Why don the devs fix old games instead of adding new ones?
Simple. Adding new games is both relatively easy and relatively interesting. Sometimes, as soon as a dump becomes available, all one has to do is add the game info and ROM names to the proper drivers, recompile, and the game works perfectly. By contrast, fixing the existing games is usually both tedious and difficult. Often this requires that the dev play the game through to the point where the bug occurs, then step through the disassembled machine code line by line. Repeatedly. Ad nauseam. Once the error is understood, the dev has to write good, clean code that will correct the problem without breaking anything else on any of the hardware platforms that MAME runs on (which is often harder than you’d think). If you want a bug in your favorite game to be fixed, report it at MAME Testers and try to characterize it as specifically and with as much relevant detail as you can.
Simple. Adding new games is both relatively easy and relatively interesting. Sometimes, as soon as a dump becomes available, all one has to do is add the game info and ROM names to the proper drivers, recompile, and the game works perfectly. By contrast, fixing the existing games is usually both tedious and difficult. Often this requires that the dev play the game through to the point where the bug occurs, then step through the disassembled machine code line by line. Repeatedly. Ad nauseam. Once the error is understood, the dev has to write good, clean code that will correct the problem without breaking anything else on any of the hardware platforms that MAME runs on (which is often harder than you’d think). Sometimes, despite their best efforts, it turns out that there’s nothing they can do: Fix the sound in Phoenix? Not doable unless you intimately understand discrete circuitry as well as the inner workings of a $5000 piece of modeling software that you’d better have a copy of lying
