MAME emulator v0.253 released
Published a new update for MAME (acronym of M ultiple Arcade M achine Emulator ), the program allows us to emulate various Arcade game platforms on Windows PC, MacOS and Linux .
The purpose of this emulation is to document the functioning of arcade coin-ops, preserving the history of video games over time.
This new update (the second since the beginning of 2023) could affect all those people dedicated to compiling the MAME frontend .
The libc++ 6 standard library is no longer supported, in order to compile MAME correctly you must now use the libc++ 7 or later standard library and clang 6 instead.
Alternatively you can use GNU libstdc++ 7 or later, for the C++ standard library. Secondly, MAME now requires Lua to be compiled in C++ to work properly.
This prevents the use of Lua libraries from Linux distribution package repositories, as these are compiled in C. Lua has also been updated to version 5.4 which aims to offer better performance.
Two changes under the magnifying glass instead, unpackhas been replaced with table.unpackwhile the deprecated bitlib library has been removed.
The focus now shifts to the new MAME Goodies repository , where additional content will be introduced over time for use with the MAME frontend (currently the repository only includes two plugins).
One of them will definitely come in handy for fans of Konami ‘s arcade rhythm games . They also serve as sample code for people who want to learn about some of the things you can do with Lua scripting features.
The new microcode-based Motorola 68000 CPU core has also arrived and is already showing great results, with a series of Atari ST demos previously out of reach.
One of the coolest systems to download and emulate this month is Akazukin , a 1983 arcade game about shooting wolves preying on a helpless girl.
There is also a game with the rather generic title Heroes , an early version of Data East ‘s Mutant Fighter . Also added other electronic toys to play with, including Race Time from Bandai , Punch Your Lights Out from Tiger and a trio of backgammon and chess games from Tryom .
Also introduced support for Brother LW-30 and LW-840ic dedicated word processors . The Sony NWS-3410 UNIX workstation now works (albeit without its frame buffer), as does the Vector 4 S-100 bus computer .
In the meantime, the improvements for Hyper Neo Geo 64 games continue with corrections for numerous texturing and tilemap problems. The Taito F3 video emulation had several effects fixed, with Land Maker in particular.
By switching from video to sound, the KC 85 family of computers now have a working audio output, fixed some issues with looping and re-enabled samples on Apple IIgs , and PC Engine CD audio playback issues which made some games.
More subtly, correcting the sound chip’s clock rates corrected the pitch of sounds for several systems, including Snow Bros. 2 and Noboranka .
If you want to know in detail all the changes made in this new version and with many software list updates, newly downloaded bootlegs, bug fixes and other improvements, you can view the complete changelog in the WhatsNew.txt file .
