480Z is now emulated properly. This 8-bit computer from England could boot BASIC from ROM or CP/M from floppy disks or a network file server. We’ve also added support for a somewhat newer system built around one of the oldest integrated CPUs: Dmitry Grinberg’s Linux/4004. This system emulates a MIPS I CPU on an Intel 4004 CPU, allowing Linux to run from an SD Card. Using it is definitely an exercise in patience.

As always, there’s far more in this release than we’ve got time to talk about here. There’s some very visible improvement to Namco System 23 emulation, quite a few new chess computers, more Japanese TV games, some progress on Thomson computer emulation, and lots of additions to the Apple and Sinclair software lists.

You can read about everything that changed this month in the whatsnew.txt file, and the source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages are available on the download page.

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We’re happy to announce that MAME 0.270 is ready! A lot of work has gone into a lot of different areas of MAME throughout September. One very interesting addition is the “Zoomer” PDA. Built by Casio and marketed under multiple brand names, this PDA ran MS-DOS 3.3, GEOS 2.0 and the PenRight user interface. It was one of the first PDAs to include software developed by Palm Computing. Other exotic systems include the Sony NWS-3270 workstation and 68000 development boards from Marion Systems and Motorola themselves.

The Hitachi Basic Master Jr. is now working, giving a glimpse of the Japanese home computer market in the early 1980s. UMC’s attempt at taking on Sega and Nintendo in the mid-1990s, the Super A'Can, is in a much better state than it was previously. Although it still isn’t considered working, numerous issues with graphics and sound have been addressed, and battery-backed cartridge memory is now supported. Several more Apple II input peripherals are now supported. Support for hard-sectored floppy disk formats has been added, which should open up storage options for computers from the S-100 era.

The effort to understand the IGS027A CPUs and dump their internal programs is paying off. Over a dozen slots, mahjong and card games from IGS are now playable. If you’re a fan of these games, you can now play them in the comfort of your home with no risk of blowing your paycheque.

That’s all we’ve got time to cover here, but you can read all the exciting (and mundane) tales of development in the whatsnew.txt file. As always, you can get the source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages from the download page.

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It’s almost the end of August, which means it must be time for MAME 0.269 to be unleashed on the world! The widely-used Zilog Z8410 DMA controller emulation has had an overhaul this month. In concert with the recent Z80 CPU work, this allows more realistic I/O timings for numerous systems. If you’re curious about unreleased prototypes, BASIC is starting to show signs of life on the Commodore 65.

Two additional Japanese releases of Capcom fighting games on CPS-2 hardware have been found this month: a more recent version of X-Men Vs. Street Fighter than any previously dumped set, and a version of Hyper Street Fighter II released a bit over a week before the latest known update. The microcontroller for Irem’s Gallop on M72 hardware has been dumped, allowing simulation code to be removed. Thanks to Peter Wilhelmsen and XingXing, the pace of dumping internal ROMs from IGS027A ARM CPUs has picked up, so we might see more progress on IGS games soon.

Of course, there’s lots more to enjoy, including an 8085-based prototyping board, more chess computers, and improvements to MAME’s debugger. You can read all about it in the whatsnew.txt file, or get the source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages from the download page.

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