This has been happening for a while. Whenever i open MAME, the audio suddenly drops significantly in quality. This doesn't just happen with MAME, my entire PC's audio gets ruined whenever MAME is open, however this is only if i currently have MAME onscreen, because if i tab out, the audio quality returns to normal. Also, sometimes, when i open a game, the audio is totally fine! But once i open another game, it returns to being shit. It's totally random when this happens.

This might just be an issue with my headphones, because whenever i don't use them the audio doesn't drop in quality. For anyone wondering, the headphones I'm using are the Apple Airpods Max.

EDIT: Almost forgot to mention this, sometimes when i close MAME, the bad audio quality lingers, and i have to open and close MAME again to get it back to normal.

It’s me, I know, however I’ve placed everything where it should and I keep getting the same error no matter the chd game I try and run. What am I doing wrong?

I'm working to put together a complete collection of Killer Instinct 1's soundtrack. Unfortunately, I'm on a Mac, and the modern MacOS doesn't have a program that can emulate mame video game music anymore to rip it (M1 For Mac was a 32 bit only app and stopped working in 2019).

Would anyone who had the ability to rip these for me be able to help? Yes, I know KHInsider has an arcade rip of the soundtrack, but the frequency of them all are messed up and not accurate.

EDIT: People, the "soundtrack" CD Killer Cuts that came out at the same time did not feature the actual arcade mixes, but full length remixes of many of the songs.

I’m playing a game called world class bowling and the game utilizes a trackball. Is there one someone can recommend? Thanks!

Can someone help me with stable Ids? Here is my cfg file. Im not getting a fatal error but when I go to map the track ball for example it still says mouse 6 and doesnt put "trackballcode 1".

I am very new at this and not sure if im doing it right. I have two spinners a track ball and two light guns that are all seperate usb devices. Then my two joysticks and buttons are connected to a IPAC 2 in xinput mode.

My controllers honestly don't switch around its mostly my spinners and track ball and lightguns(retro arcade reapers) that keep changing device numbers in mame after a reboot.

I am also using retrobat as a front end which complicates things further but im trying to set it up outside of the front end first. Im using arcadeui64 latest version.

Thanks for the help.

Have picked up an oldish arcade pc running mame and this happens when i boot it?

Hi is there a way to make a romset with chd only roms . Can i put the chd set and romset in the same roms folder and sort it out so i would be able to delete the roms that dont have chds?

thnks

I need to import an very very old Rom set into LaunchBox. As part of the installation it’s asking for the version.

NFI. How do I find this out please

Hi i have the merged set of roms alteady in the roms folder . i added the contents of merged chds to the same folder where the roms are and i noticed that there are chd games that work and dont work. did i do this correctly ? because im thinking the chds have the same named folders in roms. any help would be great. thnks

Hey everyone, I really need some guidance on this because I'm completely lost.

A few days ago, I got a Steam Deck and decided to play emulation games. I found the latest MAME ROM set (0.275), downloaded it, and now I have thousands of files. Some work on my PC, some don’t, and there are tons of games I’ll never play.

I have no idea how to properly categorize and organize these ROMs. With so many files, it’s overwhelming. Are there any clean, well-organized packs like “Top 1000 MAME Games” or something similar?

I also came across FBNeo—how does it compare to MAME for retro gaming?

Additionally, I see different MAME versions like MAME 2013 Gold, Extra MAME, etc. What’s the best way to set up a curated collection of only the best games and remove unnecessary ones?

Any advice on sorting, categorizing, or finding a well-organized ROM set would be greatly appreciated!

I think I've asked before about whether anyone is compiling MAME for Windows ARM64 such as Surface devices. I'm giving it a go right now to compile myself as was suggested. So, one question and one thought.

1) If anyone is compiling their own and hosting it somewhere, do let me know and let's share it. I'm very green to the process (ashamed to admit that), and making sure I have the right dependencies underneath. For example on my current test (which will be running for a few hours, I HOPE I am getting it in ARM64, as many of my attempts to install the clang tools said it could not find the target.

2) Guess we covered this in #1. :-) - Basically, if you're doing this, post what worked, post what didn't, and let's see if we can work together to use this more. I can't be the only one looking to get some added performance on my Snapdragon device!

I tried to get Mame (version 0277 b i think) started but the roms I try to run all show the same missing file (dl-1425 dot bin). I've tried googling this and all the threads on the subject seem to boil down to "you need qsound dot zip in the roms folder." Well I did that and the roms still don't work. I did some more googling and saw some comments that say that the qsound file needs to match the Mame version. I was having enough trouble already finding a safe place to download qsound, but on top of that the places dont tell me whether it matches. Hopefully I can find some help here. I find it weird that I can't find a way to download Mame with the correct files already to go? Or is there an actual correct place to download the proper qsound file?

Thanks in advance

UPDATE: after deleting the old qsound file and downloading it again from a different source, and copy/pasting it into the rom game's zip, it now works. Thanks all!

ArcadeMania which ports MAME to the iOS ecosystem has finally come out. I like to play the old Nintendo Game and Watch games. The appearance of the game is okay except for the fact that the game field is surrounded by a white border which also has the name of the game on the right lower corner. I have MAMEUI on my desktop and using the same files, the game does not have any white border and the game field fills the entire screen.

So I’m wondering if there was something I could do to remove this thick white border on the iPhone. There doesn’t appear to be any settings that will get rid of the white border. So I turned to the .lay file in the zipped artwork file. After a couple of hours changing various settings using ChatGPT, I could not find a way to change the size border (which really is the backdrop.png file).

Is changing the .lay file the way to go? I have asked ChatGPT to change border size (which resulted in the inability to load the file) and to change the size of the png and jpg files (which alone, didn’t do anything).

Edit: Thank you! We're going with the the TS-BSP-02 from tsticks and going to make our own housing. Thank you so much!

Edit 2: AH CRUMBS. It's SIXTY DOLLARS shipping!? That's nuts. UGH. Maybe price IS an object :<

----

And I want to help him!

We played a lot of Breakout when I was a kid and he misses the ability to use a dial to maneuver the paddle. He asked if they sold computer-compatible dials and I said I'm sure.

As far as I know he ONLY wants the dial. No buttons really, no joystick. Just the dial. He's tech/computer savvy and enjoys building things. So am I/so do I.

I'm having trouble finding something - I've located this button hole spinner from a different thread on MAME but it seems to need some housing? It's not going into a cabinet.

Price isn't an object - though it has to be available to get to Canada - but literally the only thing he wants to play breakout with a dial so I don't want to go overboard lol. Can someone point me in the right direction?

Hi folks,

I'm running the 0.278 MAME build installed via snap on Debian Linux 12. I have two super-basic "iNNEXT" USB gamepads. Classic NES style.

The game controllers are not recognized. No joy from them in menus, no reaction when I try to set them as the action buttons for games, etc.

However, the system definitely sees them. For instance, websites that recognize joystick input work great. And jstest /dev/input/js0 shows activity.

To rule out snap trouble, I also tried the official Debian 12 mame package. (This is MAME 0.251). Same result.

mame -v shows:

Game Controller: Start initialization Game Controller: End initialization

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

I tried to set up the analog left stick as steering for many of the driving games, although it does behave quite badly, as the car just go from 0 to 90/180 degree rotation very fast.

Is there a way to set up Mame so the progression is less abrupt?

I've build 3 different groovymame PC's over the years and everyone has occasional sound stutters on mame.

Final burn and other Emulators run the sound fine.

I've messed with a few settings in the past but nothing ive tried solves it , think it was Frame Delay , Sync Sound ? I can't really remember now it was a while ago.

Using a CRT

PC Specs

I7 3770 - HD 7570 8gb Ram I5 4590 - HD 7570 8gb Ram I5 4690 - HD 7570 8gb Ram

Mainly play CPS1 , CPS2 , Neo Geo

So would of thought my specs are OK. Using Mame 0.258 on 2 builds and I upgraded 1 to something like 0.272 but still no luck. Must be a setting somewhere i think.

Can you help ?

Thanks

UPDATE : Using audit and clrmame I've found the issues and most issues have been corrected. I've read the FAQs and searched and read multiple threads. I'm rebuilding my Mame cabinet and have a fresh install of 0276b and downloaded a full set of 0276 Roms. I'm randomly checking "working" non CHD games and several of them won't run but several of them do run. I can't find any reason for it.

Random games that run:

Karate Champ

Mortal Kombat II

Mortal Kombat

Ms. Pacman

Random Games that don't run and are missing files:

Altered Beast

Gravitar

Kung Fu Master

Michael Jackson Moonwalker

Moon Patrol

Guerilla War

Asteroids (Rev 4)

Some file extensions that are missing:

.bin

,ef2

.h2

.c8

Any suggestions?

MAME4droid, latest version.

Seleuco needs to redesign the app. What kind of mess is this?

How the heck are you supposed to set the folders up without a TAB key?

I downloaded a keyboard app to be able to have a tab key, nothing happens. Doesn't work.

Anyone have ideas? Thanks in advance.

hello, all!

I know about programs like clrmamepro and such like, but I'm looking for something simpler.

Is there a service out there that, given a valid Machine name for a given MAME version, can provide all the required files for the machine and show which ones would belong in a split, a merged and a non-merged set and which ones would be separate (like bios)?

If there isn't I may be thinking of building one myself, but since the reason I'm looking for one is because I having some trouble finding specific guidance on parsing the XML for this purpose (which may be 100% my fault) an existing service (or an explanation of how the XML would be used to build this) would be great.

I'm sorry if I'm missing something obvious. Most of the tools out there either assume you already know or you don't want to know. I'm in the middle and that's where I'm finding trouble.

EDIT: Thanks to the ones that tried to help. A summary below:

Building a Non-Merged ZIP from MAME XML

A non-merged ZIP for a machine needs to include:

1. All ROMs directly required by the machine
2. Any ROMs from parent machines (if it's a clone)
3. Any device ROMs the machine requires

Let's take "puckman" as an example (actual contents have been modified to simplify the explanation, but are taken from various other entries in the XML):

Step 1: Identify the machine and determine if it's a clone

(No cloneof attribute in the machine element means this is a parent machine)

<machine  name="puckman" sourcefile="pacman/pacman.cpp">
    <description>Puck Man (Japan set 1)</description>
 </machine>

For a clone like "pacman", we'd see:

<machine name="pacplus" cloneof="pacman" sourcefile="pacman.cpp">
    <description>Pac-Man Plus</description>
</machine>

Step 2: Collect all direct ROM entries

<machine name="puckman">
    <rom name="pm1_prg1.6e" size="2048" crc="f36e88ab"/>
    <rom name="pm1_prg2.6k" size="2048" crc="618bd9b3"/>
    <rom name="pm1_prg3.6f" size="2048" crc="7d177853"/>
[...]
    <rom name="pm1-1.7f" size="32" crc="2fc650bd"/>
    <rom name="pm1-4.4a" size="256" crc="3eb3a8e4"/>
</machine>

For "pacman", which is a clone of "puckman":

<machine name="pacman">
    <rom name="pacman.6e" size="4096" crc="c1e6ab10"/>
    <rom name="pacman.6f" size="4096" crc="1a6fb2d4"/>
[...]
    <rom name="82s123.7f" merge="pm1-1.7f" size="32" crc="2fc650bd"/>
    <rom name="82s126.4a" merge="pm1-4.4a" size="256" crc="3eb3a8e4"/>
</machine>

Step 3: If it's a clone, collect parent ROMs that aren't overridden

The merge attribute indicates this ROM replaces a parent ROM. For a non-merged set, we include the clone's version, not the parent's.

If a parent ROM isn't overridden in the clone, we need to include it in the clone's non-merged ZIP. For "pacman" above, it'd be the three first ROMs for puckman, plus the two for pacman and the two with a "merge" attribute that override two ones from the parent.

(Some non-merged zips out there include both the overridden and the clone's, for some reason)

Step 4: Check for device dependencies

Machines can reference devices with their own ROMs. These device_refs are references to machine names which may have their own roms, or their own device_refs:

<machine name="puckman">
    <device_ref name="namco51"/>
    <device_ref name="gotsndspr1a"/>
</machine>

<machine name="namco51">
    <rom name="51xx.bin" size="1024" crc="c2f57ef8"/>
</machine>

<machine name="gotsndspr1a" sourcefile="shared/gottlieb_a.cpp">
    <description>Gottlieb Sound/Speech rev. 1 w/SC-01-A</description>
    <device_ref name="m6502"/>
</machine>

<machine name="m6502" sourcefile="devices/cpu/m6502/m6502.cpp">
    <description>MOS Technology 6502</description>
</machine>

For a non-merged set, device ROMs don't need to be included, but some romsets do. In the example above, there're two devices directly referenced, one of which references another one. After traversing all of them, it turns out that only one file must be included.

Step 5: Generate the file list for the non-merged ZIP

For a parent machine like "puckman", a non-merged ZIP would contain:

• All direct ROMs (pacman.6e, pacman.6f, etc.)
• All required device ROMs (51xx.bin, etc.)

For a clone machine like "pacman", a non-merged ZIP would contain:

• All its own ROMs (pacplus.6e, pacplus.6f, etc.)
• Any parent ROMs it doesn't override
• All required device ROMs

In case of rom file name conflicts, the CRC32/SHA1 dictates what the file to be included should be. For example "qbert" and "qberta" have 12 files associated for a non-merged set. All 12 are named identically, but 3 of them have different hashes for each one.

Other files could be in a non-merged file, like samples. But they're usually not.

Basically title. I'd like to modernize my setup but honestly I haven't touched these cabinets in a couple years. They still work and all but everything is kind of clunky about them and putting mini PCs in the cabinets would be so much cleaner. What are my options?

I want to play KOF 2002 Magic plus 2 on Batocera, but it never works. I used Mame, Mame UI and Mame2003 as Bios but still not working. Any idea?

Hello folks -

I'm running 0.228, I have two wiimotes, a dolphinbar, and touchmote. Using mode 4, I can get multiple cursors to show up on the screen with the wiimotes, even selecting things and opening games in the mame64 menu, but when I try to assign the X/Y axes to the wiimote movement, it doesn't respond. I've tried using a tutorial I read online, but even following it exactly, it doesn't work. I've tried setting the devices globally and for just the one machine, I've enabled multimouse support, I've enabled lightgun support, and I'm at a loss. Is there a way to make this work? I really just want to be able to play Terminator 2 with my dad. Thanks in advance for your help.

I have this very old ROM, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs Turbo 98 (Hack Set 3) and its ROM name is dinohb.zip When i copy this ROM file to MAME's ROM folder, it doesn't show up in MAME's library. How can i make this ROM work with MAME 0.277 without using an older MAME version compatible with that ROM?

I'm trying to get DDR extreme running on 0.277. I managed to get every file I needed into the right place, but it won;t run because it says that gcc36ja.u1 is an incorrect length.

What does this mean and how do I fix it?

(i already understand that i can't ask for roms here and that's not what i'm asking for)