

The issue/benefit with MAME, is that the romsets can change over time to be more accurate, so for example in one version of mame, galaga.zip could well have different contents to galaga.zip from a different version of MAME. This means that the Megadrive emulator knows exactly what to expect when trying to run that data.Īlso, there is only going to be 1 rom file to extract, whereas with arcade games there will often be multiple roms for 1 game. Why is it more complicated getting games working with MAME than other systems?īroadly speaking, when data has been extracted from, say a Megadrive game cartridge, that is the definitive version, all information has been fully and correctly extracted from the cartridge.
#HOW TO USE RETROPIE FULL#
You can see the full list here of the emulators, including MAME versions, that can be used with RetroPie: No, besides the MAME forks, there are also versions of FBA, AdvanceMAME, GnGeo etc. Is MAME the only way to play arcade games on the Raspberry Pi? For example, you can see the versions supported in RetroPie here: In addition to these official versions, there are many variants of these to support specific needs, or systems.

Yes, lots of previous official versions which you can see here: Įach new version will support more games, have bug fixes and other improvements, you can see exactly what the differences are inthe "whatsnew" file in the link above. If you want to try the official latest MAME version rather than the versions made for the Pi, check these links: This is why you cant simply use the latest romset versions on the Pi, you need the version that is compatible with the emulator you are using. That said, there are many forks (variants) of MAME that run very well on the Pi - many people find it is more than adequate of running the vast majority of games that MAME supports.
#HOW TO USE RETROPIE CODE#
The Raspberry Pi doesn't currently run the latest version of MAME that well, as the code isn't optimized for that platform, as well as the Pi having much less raw power than is found on many modern PCs. You can find the offical website for MAME here: MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator), is a program that does what it says, it will emulate many arcade games. I'll edit this post with corrections as I get them.īefore posting any questions about MAME, read the Wiki and verify your romsets. For simplicity I will often use the terms MAME and "Arcade game emulation" interchangeably. If any of these points become helpful I'll transfer them to the Wiki, but for the moment its more a discussion point.

#HOW TO USE RETROPIE HOW TO#
I'm writing this after seeing the 17,000th post asking how to get "MAME" working. Here are a few points I thought might be helpful for those starting out with arcade emulation whilst using RetroPie.
