If you want absolute perfection, download the MAME 2003-Plus .dat file from the official libretro GitHub. Load it into an auditing tool to scan your downloaded folder. The software will tell you exactly which files are 100% greenlit and ready for gameplay.

: Always be cautious about the legality of ROMs. While MAME itself is legal, the legality of ROMs can depend on how they were obtained.

MAME 2003-Plus (also called MAME 2003+ or mame2003-plus) is a – a modern, optimized take on the classic MAME 0.78 emulator. It was designed for lower‑powered devices like the Raspberry Pi, retro handhelds, and mini consoles, where newer versions of MAME would struggle. Think of it as a carefully tuned engine: it drops ultra‑high accuracy (which demands a lot of processing power) in favor of smooth performance and broad game support .

The best and most legal way to obtain MAME ROMs is by dumping them yourself from your own arcade machines or by obtaining them through official MAME distributions or reputable sources. However, direct links to full non-merged ROM sets for MAME 2003 Plus are not typically shared or hosted due to copyright and legal issues.

MAME 2003-Plus is a high-performance libretro arcade emulator core that began with the MAME 0.78 codebase but has since backported support for over 350 additional games and numerous bug fixes