MacMAME can use 3D accelerator cards to make adjustments to the game image that are prohibitively slow in software. It will stretch the video images to the correct aspect ratio (most noticeable in Moon Patrol), and it also allows for the image to be blurred slightly via bilinear filtering.
As of version 0.36, MacMAME uses a plugin architecture to provide 3D hardware support for rendering. In the past, MacMAME directly supported RAVE, OpenGL, and Glide without any extra files. However, this was limiting in several respects. Thanks to the new plugin system, anyone can write a video plugin
You can choose which rendering engine you wish to use by clicking on the "Options…" button in the frontend and selecting the appropriate plugin from the popup menu. Click the "About..." button to get a description of the plugin and what features it offers. Click the "Configure..." button to set plugin-specific options.
Here is a brief description of each 3D engine and the pros and cons.
RAVE:
RAVE is Apple's own low-level 3D rendering engine. It is not recommended at this time for people with 3dfx cards as there are a few issues in the RAVE drivers for these cards which we cannot work around.
ATI RAGE:
The most common 3D accelerator built into G3 and G4 Macs is the ATI RAGE series of chips. They come in three flavors: the Rage II, the Rage Pro, and the Rage 128. The ATI RAGE renderer provides the maximum speed on this specific hardware platform.
Glide:
The Glide engine can only be used with 3dfx cards, also known as cards with the "Voodoo" chipset. If you do not have one of these cards installed, MacMAME will render normally. Glide is the recommended choice if you have a 3dfx card as it is the fastest rendering engine for those cards.
OpenGL (not currently available):
The OpenGL engine can be used mainly with ATi cards. You'll also need the OpenGL beta extensions, available on Apple's web site. Since OpenGL is new to the Mac, there are still some kinks to be worked out. In particular, it's quite slow on my ATi Rage II+ card, compared to RAVE. It also has another serious flaw - Apple's implementation does not support any of the 3dfx "Voodoo" cards. However, MacMAME will run if you have the Mesa 3dfx OpenGL libraries installed as they do support the Voodoo cards.
Known Bugs
Here's a list of the bugs that I'm aware of. Please do not report them to me - I get enough e-mail as it is ;-)
* In general, vector games do not take advantage of the 3D hardware.
* If a dialog pops up while the 3dfx hardware is active, you cannot see it. Sorry.
* RAVE video is corrupted due to bugs in the more recent ATi drivers. If you experience corrupted RAVE video, click on the "Options..." button in the front-end and uncheck the "RAVE A-T (funky)" checkbox.
* Games which can change their palette, like the NeoGeo games, will not change colors if you have a 3dfx card and are using RAVE. This does not apply to OpenGL or Glide.
* Games which require 16-bit color do not work with OpenGL. However, Glide and RAVE will work with 16-bit color games.
