You can even use game controllers that connect to your computer via USB.
You could install standard game controller ports on the computer you'll be using and hook up standard computer joysticks, steering wheels or gamepads.
To find out more, read How to Connect Your Computer to Your TV. A CRT with an S-Video port and a computer containing a graphics card with its own S-Video port works well, but there are other options. If you choose a television, make sure your computer and TV can connect with the right cables. They argue that computer monitors provide too sharp a picture and detract from the real arcade experience. Some MAME enthusiasts prefer cathode ray tube (CRT) television sets to computer monitors. You'll also need a monitor for your game. A good GUI will eliminate the need to incorporate a keyboard into the final arcade machine. If you prefer, you can download a MAME frontend that incorporates a graphical user interface ( GUI). That means you must type in commands to change settings and run ROMs. If you download the basic PC version of MAME, you'll see that it's a command-line system. There are other versions of MAME called ports that will run on machines with a Mac or Linux-based operating system. Because of this, some games may run poorly no matter how fast your machine is.
Because MAME is attempting to reproduce the behavior of hardware, it requires a lot of processing power. Computers that have a graphics card with a graphics processing unit (GPU) may fare better than machines with basic graphics cards. The more powerful a computer is, the better it will be at handling the processing requirements of MAME. Most modern PCs blow the doors off of these minimal requirements.
When paired with an arcade game ROM (an acronym for read-only memory) and perhaps a selection of sound samples, MAME can imitate that game.
The MAME software emulates that hardware, including the arcade machine's memory, processors or central processing unit (CPU) and input/output (I/O) spaces.
You might also run into an arcade game that relies on some other form of storage device, but for the most part, the code that makes your favorite arcade games tick exists on physical chips attached directly to a circuit board inside the machine. However, there were a few games like Dragon's Lair and Space Ace that ran on laserdiscs. Most arcade games were hardwired into processor chips. The purpose of MAME is to preserve old arcade games.