M A M E
Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator
by Nicola Salmoria (MC6489@mclink.it)
please note that many people helped with this project, either directly or
by making source code available which I examined to write the drivers. I am
not trying to appropriate merit which isn't mine. See the acknowledgemnts
section for a list of contributors.
Here is a quick list of ther currently supported games; read on for details.
The list doesn't include variants of the same game.
Game Playable? Accurate colors? Sound?
Pac Man Yes Yes Yes
Ms Pac Man (bootleg) Yes Yes Yes
Crush Roller Yes Yes Yes
Pengo Yes Yes Yes
Lady Bug Yes Yes No noise
Mr. Do! Yes Yes Yes
Crazy Climber Yes Yes Yes
Crazy Kong Yes No Yes
Donkey Kong Yes No No
Donkey Kong Jr. Yes No No
Bagman Yes (slowdowns) No Music only
Wizard of Wor Partially Maybe No
The Adventures of Robby Roto No No No
Gorf No No No
Galaxian Yes Yes Limited
Pisces Yes Yes Limited
"Japanese Irem game" Yes Yes Limited
War of the Bugs Yes No Limited
Moon Cresta Yes Yes? Limited
Moon Quasar Yes Yes? Limited
The End Yes No No
Scramble Yes Yes No
Super Cobra Yes No No
Frogger Yes Close No
Amidar Yes Close No
Turtles Yes No No
Rally X Yes (slowdowns) No No
Pooyan Yes No No
Phoenix Yes Close No
Pleiades Yes No No
Space Invaders Yes Yes No
Carnival No No No
Mario Bros. Yes No No
Zaxxon Yes No No
Congo Bongo Yes No No
Bomb Jack Yes Yes No
Centipede Yes No No
Nibbler Yes No No
Acknowledgements
----------------
First of all, thanks to Allard van der Bas (avdbas@wi.leidenuniv.nl) for
starting the Arcade Emulation Programming Repository at
http://valhalla.ph.tn.tudelft.nl/emul8
Without the Repository, I would never have even tried to write an emulator.
If you find out something useful, submit it to avdbas@wi.leidenuniv.nl,
so it will be made available to everybody on the Repository page.
Z80Em Portable Zilog Z80 Emulator Copyright (C) Marcel de Kogel 1996,1997
Note: the version used in MAME is slightly modified. You can find the
original version at http://www.komkon.org/~dekogel/misc.html.
M6502 Emulator Copyright (C) Marat Fayzullin, Alex Krasivsky 1996
Note: the version used in MAME is slightly modified. You can find the
original version at http://freeflight.com/fms/.
Allegro library by Shawn Hargreaves, 1994/96
SEAL Synthetic Audio Library API Interface Copyright (C) 1995, 1996
Carlos Hasan. All Rights Reserved.
Video modes created using Tweak 1.6b by Robert Schmidt, who also wrote
TwkUser.c. Thanks to Chuck Cochems for the help in making them more
compatible.
224x288 noscanlines video mode provided by Valerio Verrando
(v.verrando@mclink.it)
AY-3-8910 emulation by Ville Hallik (ville@physic.ut.ee) and Michael Cuddy
(mcuddy@FensEnde.com).
UNIX port by Allard van der Bas (avdbas@wi.leidenuniv.nl) and Dick de Ridder
(dick@ph.tn.tudelft.nl).
Phoenix driver provided by Brad Oliver (bradman@primenet.com) and Mirko
Buffoni (mix@lim.dsi.unimi.it)
Mario Bros., Zaxxon and Bomb Jack drivers provided by Mirko Buffoni
(mix@lim.dsi.unimi.it)
Congo Bongo driver provided by Ville Laitinen (ville@sms.fi).
Very special thanks to Sergio Munoz for the precious information about the
Pengo sound hardware and colors.
Thanks to Paul Swan for the information on the Lady Bug sound hardware and
Mr.Do! colors.
Big thanks to Gary Walton (garyw@excels-w.demon.co.uk) for too many things
to mention them all.
Thanks to Simon Walls (wallss@ecid.cig.mot.com) for the color information
on many games.
Information about the Crazy Climber machine hardware (including palette)
and ROM encryption scheme provided by Lionel Theunissen
(lionelth@ozemail.com.au).
Thanks to Andy Milne (andy@canetics.com) for the information on the Crazy
Climber sound roms.
Crazy Kong emulation set up by Ville Laitinen (ville@sms.fi).
Special thanks to Brad Thomas (bradt@nol.net) and Gary Shepherdson for the
extensive information on Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr.
Info on Bagman, Galaxian, Moon Cresta and many other games taken from Arcade
Emulator by Robert Anschuetz.
Pooyan information provided by Michael Cuddy and Allard van der Bas
Thanks to Mirko Buffoni for the Amidar and Frogger colors.
Thanks to Richard Davies for info on Phoenix.
Thanks to Brad Thomas, Jakob Frendsen and Conny Melin for the info on Bomb
Jack.
Thanks to Mike@Dissfulfils.co.uk for the information on the Moon Quasar
encryption scheme.
Space Invaders information gathered from the Space Invaders Emulator by
Michael Strutt (mstrutt@pixie.co.za)
Many thanks to Jim Hernandez for the information on Wizard of Wor hardware.
Thanks to Mike Coates (mike@dissfulfils.co.uk) for Carnival ROM placement
indications.
Colors for Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and Mario Bros. derived from Kong
emulator by Gary Shepherdson.
Colors for Amidar and Frogger derived from SPARCADE by Dave Spicer.
Thanks to Brad Oliver, Marc Vergoossen (marc.vergoossen@pi.net) and Richard
Davies (R.Davies@dcs.hull.ac.uk) for help with Donky Kong Jr. colors.
Thanks to Dave W. for all his help.
Usage
-----
MAME [name of the game to run] [options]
for example
MAME mspacman -nosound will run Ms Pac Man without sound
options:
-noscanlines use alternate video mode (not availble in all games). Use this
if the default mode doesn't work with your monitor/video card.
-vesa use standard 640x480x256 VESA mode instead of custom video mode.
Use this as a last resort if -noscanlines doesn't solve your
video problems.
-soundcard n select sound card (if this is not specified, you will be asked
interactively)
-nojoy don't poll joystick
-log create a log of illegal memory accesses in ERROR.LOG
-frameskip n skip frames to speed up the emulation. For example, if the game
normally runs at 60 fps, "-skipframe 1" will make it run at 30
fps, and "-skipframe 2" at 20 fps. Use F11 to check the fps your
computer is actually displaying. If the game is too slow,
increase the frameskip value. Note that this setting can also
affect audio quality (some games sound better, others sound
worse).
The following keys work in all emulators:
3 Insert coin
1 Start 1 player game
2 Start 2 players game
Tab Change dip switch settings
P Pause
F3 Reset
F4 Show the game graphics. Use cursor keys to change set/color, F4 to exit.
F11 Toggle fps counter
F10 Toggle speed throttling
F12 Save a screen snapshot
ESC Exit emulator
Pac Man ("pacman")
------------------
Arrows Move around
F1 Skip level
F2 Test mode
CTRL Speed up cheat
Clones supported:
Pac Man modification ("pacmod")
Namco Pac Man ("namcopac")
Hangly Man ("hangly")
Puck Man ("puckman")
Piranha ("piranha")
Known issues:
- Blinky and Pinky seem to be shifted one pixel to the right. This is really
annoying, but I can't seem to be able to understand why. Maybe there is an
additional "sprite offset" register somewhere? Or did the original just
behave this way?
Note that we can't fix it by just moving sprites 0 and 1 one pixel to the
left, because when Pac Man eats a power pill the sprites order is changed
so that Pac Man is drawn over the ghosts. It becomes sprite 0, and Blinky
becomes sprite 4.
Ms Pac Man ("mspacman")
-----------------------
Arrows Move around
F1 Skip level
F2 Test mode
CTRL Speed up cheat
Known issues:
- Blinky and Pinky seem to be shifted one pixel to the right. This is really
annoying, but I can't seem to be able to understand why. Maybe there is an
additional "sprite offset" register somewhere? Or did the original just
behave this way?
Note that we can't fix it by just moving sprites 0 and 1 one pixel to the
left, because when Pac Man eats a power pill the sprites order is changed
so that Pac Man is drawn over the ghosts. It becomes sprite 0, and Blinky
becomes sprite 4.
Crush Roller ("crush")
----------------------
Crush Roller is a hacked version of Make Trax, modified to run on a
Pac Man board.
Arrows Move around
F1 Skip level
Known issues:
- There's the same problem with sprites as in Pac Man, but here it could be
fixed without apparent side effects.
Pengo ("pengo")
---------------
Arrows Move around
CTRL Push
F1 Skip level
F2 Test mode
Clones supported:
Penta ("penta")
Lady Bug ("ladybug")
--------------------
Arrows Move around
F1 Skip level
Known issues:
- The noise generator is not emulated yet.
Mr. Do! ("mrdo")
----------------
Arrows Move around
CTRL Fire
F1 Skip level
CTRL+F3 Test mode
Clones supported:
Mr. Lo! ("mrlo")
Known issues:
- The noise generator is not emulated yet, but I think Mr. Do! doesn't
use it anyway.
Crazy Climber ("cclimber")
--------------------------
E,S,D,F Left joystick
I,J,K,L Right joystick
F1 Skip level
Clones supported:
Japanese version ("ccjap")
bootleg version ("ccboot")
Crazy Kong ("ckong")
--------------------
This Donkey Kong clone runs on the same hardware as Crazy Climber, most
notable differencies being a larger character set and the display rotated
90 degrees.
Arrows Move around
CTRL Jump
Known issues:
- Some problems with sound
Donkey Kong ("dkong")
--------------------
Arrows Move around
CTRL Jump
Donkey Kong Jr. ("dkongjr")
---------------------------
Arrows Move around
CTRL Jump
Bagman ("bagman")
-----------------
Arrows Move around
CTRL Action
Known issues:
- Frequent slowdowns, I don't know what's causing them (the fps counter stays
at 60, so this is not caused by slow emulation).
Wizard of Wor ("wow")
---------------------
Arrows Move around
CTRL Fire
F2 Test mode (keep it pressed)
The original machine had a special joystick which could be moved either
partially or fully in a direction. Pushing it slightly would turn around the
player without moking it move. The emulator assumes that you are always
pushing the joystick fully, to simulate the "half press" you can press Alt.
Known issues:
- This game is completely different from anything else I have emulated before.
The video memory is bitmapped. There are no character generator ROMs,
graphics data is contained in the code ROMs and the program sends commands
to some custom circuitry on the board to do copies, fills, and so on.
Understanding how the thing works without the schematics is tricky. There
are no memory mapped ports, everything is done via IN and OUT instructions.
As of now, it is somewhat playable but there are several faults.
- No background stars, no fade in/fade out.
The Adventures of Robby Roto ("robby")
--------------------------------------
This game runs on the same hardware as Wizard of Wor, but doesn't work yet. I
still haven to check the loading address of the ROMs.
Gorf ("gorf")
--------------------------------------
This game runs on the same hardware as Wizard of Wor, but doesn't work yet.
It boots, shows some text on the screen and that's all.
Galaxian ("galaxian")
---------------------
Arrows Move around
CTRL Fire
F2 Test mode
There are so many clones here that I'm not even sure which is the "original"
one. The dip switch menu might display wrong settings.
Namco Galaxian ("galnamco")
Super Galaxian ("superg")
Galaxian Part X ("galapx")
Galaxian Part 1 ("galap1")
Galaxian Part 4 ("galap4")
Galaxian Turbo ("galturbo")
Known issues:
- Only one sound channel is emulated, and I'm not sure it's correct
Pisces ("pisces")
-----------------
This runs on a modified Galaxian board.
Arrows Move around
CTRL Fire
Known issues:
- Only one sound channel is emulated, and I'm not sure it's correct
- What do the dip switches do?
"Japanese Irem game" ("japirem")
--------------------------------
This runs on a modified Galaxian board.
Arrows Move around
CTRL Fire
Clones supported:
Uniwars ("uniwars")
Known issues:
- Only one sound channel is emulated, and I'm not sure it's correct
- What does dip switch 6 do?
War of the Bugs ("warofbug")
----------------------------
This runs on the same hardware as Galaxian.
Arrows Move around
CTRL Fire
Known issues:
- Only one sound channel is emulated, and I'm not sure it's correct
- What do the dip switches do?
Moon Cresta ("mooncrst")
------------------------
This runs on a hardware very similar to Galaxian.
The ROMs are encrypted. Nichibutsu copyright.
Arrows Move around
CTRL Fire
Clones supported:
Unencrypted version ("mooncrsb")
Known issues:
- Only one sound channel is emulated, and I'm not sure it's correct
- What do the dip switches do?
Moon Quasar ("moonqsr")
-----------------------
This runs on a modified Moon Cresta board.
Arrows Move around
CTRL Fire
Known issues:
- Only one sound channel is emulated, and I'm not sure it's correct
The End ("theend")
------------------
This runs on a hardware very similar to Galaxian.
Arrows Move around
CTRL Fire
Known issues:
- I haven't yet had time to check what the various input bits and dip switches
do. Two players are not supported.
- Is this game supposed to have background stars?
Scramble ("scramble")
---------------------
The video hardware is very similar to Galaxian, main differences being that
bullets are not vertical lines and the star background doesn't scroll.
Arrows Move around
CTRL Fire
ALT Bomb
Clones supported:
Battle of Atlantis ("atlantis") [I don't know what most of the dip switches
do, and you get 9 credits per coin.]
Known issues:
- The background stars don't blink. Maybe they should also be clipped to the top
and bottom of the screen?
- Two players mode doesn't work
Super Cobra ("scobra")
----------------------
Runs on the same hardware as Scramble.
Arrows Move around
CTRL Fire
ALT Bomb
Clones supported:
bootleg version ("scobrab")
Known issues:
- The background stars don't blink. Maybe they should also be clipped to the
top and bottom of the screen?
- Two players mode doesn't work
Frogger ("frogger")
-------------------
Arrows Move around
Clones supported:
bootleg version, which runs on a modified Scramble board ("froggers")
Amidar ("amidar")
-----------------
Arrows Move around
CTRL Jump
Clones supported:
US version ("amidarus"). This version is quite different, it has a better
attract mode and displayes the number of jumps left.
Known issues:
- What do the dip switches do?
Turtles ("turtles")
-------------------
This runs on the same hardware as Amidar
Arrows Move around
CTRL Bomb
Known issues:
- What do the dip switches do? I'm obviously missing something, becasue the
game plays in unlimited lives mode.
Rally X ("rallyx")
------------------
Arrows Move around
CTRL Smoke
F2 Test
Known issues:
- Graphic glitches, slowdowns, small screen
Pooyan ("pooyan")
-----------------
Arrows Move around
CTRL Fire
Phoenix ("phoenix")
-------------------
Arrows Move around
CTRL Fire
ALT Barrier
Pleiades ("pleiades")
---------------------
This runs on the same hardware as Phoenix.
Arrows Move around
CTRL Fire
ALT Teleport
Space Invaders ("invaders")
---------------------------
Arrows Move around
CTRL Fire
Clones supported (some of these have wrong colors, and the dip switch menu
doesn't work):
Super Earth Invasion ("earthinv")
Space Attack II ("spaceatt")
Space Invaders Deluxe ("invdelux") (doesn't work yet)
Galaxy Wars ("galxwars")
Lunar Rescur ("lrescue")
Destination Earth ("desterth")
Known issues:
- The color stripes are not placed correctly
Carnival ("carnival")
---------------------
Doesn't work yet!
Mario Bros. ("mario")
---------------------
Arrows Move around player 1
CTRL Jump player 1
Z,X Move around player 2
SPACE Jump player 2
F1 Test (keep it pressed - very nice, try it!)
Zaxxon ("zaxxon")
---------------------
Arrows Move around
CTRL Fire
Congo Bongo ("congo")
---------------------
Runs on the same hardware as Zaxxon.
Arrows Move around
CTRL Jump
Bomb Jack ("bombjack")
----------------------
Arrows Move around
CTRL Jump
Press fire to skip the ROM/RAM test at the beginning.
In the dip switch menu, DIFFICULTY 1 refers to the speed of the mechanical
bird, while DIFFICULTY 2 to the number and speed of enemies.
Known issues:
- Colors are accurate, but not entirely: the original machine uses 12 bits
(4 bits per pen), while I currently use only 8 bits (3 bits for red and
green, 2 bits for blue).
- Is the sprite priority correct? For example, during the demo, should GAME
OVER be in front or behind other sprites?
There is another bit in the sprite attributes which I don't know what means:
it seems to be set only when the (B) materializes.
- For the DIFFICULTY 2 setting, EASY and MEDIUM might be swapped. Anyone can
confirm?
- The INITIAL HIGH SCORE setting doesn't only set that, it does something
else as well - but I don't know what.
Centipede ("centiped")
----------------------
Arrows Move around
CTRL Fire
Known issues:
- What is the clock speed of the original machine? I'm currently using 1Mhz,
I don't know if the game runs correctly.
- The game awards you 18 credits on startup
Nibbler ("nibbler")
-------------------
Arrows Move around
F1 Skip level
Known issues:
- What is the clock speed of the original machine? I'm currently using 1Mhz
- Some input bits seem to be used as debug controls - quite interesting, but
I haven't investigated yet.
- One ROM fails the power on test, but the game seems to work well - maybe
it's a bootleg?