MAME

MAME (originally the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is an emulator whose aim is to preserve decades of arcade, console and computer history by documenting how the hardware works. The project was started by Nicola Salmoria in 1997 and is now developed by a large team, the MAMEdev team. Since 2015 it has also included MESS, so it covers consoles, handhelds and home computers as well as arcade machines.

It supports thousands of arcade boards, from 1970s games to SEGA NAOMI, Model 2 and the Neo Geo, as well as systems such as Game & Watch handhelds, the ColecoVision, Intellivision, Vectrex, Philips CD-i, Apple II, Sharp X68000 and NEC PC-88. MAME puts accuracy and documentation first, so some systems run more slowly than in specialised emulators, and not every driver is fully working.

MAME is very active, with a new version about once a month. Version 0.289 was released on 31 July 2026. The official binaries are for Windows on x64 and ARM64; Linux distributions package it, and it builds from source on Linux and macOS. It is free and open source software, released under the GNU GPL version 2 or later, with much of the code under the BSD 3-clause licence.