Cave sh3 roms not working for me in mame 0.181 because crash.
For me, mame 2014 is faster than mame 0.181 and all games work perfectly…
Of course mame 0.181 will run fine in powerfully device such shield TV.
Mame 2014 is better for phones. If you have shield TV go for mame 0.181.
Also mame4droid reloaded (0.139) is the best for play Capcom cps3
Yes mame4droid plays chds very well
MAME 0.174 core works fine with GPD XD. To access the MAME OSD menu, press L2. However, I don’t know if the OSD menu still works with the latest 0.181 core, I have not tested it yet.
There’s only one issue with this core… I’m unable to exit a game using the physical BACK button on GPD XD anymore. It was working before, maybe I have to bind another button for this function.
Also, it would be nice to be able to access the shader settings through the Tilde key like the regular MAME does, through R1, L1 or L3 physical GPD XD buttons. Is that going to be implemented anywhere in the future?
Tested the latest android .apk and confirmed that the blue color is fixed. However, my MAME core stopped working for good, no matter what I do. I’ve tried removing and reinstalling it from scratch, but Retroarch refuses to start my MAME games and crashes with the following message: “FAILED TO OPEN LIBRETO CORE”. How can I solve this issue? Please heeeeelp! 
I did several core updates taking different retroarch .apk versions but it just won’t open my MAME games anymore. The older MAME versions (2000 and 2003) are working, but I want the latest core, since these two are very outdated.
Just for the record, before updating my retroarch today, I was runnig the MAME 0.174 core without any problems. It was working just fine in my GPD XD device and it was quite fast. And besides MAME, I can run both Stella and Game&Watch cores without any problems. It’s just the latest MAME core that stopped working. And in my Motog Cellphone, I can update and run the latest MAME 0.181 core, so it could be something related to GPD devices only. Any clues or tips on how could I solve this issue is welcome! Thanks
Same here! After updating my core from 0.174 to the latest 0.181, I try to load the mame core and it displays ‘no core’. And when I try to run any game it doesn’t even start and gives an error: “failed to open libretro core”. I guess this new mame core is broken or does not support older android versions, mine is KitKat 4.4.4 (GPD XD). I hope that it can be fixed. And if a log file is needed, I can provide one, just let me know.
If you want old 0.174 mame you have to build it yourself. It time consuming for us to do it. The repo always available on twinaphex github named mame-old.
Thanks R-type, I’ll try to compile it myself. Would you please tell me the needed tools to compile the source and how can I do such thing? Is there a tutorial somewhere on how to compile the cores for Android?
EDIT: I did the download of the mame-old source code (174) to my windows computer and the android-ndk-r13b-windows-x86_64.zip, now how do I compile this? What do I have to change in the makefile and other files in order to obtain the 0.174 core for older android devices such as the not-so-old GPD XD?
My device is 4.4 too.
Honestly i done all this in linux. Pain for me to explain how to setup it from windows. I always crosscompil from linux. And even if you were on linux i would not having time to explain you how to do it.so sorry you woll have to wait someone with the knowledge that can do it for you.
Ok R-Type, don’t worry and thanks for the explanation.
In fact, a friend of mine who has an Nvidia Shield (which has a later android version) reported that the current MAME build is broken in his device as well, so it seems that the OS (kitkat in my case) is not the problem. So I hope that you guys find a way to get this issue fixed soon. Fingers crossed!
If you can provide usefull a logcat i will look at. Btw last mame core work for me on my shield tablet and on my phone.
I did a log file with logcat extreme and saved it to a text file. I tried to upload it here but the forum accepts only image files, so I will upload it to my ftp server tomorrow and make a link available here.
Ok Here is the LOG I did with Logcat Extreme. Copy the link below and paste in your browser to download:
rcoltrane.50webs.com/Log_2017-01-18_22-58-50
I hope that this can help you to see what’s going on with users that cannot open the latest MAME core in some Android devices. Fingers Crossed 
ok seem it is what @anon24419061 said , unexported symbol ,
the first error throw is : 01-18 22:53:59.896 2831 2850 E RetroArch: Error(s): dlopen failed: cannot locate symbol “rand” referenced by “mame_libretro_android.so”…
some info about similar pb
Thanks for giving it some attention r-type. Now my question is: is it too difficult to modify the current code to make it to work again in my device and other devices which are having the same problem? I would love to have my Retroarch’s MAME core working again in my device
I tried to read the texts in the link you posted and it seems to be a reference to an older library or something like that. And it seems to be possible to keep both older and newer libraries working together, am I right? By only Setting APP_PLATFORM=android-19 it seems to be possible to generate a MAME 0.181 core which would work here.
A final thought: I think it would be nice to let the 0.174 core in the “cores” library, such as the old MAME2000 and MAME2003 ones (this one would be labeled MAME2016) and case closed. If your device runs newer MAME cores, fine. If it doesn’t, try the older ones listed there. At least we, people who have older devices, would have more options. I’ve got my GPD XD in october/2016 and one of the reasons I got this device was to play Retroarch’s latest MAME cores. And now I’m frustrated because the only version I got working is now gone, and I cannot compile it myself, it’s something beyond me
Sorry, just wanted to vent my frustration a little bit
@twinaphex what do you think about re-import mame-old as a mame2016 core (middle 2016)? I know It starts to do a lot of mame core so I let you take the decision .
That would be nice to have this option 
Let me know when this core (middle2016) is available and I’ll quickly test it here.
To clarify , I’m not admin here or in libretro github , so I can’t decide (I’m only admin on few repositories of core I ported over libretro) Only Libretro admin may decide on the implementation of this.