CHD files are often a source of great confusion for MAME newbies. Find out what CHDs are and how to set them up properly with my quick tutorial. One good compatibility solution that I can recommend is to match MAMEUI - http://www.mameui.info/ - with emuparadise (no rom site links, use Google please). Some other important things to realise about MAME CHD games. Many of them are still in preliminary emulation status and even though you may be able to download them somewhere, there is no way for them work in MAME until the emulation is more complete. The best way to check the emulation status of any game is at MAWS, the ultimate MAME database: http://maws.mameworld.info/maws/ (Sorry, MAWS is down at the moment. Alternative: Open current MAMEUI and click the CHD folder in the left field to view all CHD games, then click a game to view status near bottom right). To call up a list of all the MAME parent roms that require a CHD, use the MAWS 'deluxe search' option. Then under 'resource type' select 'parents', and under 'CHD required' select 'yes'. Then hit 'search' to get the results. Look at 'driver status', 'colour emulation', and 'sound emulation' for 'preliminary', 'imperfect', or 'good' status indicators. Blank or garbled screenshots are also an indication of preliminary emulation status. Even so, once you have an idea of which games may or may not be worth downloading there aren't always any guarantees that a particular game will run properly on your system. Some games, such as Gauntlet Legends, would require an extremely powerful system to run at full original performance. Others, like Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, will generally run fine, even on an old P4, in spite of the cps3.c driver status still being classified as imperfect at the time of writing. Need help with MAME? MameAddicts! Getting you back to the classics. ;-)

• published: 08 May 2010
• views: 50180