
Today I stumbled across an old CD I have full of MAME ROMs. I thought I’d see if you could play them in OS X, and sure enough it’s actually quite straight forward. This brief tutorial will guide you in playing MAME games in OS X.
- To get started, download and install MAME OS X. Once installed, launch it from your Applications folder.
- The first time you run MAME OS X, it will ‘audit’ several hundred (thousand?) ROMs (games). This can take upwards of half an hour to complete. If you don’t want to import/audit all of these games (and the audit does download any ROMs, it just creates a huge list of them)..
- …select File -> Abort Audit.
- Otherwise, once the audit has completed, you’ll be presented with a huge list of games.
- To actually play a game, drag the ROM (as a zip file) to the Your Username -> Library -> Application Support -> MAME OS X -> ROMs folder. PS. you can find lots of ROMs here.
- Then start the game by double-clicking it from the massive list of games in MAME OS X. NOTE: if you have trouble getting games to launch, please see this comment by Joshua Pierce. Thanks Josh!
- Something you may want to take a look at is MAME Library, a free program that makes organizing, finding and launching games even easier. If you’ve ever used iPhoto, you’ll be very familiar with the interface. When you launch MAME Library for the first time, it will import the database from MAME OS X. This only takes a minute or two.
- MAME Library organizes your games/ROMs via screenshots (which you can take by hitting F12 while playing a game).





























ok guys i’ve been trying to get STREET FIGHTER 3rd stike to run….however….i seem to have all of the files…the LOG just tells me that it cannot find the 33s000.chd file BUT ITS CLEARLY inside the HARD DISK IMAGES folder where i put it. I tried re-directing in the PREFERENCES but nothing seems to work…..wtf!?? i have downloaded 2 versions of the CHD file and put it twice in the folder….i even ZIPPED it….but nothing…. any ideas as to why the log wont find my file even though its where its supposed to be??
HEY GUYS!! I DID IT!!! thought i’d report it. it turns out that for STREET FIGHTER 3rd strike…the .CHD file is supposed to be ZIPPED or COMPRESSED with the ROM… i thought i’d try it out since i was running out of options and it WORKED!!!!!!!!!! so …..i took the .zip file of the rom, unzipped it, then zipped it back but with the CHD file . when i opened MAME OS X it suddenly read it no problems… hope this helps some of you guys in here. bye!
Eu queria saber como fazer para instalar no meu computador o jogo mame no os x.Se tiver que pagar.AI NÃO
Hey I got it working too.Does anyone know how to play online in MAME OS X?If so please email me.
I would like to know how can i install the neo geo bios files in mame osx! Thanks in advance!
Nuno wrote: “I would like to know how can i install the neo geo bios files in mame osx! Thanks in advance!”
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just like any other rom: move the bios zip file into the roms directory.
Tommy wrote: “Hey I got it working too.Does anyone know how to play online in MAME OS X?If so please email me.”
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You can’t.
Need some help: I can’t play any games. I’ve downloaded them, moved them to the ROMs file, then activated MAME and tried auditing those titles. The game’s are not found. What do I do?
I downloaded mame0sx and all my downloaded roms work but killer instinct doesn’t work and that really hurt me because it was the main reason why I downloaded mameosx.
PLEASE I NEED HELP. I NEED KILLER INSTINCT FOR MAMEOSX.
Okay so I did what joshua Pierce said and tried to redirect the direction and it wont let me choose the TMNT zip (the game i currently want to play) any help as to why this is?
I am having a lot of problems with this. I can never understand these things.
I didn’t bother to audit the games, instead, I audited the games I want. After that, I click on the game from the list & it reads it cannot read the file. Also, there is no folder in my username library that has “ROMs”.
So what do I do?? I really want the experience to play MAME.
tengo una duda…. no se como salvar una partida…. para no tener que comenzar el juego desde el principio…..o no se si el programa tenga la función de salvar partidas…. agradezco su atención
mucha suerte
Ok so I have a few questions regarding MAME OS X. Primarily, I downloaded it so I could play “Guilty Gear XX Slash (Rev A).” I got the CHD for it and put it in the right folder I assume since it doesn’t tell me that file is missing anymore. The other files are different, however.
The ROM is not in ROM format, it is 317-5111-jpn.data, and while I have that in both zipped and unzipped versions in the ROMs folder, it says it can’t find them. It also asks for a slew of files in the form of epr-21576x.bin. I have all of the files it asks for but I don’t know where to put them and it says it can’t find them. I also have this problem with the file fpr-23489c.ic14.
SO, what I am asking is: what do I do with the .data file? where do I put the .bin files? and where do I put the .ic14 file? Thank you very much!
hey i cant get any metal slug games to work
i downloaded them all 4 times already…i got the neo geo plug ins but it still sais its bad
ne one help me out a bit?
hello all, i thank all of you for the posts and support as i went throgh all of them just now, some wer handy, but in the other hand iv got the game i need to work but somthing still bugging, the game is “street fighter III 3rd strike”, it didnt run firstly but i tried several stuff and now its working, now when it starts it gave a green window says it wont work correctly, i opend the log file and here is what i found:
”
10 WRONG CHECKSUMS:
EXPECTED: CRC(ba7f76b2) SHA1(6b396596dea009b34af17484919ae37eda53ec65)
FOUND: CRC(77233d39) SHA1(59c3f890fdc33a7d8dc91e5f9c4e7b7019acfb00)
WARNING: the game might not run correctly.”
so is this a bad rom? or should i try download all game vr. to skipp some file missing pain?
will be verry verry thankfull if u help and share some suggestions.
thank you
hey amigo donde puedo descargar roms de metal slug
I’m doing exactly what this says and nothing opens. It just keeps telling me that I have missing files
Naymind. Read Joshua’s Comment
Guys I REALLY NEED help with this. I downloaded Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker for Mame os x but every time I put it in the ROMs folder in the mame os x, it just doesnt open. The log says it’s missing required files but it’s all there. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance
Could Someone help me, I have made sure that the ROM directory is in the right place and the actual ROM is too but It still is saying that F-Zero has missing files.
Hello, I’m having trouble auditing games. The ROM is in ZIP format, and is in the ROMs folder. But when I clock audit, it doesn’t audit the game. The emulator should be able to find it in the ROM folder but it is not Please advise!
Ok i have finally figured out what was wrong with some of the games logs not being found but they are there. First get your rom and know exactly which one it is (Japan, version B, Japan, version A and so on) Put it in the rom folder in zip format. Now the part i changed Go to the audit list and hover over the one that you have. It should give a name of the file keep that in mind. Now look at the file you have mine was renamed to something different which is why it could not be found. So which ever file you have rename it was when you hovered over the audit list and it worked for me.