15. Arcade and Mame Explained - spruceUI/spruceOS GitHub Wiki

Spruce contains a number of different Rom folders pertaining to arcade emulation. There is some overlap between them, but there are some important differences.

Roms/ARCADE is there for you to do what you want with! Games run out of this folder will default to the Final Burn Neo (FBNeo) emulator core, but can also be toggled to MAME2003+ or Final Burn Alpha 2012 (FBA2012) by pressing the X button in the games list. FBNeo is generally more compatible with save states, and in some cases, Retroachievements, than the other cores, and so is the spruce team's recommended core. Some games, like one of tenlevels' favorites - Demon Front - are supported on FBNeo and not on MAME2003+. On the other hand, MAME2003+ may be more accurate or performant than FBNeo in some cases, as well as supporting different games.

Because FBNeo and MAME2003+ use different ROM sets, we have provided independent folders for these emulators at Roms/MAME2003PLUS and Roms/FBNEO for users who wish to use both cores, and keep these two ROM sets separate.

Finally, we have provided independent folders at Roms/CPS1, Roms/CPS2, Roms/CPS3, and Roms/NEOGEO for users who wish to keep these specific subsets of games separate. The current default emulator for these systems in spruce is FBA2012, as it tends to run faster on some of the more difficult to emulate games. However, users have the option of switching to FBNeo using the X button in the games list while browsing these systems.

Tenlevels absolutely loves Arcade games and leaves us with these words:

"Man is it a picky little thing. Happy gaming!!"