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25 Jul 2018

Today’s MAME release has two consecutive zeros in the version number! The only other time that happened was over twelve years ago! Although MAME version numbers are just an incrementing number, by a series of coincidences, MAME 0.200 delivers several major changes. First of all, if you’re building MAME with Microsoft Visual Studio (MSVC), you’ll need Visual Studio 2017. We’ve dropped support for Visual Studio 2015. Starting this month, we’re building the official Windows binaries with GCC 7.3 – this probably won’t affect you (we still support building with GCC 5 and up). We’re mirroring tagged releases at GitLab (source only) and SourceForge (source and binaries), so if for some reason you’re unable to access GitHub, you’ll still be able to download official MAME releases.

MAME 0.200 includes replacements for the memory system and callback API. This will enable new functionality and make MAME development more straightforward. The artwork layout system has also had an overhaul which opens new possibilities. We’ve tried our best not to break things, but if you do find something wrong, let us know at MAME Testers, or on our IRC channel #mame on the freenode network.

In arcade emulation this month, we have a number of new versions of supported titles, including a very rare prototype of Led Storm Rally 2011 and three more Street Fighter II': Champion Edition bootlegs. Dreamcast/NAOMI colours are greatly improved thanks to snickerbockers, and cam900 fixed some graphical effects in Gals Panic 3 and Billiard Academy Real Break. Enik Land improved emulation of the Sega Master System, Game Gear and Mega Drive VDPs, covering more corner cases.

The really exciting emulation improvements this month are on the computer side. There are lots of improvements for UK home computers, including better Camputers Lynx tape support (with lots of additions to the software list), re-worked Acorn System emulation, and support for Acorn Bus slot devices. We’ve got a brand-new modernised Apple IIgs driver, with improvements in just about every area. Also, Wayder updated the Sharp 68000 software list, correcting and organising the entries and adding the latest clean dumps.

But even more exciting is the fact that, thanks to Patrick Mackinlay’s gargantuan effort and persistence, the CLIPPER-based InterPro 2000 workstation now works well enough to install and run CLIX (a UNIX operating system). As far as we know, this is a first for MAME. The improvements to SCSI, CD-ROM, and serial emulation also benefit other emulated computer systems. Instructions are on the MAMEdev wiki if you want to try it out.

As usual, all the details are in the whatsnew.txt file, and you can get source and Windows binaries from the download page.


http://mamedev.org/?p=459