This is done to tell the rom that you have 'coins' to play the game. If roms are not placed exactly like this MAME will be unable to read it.Īnother quirk is whenever the game opens, you have to press the five key repeatedly. For example, roms have to be placed in a special rom folder in the MAME folder, and the rom has to be in a zip file. The emulator itself runs fine, but it has a lot of quirks to it. Nowadays, the same video game is available on a minimum of five consoles, and you can buy it online.īecause of these slight differences in how people played games, MAME is a good way for people to look at how gaming has evolved. If you lived far from an arcade, you were unable to play video games. MAME is also one of the oldest emulators on the internet.īack in the day when a game developer released a game, it went to an arcade, and that was the only place people could play. Nowadays MAME is used to not only introduce a new generation to arcade games but with over 4,500 entries, it serves as a time capsule of sorts. When this program was developed, MAME allowed people to play thousands of games for free. What made this program so astounding was that it brought all the games from an arcade, and allowed people to turn their computer into a free arcade.