How to setup correct MAME game resolutions?

[krick]

...emulated game and audio speed should always be self-adjusting in relation to actual refresh rate, and actual refresh rate should be adjustable in relation to available refresh rate provided by given video card and monitor.

This is kind of what the SoundSync option in CabMAME and GroovyMAME does. 

For example, when running Pac-Man on my cabinet with GroovyMAME, the refresh rate of the video mode chosen is actually a little lower than the actual arcade game, probably due to running a vertical game on a horizontal monitor.  If you sync MAME to the monitor refresh to prevent tearing, Pac-Man runs a little slower, however the sound tries to play at the original speed, which causes sound buffer overflows.  The SoundSync option adjusts the playback rate of the sound buffer to match the emulation speed.  It eliminates the buffer overflow glitching, but has the side-effect of making the pitch of the audio slightly lower.

I run GroovyMAME with the default settings except I turn SoundSync on.  I have yet to find a game that exhibits any tearing at all, and I'm using an ArcadeVGA, which has a much more limited choice of resolutions than running Soft15KHz or CRT_EmuDriver with a "normal" ATI card.