Future plans announcement

sjy96525

https://www.mamedev.org/?p=562
Hello everyone,
It is rare that the MAME Team addresses the community with news of this magnitude, and we want to approach this moment with the transparency and care it deserves. What follows is a candid account of where this project stands, where it is going, and why the decisions we have made — difficult as some of them are — represent the most responsible path forward for a codebase that has grown into one of the most complex preservation efforts in the history of open-source software.

🚀 On the Question of Technical Debt and Organizational Capacity

MAME has, for most of its existence, operated through the extraordinary dedication of volunteers who give their time and expertise freely. That generosity has produced something remarkable: a codebase that accurately emulates thousands of distinct hardware architectures, often to a degree of fidelity that no commercial effort has matched or even attempted. We do not take that legacy lightly. What we must acknowledge, however — and what we have been reluctant to state plainly until now — is that the accumulated complexity of that codebase has begun to exceed the realistic capacity of any volunteer-driven review process to maintain safely and sustainably.

The decision we are announcing today did not emerge from a single conversation or a sudden shift in priorities. It is the result of a long period of internal reflection on what it means to steward a project of this scope responsibly.

🔧 The Confirmed Direction: Rust Migration and AI-Assisted Review

Following extensive deliberation, the MAME Team has reached a unanimous decision to pursue a phased architectural migration toward Rust, to be introduced incrementally across subsystems beginning with the May release. Concurrent with this migration, all pull requests submitted to the project will be subject to mandatory AI-assisted code review prior to human maintainer evaluation. Submissions that do not satisfy the automated review criteria will be closed without further escalation.

We wish to be unambiguous: this is not a request for community input, nor is it a proposal subject to revision through discussion. The decision has been made. We are communicating it now because the community that has supported this work deserves to understand the reasoning behind it, not simply to receive the outcome.

📍 May Release Scope and Migration Priorities

The May release represents the first concrete milestone in this transition. The initial migration scope includes:

Memory safety wrappers: The highest-priority concern from a security and long-term maintainability standpoint.
Sound driver subsystems: An area of the codebase where Rust's ownership model offers the most immediate and demonstrable benefits.
Our governing principle throughout this process is one that long-time contributors will recognize: if a driver cannot pass a cycle-accuracy parity check against the existing stable build, it does not ship. We will not sacrifice correctness for the sake of modernity.
🖥️ Platform Targeting and Contributor Requirements

We recognize this element of the announcement may provoke significant discussion, and we want to address it directly.

Going forward, MAME's primary development target is a PC running a recent version of Windows, equipped with a GPU compliant with at minimum DirectX 11 (SM5), OpenGL 4.3, or Vulkan. This requirement is not arbitrary. The AI-assisted toolchain that underpins both code review and regression testing requires local model inference capabilities, and we believe it is reasonable to ask that contributors have access to hardware capable of running those tools.

We want to be clear about what this does and does not mean. Ports to other platforms remain explicitly permitted under the terms of the existing license. Those ports will be upstreamed as they become available, subject to the project's monthly token budget constraints. Modifications to source layout, core APIs, and OSD-layer support remain at the discretion of relevant fork maintainers, provided that any such modifications pass the AI-administered unit test suite prior to upstreaming. Contributions that exhaust the project's monthly token allocation will be queued to the following development cycle; we appreciate your patience as we calibrate these limits.

🤖 On the Appropriate and Responsible Use of AI in This Context

We are aware that any announcement involving AI tooling will raise legitimate questions about the integrity of the work being produced. We want to address those questions honestly.

The language models integrated into our development pipeline serve three specific, bounded functions:

Structural refactoring: Models are used to map established C++ memory-safety patterns into idiomatic Rust. Every output is reviewed and validated by a human contributor before it is considered for inclusion.
Test matrix generation: AI synthesizes comprehensive regression test cases derived from hardware datasheets, covering timing and behavioral edge cases at a scale that would be impractical to produce manually.
Cycle-accuracy verification: The AI-administered test suite exists to confirm, not to assume, that emulation fidelity is preserved throughout the migration process.
We are not using generative tools to write drivers, to make architectural decisions, or to substitute for human expertise in matters of hardware behavior. The goal is augmentation of human capacity, not replacement of human judgment.
🛠️ Communication Going Forward

Official updates regarding this migration will be communicated through:

GitHub: Technical specifications, commit history, and branch tracking
mamedev.org: Milestone summaries and roadmap documentation
Discord: Community discussion and beta testing coordination
We are transitioning away from mailing lists as the primary channel for core development announcements. We recognize that this represents a meaningful change for a portion of our long-term community, and we have made this decision thoughtfully.
🙏 A Final Word The history that MAME exists to preserve is irreplaceable. The hardware it documents is dying. The window during which accurate emulation can still be validated against physical reference hardware is narrowing. These are the stakes that motivate every decision described in this announcement, and they are the reason we have chosen to act now rather than continue managing decline incrementally.

The first milestone release will be accompanied by detailed comparison data demonstrating cycle-accuracy parity across all affected subsystems. We invite scrutiny of that data. We are confident it will speak for itself.

Thank you, as always, for the trust you have placed in this project.

MAME Core Team

wt1005

啥意思   谁翻译总结下？？？？

Panda

进来转转

sjy96525

wt1005 发表于 2026-4-1 11:22
啥意思   谁翻译总结下？？？？

大家好，
MAME团队很少向社区发布如此规模的新闻，我们希望以应有的透明度和谨慎对待这一时刻。接下来，我们将坦率地介绍这个项目的现状、发展方向，以及为什么我们做出的决定——尽管其中一些决定很困难——代表了一个代码库最负责任的前进道路，这个代码库已经发展成为开源软件史上最复杂的保护工作之一。
🚀 技术债务与组织能力问题研究
MAME在其存在的大部分时间里，都是通过志愿者的非凡奉献来运作的，他们自由地投入时间和专业知识。这种慷慨产生了一些非凡的东西：一个能够准确模拟数千种不同硬件架构的代码库，其保真度通常是任何商业努力都无法比拟甚至尝试的。我们不会轻视这一遗产。然而，我们必须承认的是，到目前为止，我们一直不愿明确表示的是，代码库的累积复杂性已经开始超过任何志愿者驱动的审查过程安全和可持续地维护的现实能力。
我们今天宣布的决定不是从一次谈话或优先事项的突然转变中产生的。这是对负责任地管理这一范围的项目意味着什么进行长期内部反思的结果。
🔧 已确认的方向：Rust迁移和AI辅助审查
经过深入考虑，MAME团队一致决定分阶段向Rust进行架构迁移，从5月份的版本开始，逐步在子系统中引入。在迁移的同时，提交给项目的所有pull请求都将在人工维护人员评估之前接受强制性的人工智能辅助代码审查。不符合自动审查标准的提交将被关闭，不会进一步升级。
我们希望明确一点：这不是征求社区意见，也不是通过讨论修改的提案。决定已经做出。我们现在正在进行沟通，因为支持这项工作的社区应该理解其背后的原因，而不仅仅是接受结果。

📍 5月发布范围和迁移优先级
5月份的发布标志着这一过渡的第一个具体里程碑。初始迁移范围包括：
内存安全包装：从安全性和长期可维护性的角度来看，这是最优先考虑的问题。
声音驱动程序子系统：代码库中Rust的所有权模型提供最直接和可证明的好处的一个领域。
我们在整个过程中的管理原则是长期贡献者会认识到的：如果驾驶员无法通过与现有稳定版本的循环精度奇偶校验，则不会发货。我们不会为了现代性而牺牲正确性。
🖥️ 平台定位和贡献者要求
我们认识到，公告中的这一内容可能会引发重大讨论，我们希望直接解决这个问题。
展望未来，MAME的主要开发目标是运行最新版本Windows的PC，配备至少符合DirectX 11（SM5）、OpenGL 4.3或Vulkan的GPU。这一要求不是任意的。支持代码审查和回归测试的人工智能辅助工具链需要本地模型推理能力，我们认为要求贡献者能够访问能够运行这些工具的硬件是合理的。
我们想清楚这意味着什么，不意味着什么。根据现有许可证的条款，向其他平台的端口仍然是明确允许的。这些端口将在可用时进行上游处理，但受项目每月代币预算的限制。对源代码布局、核心API和OSD层支持的修改仍然由相关的fork维护者自行决定，前提是任何此类修改在上游之前都通过了AI管理的单元测试套件。耗尽项目每月代币分配的捐款将排队进入下一个开发周期；我们感谢您在校准这些限制时的耐心。
🤖 在这种情况下适当和负责任地使用人工智能
我们知道，任何涉及人工智能工具的公告都会对所制作作品的完整性提出合理的质疑。我们希望诚实地回答这些问题。
集成到我们的开发管道中的语言模型服务于三个特定的、有界的功能：
结构重构：模型用于将已建立的C++内存安全模式映射到惯用的Rust中。在考虑纳入之前，每个输出都由人类贡献者进行审查和验证。
测试矩阵生成：人工智能综合了从硬件数据表中得出的全面回归测试用例，涵盖了手动生成不切实际的时序和行为边缘用例。
循环精度验证：人工智能管理的测试套件的存在是为了确认，而不是假设，在整个迁移过程中保持仿真保真度。
我们没有使用生成工具来编写驱动程序、做出架构决策，也没有在硬件行为方面取代人类的专业知识。目标是增强人的能力，而不是取代人的判断。
🛠️ 沟通向前
有关此次迁移的官方更新将通过以下方式传达：
GitHub：技术规范、提交历史和分支跟踪
mamedev.org：里程碑总结和路线图文档
不一致：社区讨论和beta测试协调
我们正在从邮件列表转变为核心开发公告的主要渠道。我们认识到，这对我们长期社区的一部分人来说是一个有意义的改变，我们深思熟虑地做出了这一决定。
🙏 最后一句话：MAME存在的目的是保护历史，这是不可替代的。它记录的硬件正在消亡。仍然可以根据物理参考硬件验证精确仿真的窗口正在缩小。这些是激励本公告中描述的每一个决定的关键因素，也是我们选择现在采取行动而不是继续逐步管理衰退的原因。
第一个里程碑版本将附有详细的比较数据，证明所有受影响子系统的循环精度一致。我们邀请对这些数据进行审查。我们相信它会自己说话。
一如既往，感谢您对这个项目的信任。

MAME核心团队

以父之名

进来看看

呼噜哥

总的来说就是分阶段向Rust架构迁移

昇龍霸拳

對於玩家而言，此番MAME重塑架構是以最新硬體設備為開發目標，使用老舊設備執行效率自會大打折扣囖。

Alifu1227

进来看看

RenDanny

进来看看

shinyoyo

这新闻没必要贴出来吧？这就是愚人节玩笑