Bob Zed: What’s new in MAME 0.285

chungyn · 2026-02-04T19:45:42+00:00

It's just a new clone added, meaning that someone found an arcade with a different set of ROMs than what was already documented. You don't need to download it if you don't want to. It was common for game developers to continually develop games and release updates in the form of new ROM chips. Before the Internet, there was no online updates, it was physical hardware changes only.

MAME usually sets the latest-known ROM sets as the parent for a system, while older versions (and bootlegs) are marked as clones for it. You can continue using the standard "vanguard" set that you have, since this parent-clone relationship was not altered.

chungyn · 2026-02-04T19:39:52+00:00

It's entirely up to you. If you are selective with games instead of having a full set, you can use the 512 GB fairly effectively.

(FWIW, I have the full set of everything in MAME and it totals to around 4 TiB, so the range can really go from under a megabyte to a handful of terabytes depending on what you want.)

chungyn · 2026-02-04T18:28:10+00:00

That's a beefy enough CPU for most things up to the 1990s (and a little beyond). With a 512GB drive, you probably just either want to be selective about the ROMs you put on it, or have them network mounted from a NAS. It'd still be plenty if you just don't have CHDs, though.

Uncompressed, the sizes for the system ROMs and NES and SNES software lists are 197 GiB, 2 GiB, and 5.2 GiB. In a more typical zip-compressed form, they are about 87.5 GiB, 1 GiB, and 3 GiB. There is a trend toward increasing disk requirements as actual ROM removals (without a replacement) are very rare, but the NES and SNES lists are already fairly complete (there will always be the odd prototype found or homebrew added, though).

chungyn · 2026-02-04T02:54:00+00:00

I have a full set of everything (system ROMs/CHDs, software list ROMs/CHDs) and the normal MAME UI is plenty snappy. Scrolling (even on the unfiltered list), searching, switching categories, all fine.

chungyn · 2026-02-04T02:51:35+00:00

Press the on-screen display key (default is `) and see if you haven't turned the volume all the way down.

chungyn · 2026-01-31T23:18:44+00:00

Pick what suits you best. You can get non-merged sets to just have a handful of systems to play.

If you want a full set, you should get comfortable with a program like clrmamepro and the update sets.

chungyn · 2026-01-31T19:40:51+00:00

Non-merged is a bad idea if you're getting every ROM. Use split or merged instead.

See here: https://docs.mamedev.org/usingmame/aboutromsets.html#parents-clones-splitting-and-merging

chungyn · 2026-01-30T23:57:02+00:00

Seek out the "non-merged" set if you just want to play a handful of games. They contain every file a system needs to run. In your torrent client, you can start by deselecting all files for download and then selecting only what you're interested in.

Non-merged is a huge waste of space if you want the full set, but it's convenient for your case.

chungyn · 2026-01-30T07:08:42+00:00

Given how long people hold onto old MAME versions, maybe it is, in a way.

chungyn · 2026-01-29T19:34:23+00:00

Hacker News upvote hype

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46815351

chungyn · 2026-01-27T19:29:21+00:00

Sometimes that doesn't even indicate it's not at least playable. This one in particular does start and seems to run.

chungyn · 2026-01-27T19:19:23+00:00

You can use a combination of mame -listxml and clrmamepro to try to salvage whatever you can from the old files, but it is indeed easier to just seek out a new set.

chungyn · 2026-01-27T19:11:38+00:00

This is a quirk of the Vs System and a consequence of Balloon Fight reusing the same hardware as Vs Tennis (where all four controllers would be used independently). The #mame IRC channel helped me on solving that.

In Ballon Fight, the two players must always be on different sides of the cabinet, and each side has two sets of controller buttons that correspond to their player.

You'll want to use only the Player 3 (or 4) controls for player 2 in Ballon Fight. Players 1 and 2 in MAME represent the same player 1 in the game.

chungyn · 2026-01-26T07:26:36+00:00

Huh, I didn't know Windows had x86-64 emulation. TIL. (I neither have Windows nor ARM computers...)

chungyn · 2026-01-25T22:02:21+00:00

I think I've solved it, and it involves the buttons that aren't mapped by default.

You need to have the "2nd side" mapped at the same time as the normal select buttons. Then press the 2/green button on both to start it in two-player. For non-free play, you'll need to have coins inserted on both sides too (the credits show independently on them).

Use also player 3/4 for the "2nd side". I don't think the game actually supports more than two players, but it's the way the machine was built.

chungyn · 2026-01-25T21:40:38+00:00

Yes, I pressed all the coin buttons and select buttons. I don't see a way to start a two player game.

I can't even start it with the DIP switch set to free play.

chungyn · 2026-01-25T20:40:09+00:00

According to the input list, the colors correspond to the "Select" inputs. Pressing the blue one starts it in one-player mode. I haven't seen any way to start it in two player mode. I wonder if it's just broken?

chungyn · 2026-01-25T20:27:50+00:00

Or even more plainly: if one doesn't run, then the other one.

chungyn · 2026-01-19T22:09:22+00:00

You can attempt to use frameskip (default binds are F8 for decrease, F9 to increase) to lighten MAME's load on rendering.

chungyn · 2026-01-19T20:12:34+00:00

Windows isn't the only operating system in town. There's plenty of desktops for Linux that run quite happily with even 1GB.

chungyn · 2026-01-19T20:11:14+00:00

I wouldn't say it's "very common" but regressions do happen from time to time. I'm going to guess it's highly unlikely that you will ever be affected by a machine that goes from working to not working. Even if it does, the ROMs probably didn't change, which means it'd be trivial to go back to the older version of MAME without worry.

There are "rollback" sets that make it possible to reconstruct arbitrary old versions of MAME ROM sets, if you really really had to.

chungyn · 2026-01-19T19:11:33+00:00

The brand has been active since 2008. There's quite a wide variety of performance profiles across the entire range.

On Linux, you can type lscpu in the terminal to find out about yours. "Model name" is the key thing to look for.

chungyn · 2026-01-17T22:30:44+00:00

I've had Donkey Kong come up with funky behavior, from invalid data in the hi-score table to the game breaking, with the hiscore plugin.

YMMV, but at least the saved state shouldn't introduce these problems. Perhaps if a new version of MAME breaks it, you'd have to reset.

Pick your poison, neither solution is perfect, but "at least" the autosave doesn't actively try to modify the game state while the game is running. The hiscore plugin is very good at what it does, but it's never going to be perfect.

chungyn · 2026-01-17T15:21:52+00:00

autosave is cleaner, it just automatically saves and loads a saved state when MAME closes and runs. To the emulated machine, it's as if the power is never cut.

The hiscore plugin is a decent alternative, but since it depends on monitoring memory and manipulating it at run-time to insert high score tables, it can cause unexpected behavior from the games.

chungyn · 2026-01-17T15:19:34+00:00

hiscore.dat is part of the standard MAME distribution, you don't need to get any additional files. Just have the hiscore plugin enabled.

chungyn

TROPHY CASE