Arcade machines filled bars and arcades from the 70s to the 2000s, from Pong and Space Invaders to Street Fighter and Metal Slug. Their games ran on custom hardware, often a new board for each game, and emulators recreate each of these boards.
We have about 2,400 arcade games on My Abandonware. They are ROM sets: copies of the chips of the original boards, which only an arcade emulator can read.
Arcade emulators
MAME runs almost every arcade game ever dumped, and it's free on Windows, Mac and Linux. FinalBurn Neo is faster and easier for the big names of the 80s and 90s: Capcom, Neo Geo, Sega.
- MAME (Windows, Linux, and macOS thanks to lngn): the reference. It emulates tens of thousands of machines with great accuracy, and a new version comes out every month. Recommended.
- FinalBurn Neo (Windows, and every system through RetroArch): very good for Capcom CPS-1, CPS-2 and CPS-3 games, Neo Geo games, and many Sega and Toaplan games. Lighter than MAME, with netplay to play online with a friend.
- RetroArch runs both, as cores. See our page about multi-system emulators.
LaserDisc games, the Sega Naomi, Chihiro and Lindbergh boards, and the PC-based arcade machines of the 2000s need other emulators: see Games MAME can't run below.
Running arcade games in MAME
Put the game's zip file, unopened, in the roms folder of MAME, then start MAME and pick the game in its list. The zip must keep the short name MAME expects.
- Download the Windows 64-bit version of MAME. It is a self-extracting program, like
mame0289b_x64.exe: run it, choose a folder of its own, and it unpacks MAME there. The folder has an emptyromsfolder. - Download the game from our site and look inside our archive. If it holds another zip with a short name, like
sf2.ziporddsom.zip, that inner zip is the ROM set: copy it, without unzipping it, into theromsfolder. - Start
mame.exe. The list shows every machine MAME knows, more than 43,000, and many of them are greyed out. In the left column, click Available: the list now shows only the games MAME found inroms. Pick yours. - Press 5 to insert a coin and 1 to start. Tab opens the MAME menu, where you can set your keys or your gamepad. F5 pauses, Esc quits.
MAME 0.289 on Windows 11 with The Punisher: the inner punisher.zip copied into roms, the game picked under Available. MAME first asks for qsound_hle.zip; once it is in roms, the game starts. The unpacking of MAME is sped up.
Each arcade game has a short name in MAME, never more than 16 characters: sf2 for Street Fighter II, pacman for Pac-Man. MAME looks for a zip with exactly that name. If you rename it, MAME won't find it.
Running arcade games in FinalBurn Neo
FinalBurn Neo reads the same kind of ROM zips as MAME, but it runs fewer games, and it is lighter. It is a good choice for Capcom and Neo Geo games.
- Download FinalBurn Neo from its release page. On Windows, take
fbneo.zip(we used version 1.0.0.2) and extract it in a folder of its own. - Start FinalBurn Neo. On Windows 11, an error box can appear: "Couldn't intialise 'DirectDraw7 / Direct3D7 Enhanced video output' module". Click OK, then open Video > Select blitter and choose Experimental (DirectX Graphics 9).
- Put the game's zip, without unzipping it, in the
romsfolder. For a Neo Geo game, putneogeo.zipthere too. - Open Game > Load game, pick your game and click Play. Press 5 to insert a coin and 1 to start.
If a game does not start, see "Why doesn't my ROM work?" below: the causes are the same as in MAME.
Games MAME can't run
Some arcade games need an emulator made for their hardware: LaserDisc games, Sega's Naomi and Atomiswave boards, and the PC-based machines of the 2000s. The file description on the game page often names the hardware.
Our big downloads, several GB each, are usually one of these. The table sums up which emulator to use, with a few examples from our catalog; the sections below give the details.
| Hardware | Emulator | Examples on My Abandonware |
|---|---|---|
| LaserDisc games | Hypseus Singe (Daphne) | Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Cliff Hanger, Road Blaster, Firefox, M.A.C.H. 3 |
| Sega Naomi, Naomi 2, Atomiswave | Flycast | Marvel vs. Capcom 2, The House of the Dead 2, Ikaruga, Crazy Taxi, Guilty Gear X |
| Sega Model 2 and Model 3 | Model 2 Emulator, Supermodel | Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter 2 and 3, Sega Rally Championship, Virtua Cop, Star Wars Trilogy Arcade |
| Sega Chihiro | Cxbx-Reloaded (partly) | OutRun 2, Virtua Cop 3, Ghost Squad |
| PC-based boards: Taito Type X, Sega Lindbergh, Namco and others | TeknoParrot | Raiden III, Raiden IV, Homura, The House of the Dead 4, Rambo |
LaserDisc games: Hypseus Singe
Dragon's Lair and its kind played cartoon or film scenes from a LaserDisc. Hypseus Singe, the modern version of the Daphne emulator, plays them on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Hypseus Singe continues the work of Daphne, the first LaserDisc arcade emulator, which is no longer developed. A LaserDisc game needs the ROM of the arcade board, in the roms folder, plus the video of the disc: a framefile (.txt), the video (.m2v) and the sound (.ogg). This is why these downloads are so big. Hypseus Singe starts from the command line or a script, for example hypseus lair vldp -framefile vldp/lair/lair.txt; its page explains every option. MAME also runs a few LaserDisc games, from a .chd copy of the disc.
Sega Naomi and Atomiswave: Flycast
The Naomi was Sega's arcade version of the Dreamcast, and many companies used it or its cousin, the Atomiswave. Flycast runs these games, free, on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Flycast also emulates the Dreamcast, and exists as a RetroArch core. It needs the BIOS of the board: naomi.zip, naomi2.zip or awbios.zip, next to the games. Games that came on a GD-ROM disc, with a description like "GDL-0010", need their .chd file too. The Flycast wiki explains the setup. MAME runs many Naomi games as well, more slowly.
Sega Model 2 and Model 3
Sega's big 3D arcade games of the 90s, like Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter 2 and 3 or Sega Rally, ran on the Model 2 and Model 3 boards. Two emulators made for them run these games best.
Use Model 2 Emulator (Windows) for the Model 2, and Supermodel (Windows, Mac, Linux) for the Model 3. Both read ROM zips named like MAME's. MAME itself has been running Model 2 games better and better in recent versions.
Sega Chihiro
The Chihiro was Sega's arcade version of the Xbox, used for OutRun 2 and Virtua Cop 3. Its emulation is still young: only a few games run, with glitches.
Cxbx-Reloaded (Windows), an Xbox emulator, runs a handful of Chihiro games, the arcade version of OutRun 2 among them. For the others, there is no working emulator yet. Some Chihiro games were remade for later boards that TeknoParrot runs, like OutRun 2 SP SDX on the Sega Lindbergh.
PC-based arcade games: TeknoParrot
From the 2000s, many arcade machines were PCs inside: Taito Type X, Sega Lindbergh and RingEdge, and several Namco boards. TeknoParrot runs more than 400 of these games on Windows.
TeknoParrot makes your Windows PC look like the arcade machine the game expects. It's free to use; a paid subscription gives access to some extra games and features. These games are not ROM sets but folders of files, like a PC game:
- Unzip the game into a folder of its own, with no spaces in its path.
- Start TeknoParrot and add the game: choose its profile in the list, then point TeknoParrot to the game's main program, as its wiki explains.
- Set your controls in TeknoParrot, then start the game.
TeknoParrot works on Windows only, and recent games need a good graphics card. Its wiki has a compatibility list for each board.
Why doesn't my ROM work?
Most failures come from a ROM set made for another MAME version, or from a missing BIOS or parent file. MAME names the missing files when a game refuses to start.
- The version: ROM sets change over time, because chips are dumped again or better identified. A set made for an old MAME may miss a file that a recent MAME wants, and the opposite. The file description on our game page (like "set 2" or "Europe 960619") names the version of the game, not the MAME version. If a set fails in a recent MAME, try an older MAME, or FinalBurn Neo.
- Clones need their parent: many sets are clones, like a Japanese or European version of a game. A clone only holds what differs from the main version, its parent. Put the parent zip in
romstoo. - BIOS files: some boards share a startup program, stored in its own zip:
neogeo.zipfor every Neo Geo game,qsound_hle.zipfor Capcom games with QSound sound, like The Punisher,pgm.zipfor IGS games. Put it inroms, next to the game. See our page about BIOS files. - CHD files: games that used a hard disk, a CD or a LaserDisc come with a
.chdfile. Put it in a folder named after the game's short name, insideroms, next to the game's zip. Don't zip it.
When a game cannot start, MAME shows a red screen: "The following ROM/disk images required for the selected system are missing or incorrect". It lists each missing file with the name of the zip it belongs to, in brackets. For example, dl-1425.bin (qsound_hle) - not found means you need qsound_hle.zip. A Neo Geo game without neogeo.zip lists the files of the Neo Geo BIOS, each ending with (neogeo). That list is the first thing to give when you ask for help.
I need help!
We do not provide support for running abandonware games. The MAME community is huge, and its documentation is very complete.
Read About ROMs and sets in the MAME documentation: it explains versions, clones, BIOS and CHD files in detail. Ask your questions on the MAME forums, with the list of missing files MAME showed you.
Checked in October 2026 against each emulator's own documentation and, where it exists, its source code. Game counts and file sizes come from our own catalogue. These guides were drafted with the help of an AI assistant and checked by hand before publishing. If something here is out of date, tell us.