Current Guides
Holy Cheat! - syndromtr's guide on how to make cheats, contains lots of nice in-depth examples on making ROM cheats (Last Updated on 17th September 2014)
Old Guides
FAQ - Tourniquet's FAQ (Last Updated on 19th Sept 2001)
Cheat Guide - kelvSYC's Guide to using the MAME and MESS Cheat Engines (Last Updated on 23rd Apr 2004)
Useful Files
NEC CPU Instructions - Useful Instruction Look-Up to aid quick hand-assembling of ROM cheats for the NEC V20/V25/V30/V33/V35/V40/V41/V50/V51/V53 processors for a whole host of MAME games and other consoles/home computers (Last Updated on 12th Oct 2014)
68000 CPU Instructions - Useful 68000 Instruction Look-Up to aid quick hand-assembling of ROM cheats for the Sega Genesis/Megadrive and a whole host of MAME games and other consoles/home computers (Last Updated on 19th Mar 2011)
Z80 CPU Instructions - Useful Z80 Instruction Look-Up to aid quick hand-assembling of ROM cheats for the Sega Master System/Gamegear and a whole host of MAME games and other consoles/home computers (Last Updated on 19th Mar 2011)
2A03 (6502) CPU Instructions - Useful 2A03 Instruction Look-Up to aid quick hand-assembling of ROM cheats for the Nintendo NES (Last Updated on 19th Mar 2011)
5A22 (65C816) CPU Instructions - Useful 5A22 Instruction Look-Up to aid quick hand-assembling of ROM cheats for the Nintendo SNES (Last Updated on 19th Mar 2011)
LR35902 CPU Instructions - Useful LR35902 Instruction Look-Up to aid quick hand-assembling of ROM cheats for the Nintendo Gameboy (Last Updated on 19th Mar 2011)
SH-2 CPU Instructions - Useful SH-2 Instruction Look-Up to aid quick hand-assembling of ROM cheats for the Sega Saturn and various MAME games (Last Updated on 20th Mar 2011)
SH-4 CPU Instructions - Useful SH-4 Instruction Look-Up to aid quick hand-assembling of ROM cheats for the Sega Dreamcast and various MAME games (Last Updated on 24th Apr 2011)
HUC6280 CPU Instructions - Useful HUC6280 Instruction Look-Up to aid quick hand-assembling of ROM cheats for the NEC TG16/Hudson PC-Engine (Last Updated on 25th Mar 2011)
6800 CPU Instructions - Useful 6800 Instruction Look-Up to aid quick hand-assembling of ROM cheats for a small amount of MAME games (Last Updated on 25th Mar 2011)
6809 CPU Instructions - Useful 6809 Instruction Look-Up to aid quick hand-assembling of ROM cheats for a large variety of MAME games and various emulated MESS systems (Last Updated on 27th Mar 2011)
8080/8085 CPU Instructions - Useful 8080/8085 Instruction Look-Up to aid quick hand-assembling of ROM cheats for a large variety of MAME games and various emulated MESS systems (Last Updated on 27th Mar 2011)
ARM7 Thumb CPU Instructions - Useful ARM7 Thumb Instruction Look-Up to aid quick hand-assembling of ROM cheats for the Nintendo Gameboy Advance and various MAME games (Last Updated on 6th Jul 2010)
Utilities
1. PS1 Joker Finder (Pugsy 21st May 2017) - Win64 commandline tool that makes finding PS1 joker cheats with the MAME debugger less of a hassle.
2. PS1 Widescreen Cheat Finder (Pugsy 2nd June 2024) - Win64 commandline tool that makes finding PS1 widescreen cheats with Duckstation easier.
Obsolete Utilities
All these utilities are no longer relevant with the latest MAMEs.
1. CheckCDB Version 2.2 (Release Date : 22nd February 1999) - the one time essential cheat file maintenance util by Mac LAK. This utility is intended to perform a check on MAME's cheat databases, in order to avoid loading errors/cheat losses and shows which games have no cheats (nifty!).
2. MAME Cheat Database Converter for DOS Version 1.1B - old PRE 0.34B8 cheat file converter from JCK to fix the non working cheats from 0.34B8 in 0.37 FINAL.
3. MAME Cheat Database Converter for DOS Version 3.3B (Release Date : 12th of May 2002) - old PRE 0.38B1 cheat file converter from JCK to fix the non working cheats prior to 0.38B1 due to a major rewrite of the cheat engine allowing several new powerful cheat types.
4. Kiwi NEO Genie -> MAME 034 RC1 Cheat Database Converter Version 1.0B (Release Date : 16th December 1998) - JCK's converter that'll convert a Neo Genie cheat file to MAME 0.34 RC1 format.
5(a). MAMERAIN Version 3.1B (Release Date : 4th August 1999) - utility from JCK that will convert cheats from a MAME 0.37 BETA 16 format cheat file into the pre 0.32A RAINE emulator cheat format.
5(b). MAMERAIN Version 4.0B (Release Date : 19th July 2001) - utility from JCK that will convert cheats from a MAME 0.37 BETA 16 format cheat file into the RAINE 0.32A emulator cheat format.
6. RAINMAME Version 1.0B (Release Date : 19th July 2001) - utility from JCK that converts cheats from RAINE format into the MAME format. Once again it is a beta program and should be used with care and in conjunction with the instructions. V1.0B will make a cheat file suitable for use with MAME 0.37 BETA 16 from a RAINE 0.32A cheat file. Read the text files for more information.
7. MAME2KN Version 1.0 (Release Date : 20th September 2001) - quick utility I (Pugsy) knocked up to convert cheats from a MAME (upto 0.55) cheat.dat file into the .dat files for KAWAKS/NEBULA + maybe some others - it's only been tested on cps1/cps2 and neogeo games (it may work for other arcade systems...it may not).
8. FIXGEN V1.0 - CLRMAME Pro DAT Fix Generator (Release Date : 05th May 2002) - a quick non-cheat related tool I made(Pugsy) made. Completely obsolete as Roman has now followed my suggestion and added this feature to CLRMAME.