Play old arcade games on your PC
Platform : Windows 98/ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type: freeware
Manufacturer: MAME team
Size: 6.55MB
Rating: 4
Verdict:
Needs work to get the old arcade games working, but definitely worth the
effort.
System Requirements:
Requires ROM images to play original games
This is the software publisher’s description.
MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. When used in conjunction
with an arcade game's data files (ROMs), MAME will more or less faithfully
reproduce that game on a PC. MAME can currently emulate over 3000 unique (and
over 5400 in total) classic arcade video games from the three decades of video
games - '70s, '80s and '90s, and even some from the current millennium.
The ROM images that MAME utilizes are "dumped" from arcade games' original
circuit-board ROM chips. MAME becomes the "hardware" for the games, taking the
place of their original CPUs and support chips. Therefore, these games are NOT
simulations, but the actual, original games that appeared in arcades.
MAME's purpose is to preserve these decades of video-game history. As gaming
technology continues to rush forward, MAME prevents these important "vintage"
games from being lost and forgotten. This is achieved by documenting the
hardware and how it functions, thanks to the talent of programmers from the MAME
team and from other contributors. Being able to play the games is just a nice
side-effect, which doesn't happen all the time. MAME strives for emulating the
games faithfully.
MAME doesn’t ship with the original ROM images. These need to be obtained
separately.