MrSkyle

Yup, that would be me. I didn't know the difference until now. I didn't see FBA as a different emulator for the same roms, I thought each had their own different romset, with different files. But now I realise FBA is simply running (the equivalent of) a more recent and refined MAME romset, with focus on more recent games, as the MAME version that runs on those systems is an older one. Either way, I noticed differences in the emulation of the same game, so I'll stick with both emulators, each with their own romset. So maybe my suggestion of adding "umk3" may be an invalid one by now, since the latest MAME romset should regard it as a parent, as much as FBA does.

I'm using 0.78, which I believe is somewhat outdated, so maybe now "umk3" is already a parent that no longer requires "mk3"? I also noticed the same with NBA Jam and its update, NBA Jam T.E. - "nbajamte" is considered a clone of "nbajam", despite being different games. Again, this is what I found out using the 0.78 romset, maybe they are now both separate parents as well. What is interesting, however, is that both NBA Jam and MK3 are Midway games...

For a long time and up until at least MAME 0.78, "umk3" has been regarded as a clone of "mk3" and required this one to run. Not sure afterwards. As for FBA, I cannot explain it with detail (I'm not entirely familiar with arcade emulation), but it's basically another arcade emulator with its own romset, just like MAME. It runs some games better than MAME, such as Neo Geo games, and can run others without the need of CHD files, such as Red Earth and the SFIII series. Interestingly, "umk3" is considered a parent in the latest FBA romset.

Stumbled upon this topic when searching the web for unique clones and really have to say THANK YOU for your effort! I'll use this list as a guide for setting up my MAME library and weed out all the unnecessary clones. A couple of questions: 1- Has Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (umk3) been mentioned already? It's a very unique clone of "mk3" with extra characters, stages, modes and music. In fact, it's regarded as a distinct game altogether, yet it requires the "mk3" parent rom. 2- Is there also a list of FBA (FinalBurn Alpha) unique clones, or can the MAME list be used as a reference for both?