Retro

Installing MAME: arcade cabinets on your PC

MAME is one of the oldest and most accurate emulators, designed for arcade cabinets (Pac-Man, Street Fighter II, Metal Slug). It’s also a preservation project for computer history: MAME also emulates old computers and game consoles. It’s powerful, but a bit technical.

Installation

  • Windows: download the self-extracting .exe from mamedev.org/release and extract it into its own folder.
  • macOS: brew install mame
  • Linux (Debian/Ubuntu): sudo apt install mame

How does MAME work with games?

Arcade games exist as a .zip file per game in the roms folder. The most important thing to know: the games must match the version of MAME. A game made for an older version often won’t work in a newer one. So don’t mix up those zips, and only use games from your own collection.

Start MAME, choose a game from the list and press Enter. Press Tab during gameplay to open the menu: there you configure buttons, a coin (5) and your start button (1).

Useful tips

  • Insert coin: an arcade game expects a coin first. Press 5, then 1.
  • Configuration: create a mame.ini with mame -createconfig and adjust your screen options there.
  • Nice library: use a frontend like Attract-Mode or EmulationStation-DE instead of the bare list.
  • Your own arcade cabinet: connect an arcade stick or joystick encoder via USB. Many makers build their own cabinet this way.
  • Easier to start: for those who want less hassle, there’s also a MAME core in RetroArch.