Disclaimer first: Retroarch (at least on Macs and iOS devices) is very fluid and sometimes experimental. Crashes occur. For a stable MAME experience, I still recommend official MAME as the main focus of this Blog.
Valid reasons for trying out MAME in Retroarch:
- Retroarch GUI (RGUI): if you get used to this joypad-centric kind of configuration, it is very useful; during a running game, you switch to RGUI, change config and see results (this is a very disputed topic, and Retroarch opponents will call RGUI as the main problem, but for me, after quite some time, it is a very good way to test stuff)
- Abundance of configuration options: again, many hat this, but these various config options show how much innovation happens in Retroarch; and they are worth testing
- Joypad support: great to fine tune - you will spend a lot of time here!
- Shader options: you can configure a lot of shader options if you are really into it
- Latency options: are quite interesting for the very competitive gamer
- Cross-core UI: if you run other cores, e.g. for consoles, you gain experience and can use this for MAME as well
- No bezel artwork: if you do not care about MAME artwork
- Because it's fun testing: just for learning Retroarch, I just enjoy experimenting with all these possible configuration possibilities
