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MAME emulates well over a thousand different [[arcade system board]]s, a majority of which are completely undocumented and custom designed to run either a single game or a very small number of them. The approach MAME takes with regards to accuracy is an incremental one; systems are emulated as accurately as they reasonably can be. Bootleg copies of games are often the first to be emulated, with proper (and copy protected) versions emulated later. Besides encryption, arcade games were usually protected with custom [[microcontroller unit]]s (MCUs) that implemented a part of the game logic or some other important functions. Emulation of these chips is preferred even when they have little or no immediately visible effect on the game itself. For example, the monster behavior in [[Bubble Bobble]] was not perfected until the code and data contained with the custom MCU was dumped through the [[decapping]] of the chip. This results in the ROM set requirements changing as the games are emulated to a more and more accurate degree, causing older versions of the ROM set becoming unusable in newer versions of MAME. | MAME emulates well over a thousand different [[arcade system board]]s, a majority of which are completely undocumented and custom designed to run either a single game or a very small number of them. The approach MAME takes with regards to accuracy is an incremental one; systems are emulated as accurately as they reasonably can be. Bootleg copies of games are often the first to be emulated, with proper (and copy protected) versions emulated later. Besides encryption, arcade games were usually protected with custom [[microcontroller unit]]s (MCUs) that implemented a part of the game logic or some other important functions. Emulation of these chips is preferred even when they have little or no immediately visible effect on the game itself. For example, the monster behavior in [[Bubble Bobble]] was not perfected until the code and data contained with the custom MCU was dumped through the [[decapping]] of the chip. This results in the ROM set requirements changing as the games are emulated to a more and more accurate degree, causing older versions of the ROM set becoming unusable in newer versions of MAME. | ||
| β | Portability and genericity are also important to MAME. Combined with the uncompromising stance on accuracy, this often results in high system requirements. Although a 2 GHz processor is enough to run almost all 2D games, more recent systems and particularly systems with 3D graphics can be unplayably slow, even on the fastest computers. MAME does not currently take advantage of hardware acceleration to speed up the rendering of 3D graphics, in part because of the lack of a stable cross-platform 3D API, and in part because software rendering can in theory be an exact reproduction of the various custom 3D rendering approaches that were used in the arcade games. | + | Portability and genericity are also important to MAME. Combined with the uncompromising stance on accuracy, this often results in high system requirements. Although a 2 GHz processor is enough to run almost all 2D games, more recent systems and particularly systems with 3D graphics can be unplayably slow, even on the fastest computers. MAME does not currently take advantage of hardware acceleration to speed up the rendering of 3D graphics, in part because of the lack of a stable cross-platform 3D API,{{Citation needed|reason=This claim needs a reliable source; OpenGL is a stable cross-platform 3D API since 1997|date=August 2012}} and in part because software rendering can in theory be an exact reproduction of the various custom 3D rendering approaches that were used in the arcade games. |
== Legal status == | == Legal status == | ||
