'''''MESS''''' (Multi Emulator Super System) is an emulator for vintage computers, gaming consoles, chess computers, and calculators. It is a descendant of the MAME arcade emulation project and just like MAME, the most important goal of MESS is highly accurate emulation, not speed. MESS and MAME are mainly preservation projects that aim to reproduce the behavior of the real hardware perfectly.
Currently, over 450 systems are supported, including the CPC and CPC Plus ranges and the GX4000.[http://www.mess.org/mess:drivers:amstrad]MESS currently does not render the border area of the CPC screen, so physical screen resolution in MESS is 640x200 as the system info box shows.
MESS runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD.
Just as in MAME, some MESS ROMs have parent ROMs that also need to be installed. E.g., <tt>cpc6128.zip</tt> also requires <tt>cpc464.zip</tt> to run.
==Command line arguments==
MESS generally supports two keyboard mode command line options: '''emulated''' (the default; based on key position) and '''natural''' (command line option "-natural"; based on the character generated by a key, e.g. pressing "z" will always generate a "z" on the emulated system, even if the keyboard positions are different). In emulated mode, keys can also be remapped in the menu: press ''Tab'', then select ''Input (this system)''.
==ROMS==
Just as in MAME, some MESS ROMs have parent ROMs that also need to be installed. E.g., <tt>cpc6128.zip</tt> also requires <tt>cpc464.zip</tt> to run.
ROMs often only work with a specific version of MESS. This does not seem to affect CPC ROMs, but other systems sometimes give an error message when ROM filenames or checksums do not match what MESS expected.
==Front-ends==