Home Page Forums MAME Non-Windows MAME Support MAME, RetroArch and Mac emulation

I wasn't sure whether to ask this on the Libretro forums or here, but I thought I would try here first.

I noticed that the latest version of the MAME RetroArch core is 0.275 which aligns with standalone MAME.

That got me thinking if I could emulate classic Macs but also have access to the shaders and overlays offered by RetroArch.

I run MAME from a command line and normally launch with something like this:

C:\emulation\mame\mame.exe macqd800 -ramsize 8M -rompath C:\emulation\mame\mac\roms -hard1 c:\emulation\mac\drives\qd800.hda

In RetroArch I created a custom mame.ini file and cfg file for Mac emulation and can launch to the MAME 0.275 main window with the following command:

C:\emulation\retroarch\retroarch.exe -L C:\emulation\retroarch\cores\mame_libretro.dll -c C:\emulation\retroarch\config\mame\mac.cfg

When MAME loads it tells me "configuration override loaded"

What I cannot figure out is how/where to pass specific commands like -hard1, -ramsize etc. or specify the type of Mac to emulate. Also, the MAME RetroArch core shows no sign of recognizing HDA files.

Am I barking up the wrong tree here? Does anyone know if the RetroArch MAME core actually has the same functionality and capabilities as standalone MAME to emulate Macs?

MAME in Retroarch is severely neutered. They don't allow access to most things that aren't arcade games, plugins, or the debugger, and they make a lot of deep modifications to MAME that tend to reduce performance. MAME itself has a pretty wide selection of shaders if you run -video bgfx and then go through the "Screen Effect" slider.

Ahh.. good to know, thanks. I did not realize the RetroArch core is severely limited in functionality.

I will check out the bgfx effects.

I was primarily interested in seeing if I could get some of those nice looking Mac overlays provided by 'Duimon-Mega-Bezel' working.