MAME

With the end of the year barely more than a month away, it’s time for MAME 0.283! As you may be anticipating, there are even more Sega Model 2 fixes this month. Trilinear luma filtering should be working now, and some glitches in tilemap layers are fixed. Microtexturing, used to good effect in The House of the Dead, is emulated for the first time. Some of the tilemap layer fixes have spilled across into Sega System 24 as well.

Several Ensoniq synthesisers have been promoted to working in this release. The Sequential Circuits Six-Trak analog synthesiser has also been promoted to working, with improvements there benefiting the related Bally/Sente 6VB sound board. There’s been quite a bit of work on NEC computers this month, and there are some new software lists for Sharp home computers. MAME now emulates all supported (and some unsupported) video modes on the IBM PCjr.

To find out about everything else that’s happened in MAME development this month, you’ll have to read 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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Today, we have a very spooky surprise… Oh wait, no we don’t. But what we do have is MAME 0.282! If you want to get into a haunted mood, you might want to try playing Beast Busters: Second Nightmare, because Hyper Neo Geo 64 sound is way better than it was a month ago. Just a friendly reminder, MAME still runs plenty of other ghastly classics, like Laser Ghost, Splatter House, Monster Bash, Haunted Castle and Ghouls’n Ghosts. And speaking of sound, XaviX sound emulation has just had a major overhaul, so you might want to give some e-kara cartridges another listen. Also, if you’re musically inclined, remember to keep an eye on MAME’s synthesiser emulation, because it just keeps getting better!

Sega Model 2 emulation is noticeably better again, with improved graphics and a number of logic bugs fixed. Speaking of 3D graphics, the severe graphical issues plaguing ARM users playing Namco System 22 games have been corrected. Apple II users can enjoy more accurate emulation for software that pokes dark corners of the hardware, including Zip Chip accelerators, interrupts and model-specific functionality. There’s also new D13 disk image write support for people using Apple DOS 3.1 and 3.2 disks. There’s been steady progress on emulating more features of the graphics chip used by the Minitel 2 terminal.

That’s all we’re going to talk about here, but as always, there’s lots more to enjoy, including better Namco System 23 performance, an overhaul for Mega Drive cartridges, plenty of software list additions, more features for the floppy disk image utilities and some additional functionality exposed to Lua scripts. 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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After what felt like a few short weeks, it’s time for MAME 0.281! First of all, with the proliferation of ARM-based notebook computers, we’re going to try offering binary packages for people running 64-bit ARM versions of Windows 10 or later. Please be aware that most MAME developers are still using x86-64 systems, so you may encounter issues specific to ARM systems (this goes for people running MAME on Apple M series CPUs and ARM-based Linux systems as well). When reporting issues, remember to specify the operating system and CPU family. And speaking of ARM CPUs, we’ve fixed a few lurking bugs in the 64-bit ARM recompiler back-end and improved performance a bit more. Emulated systems with Hitachi SuperH and Hyperstone E1 CPUs should benefit.

There are some big software list updates this month, with lots of original floppy and cassette dumps and modern homebrew releases added. More Sony NEWS workstations are now running. If you want to play with them, be aware that you’ll need to access them over an emulated network interface, as video output isn’t working. IBM RTPC emulation is still progressing steadily as well. There are some emulation improvements to the sound chip used by Akai MPC samplers as well as the SNK Hyper Neo Geo 64, although it’s still preliminary.

As always, you can read about everything that’s changed this month in the whatsnew.txt file, and the source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages are available from the download page.

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It’s been a month, so it must be time for MAME 0.280 to be released! One interesting addition this month is the very rare 1986 arcade game 119 from Coreland and Sega (the game is named after the ambulance/fire emergency telephone number used in Japan). If you’ve been following along with the work on Namco System 23 emulation, you can now see several more video hardware features emulated. Sound issues in Konami’s Golfing Greats have finally been fixed properly.

You’ll also find improved Acorn BBC Micro emulation, a few more working TV games and handheld multi-game systems, and quite a few more playable video gambling systems. Improvements to Mega Drive emulation fix issues with some of the more sensitive games on the system. A number of graphical glitches plaguing arcade games have been solved, too.

You can read about everything we’ve been working on over the past few weeks in the whatsnew.txt file. As always, source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages are available from the download page.

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MAME 0.279 is here at last! Building on the work in recent releases, this month you’ll get to see proper lighting and fixes for logic bugs in Sega Model 2 games. Philips CD-i emulation keeps improving as well, including better cursor behaviour and XA audio fixes this month. While we’re talking about things you can see, MAME now emulates the “snow” effect on early ZX Spectrum models caused by memory refresh cycles interfering with video RAM accesses. Graphical issues in various Konami and Irem games have been fixed, and there are noticeable improvements to graphics in some Namco System 23 games.

There’s been more work this month on support for NES-inspired chips from V.R. Technology, bringing some of these low-cost games closer to working. There are lots of improvements for emulated Macs, particularly the PowerBook Duo sub-notebooks, and fixes for a few issues with the Apple IIgs as well. The Casio FZ-1 and related sampling synthesisers now have preliminary sound output. The Sharp MZ-5500 computers are also starting to show some life, although emulation is far from complete.

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

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After two long months, MAME 0.278 is finally ready. Of course, the big news is that the new sound system has arrived! The benefits it brings include:

• Native WASAPI support on Windows and PipeWire support on Linux.
• Support for sound input for emulated systems that have microphones or other audio capture hardware.
• Support for multi-channel input and output.
• Built-in effects, including a parametric equaliser and dynamic range compressor.
• Better quality sample rate conversion and mixing, and lower latency.

As this is the first release of a major new component, it’s going to be rough around the edges in some ways. But we’re already thinking about some of the ways we can improve it further over the coming months.

We’ve been busy with the sound system, but we haven’t stopped working on emulation. There are some nice fixes for graphical issues in 3D systems, including Sega Model 2 and Taito Type Zero. But it doesn’t stop with 3D – the 2D classics are still getting love. Quite a few Konami games are looking nicer, including often-overlooked cocktail mode support, and all the missing graphics in the iconic IGS mahjong game Long Hu Bang are finally fixed.

There’s a long list of newly supported systems this month. We’ve got Exidy and Taito arcade games from the 1970s, LCD games from behind the Iron Curtain, and a whole pile of recently dumped TV games. On top of that, numerous additional versions of Gaelco arcade games have surfaced from the archives. In between, you’ll find rare Capcom arcade releases, music workstations and sequencers, game watches, casino games, and more. If you do play casino games, please be aware that some of the default input assignments for gambling games have changed in this release.

There’s lots of fun to be had with the computer emulation updates in this release. The Victor 9000 has had its floppy support overhauled and SASI hard disk support added. There’s been a bit of a flurry of updates for the Sanyo PHC-25. The POKEY’s serial communication support used by the Atari 8-bit computers has finally been implemented properly.

If you want to read about all the adventures in MAME development in these past two months, check out the whatsnew.txt file. As always, the source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages are available from the download page.

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Hi everyone! As you may be aware, MAME 0.278 will include the fabled new sound stream system. This includes sound input support, better quality resampling and mixing, support for multi-channel output, and more! To ensure we can deliver something we’re proud of, we’re won’t have a May release. This will give us a bit more time to finish things off and make sure it’s stable. If you want to try it out in the mean time, you can always compile the source code yourself or get a build from GitHub Actions. Otherwise, hang tight for the release in June!

Have you been wondering what MAME 0.277 will bring? Well, now you can find out! First of all, we’ve added support for compiling on 64-bit ARM-based systems running Windows 11 using the MSYS2 CLANGARM64 environment. Updates to included third-party libraries should resolve some issues people were having with new compilers and development environments.

In improvements that you can see, Konami GX blending effects are now looking much nicer, Sega Model 2 3D geometry is behaving better, and some remaining issues with Philips CD-i graphics decoding have been fixed. You may be able to hear improved sound emulation in some Famicom, WonderSwan, and Game Boy games, too. If that’s too subtle, you should be able to hear the difference in the DMX and LinnDrum percussion synthesisers.

There’s a big update for the Apple II and Macintosh floppy disk software lists this month. A lot of Macintosh NuBus cards have been overhauled as well, so let us know if we’ve inadvertently broken your virtual Macintosh setup. There are plenty of other software list additions, including a batch of tapes for Sinclair computers.

That’s all we’re going to cover here, but much more has happened this month in MAME development. You can read all about it in the whatsnew.txt file, and source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages are available from the download page.

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MAME 0.276 has arrived just in time for the end of March, and it’s full of emulation goodness! Remember that 64-bit ARMv8 recompiler we added a few months ago? Well now it’s even faster! This release fixes graphical issues in Konami GX arcade games and Philips CD-i software. We’ve added several IGS gambling games, as well as Chinese versions of some Dynax mahjong games. The LinnDrum percussion synthesiser is now working with interactive controls and sound output. And speaking of sound, audio emulation issues in several arcade games have been fixed.

PC-88VA emulation is progressing, with fixes for multiple graphics modes. A few more peripherals for the TI-99 computer family are now supported. There have been a few CPU/DSP fixes that should improve Sega 3D arcade game emulation. Psion hand-helds now correctly detect more memory configurations and give better-looking video output. We’ve also fixed some issues with CHD creation, floppy disk image handling, and XML system information output. Windows users now get an option to have debugger windows appear in the taskbar and window switcher.

As always, you can marvel at all the exciting development this month when you read the whatsnew.txt file. The source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages can be found on the download page.

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MAME 0.275 is out now! It’s been a short month, but there’s still been plenty of interesting development. This release adds support for several arcade games on PlayStation-based hardware, a few PowerBook Duo sub-notebook computers, some hand-held LCD games, and a couple of Casio music keyboards.

Support for the Zorro II bus used in the Amiga 2000 has been improved, including DMA support and a few more emulated cards. Some graphical glitches in Konami arcade games have been fixed. The Oberheim DMX drum machine is now fully emulated. We’ve even optimised the recompilers a little more this month.

You can read about all the work that’s gone into this release in the whatsnew.txt file, or get source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages from the download page.

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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.