Table of supported OS for Mame versions?

[Mordac85]

I've been reading through the docs at mamedev.org and found the massive tables for all of the versions but there isn't anything that outlines the OS supported.  I'm not a purist so I don't want to be forced to run a bloated Windows 10 just to emulate an arcade game.  I understand why they've dropped the older OS's, but I have older hardware and would like a simpler setup.  But, if I wanted to run say Win95, I'm not sure what versions I'd be limited to.

Does anyone know if there is already a list for what mame versions supported what OS's or will I need to crawl through the whatsnew text files and/or archive.org?

[nitrogen_widget]

pretty sure advanced mame covers dos, linux, and all versions of windows.
uses .106 rom set.

Retroarch goes as far back as windows 98SE.
you have to compile it yourself for win 95 and 981st.
it also runs on linux, android, probably your fridge if it's one of those smart ones.

actual mame does have 32 bit downloads but you are correct, no OS version.
so i guess you can either check out advmame & retroarch or pick a version and just download it to see if it installs and runs on your os.

[Fursphere]

I've been reading through the docs at mamedev.org and found the massive tables for all of the versions but there isn't anything that outlines the OS supported.  I'm not a purist so I don't want to be forced to run a bloated Windows 10 just to emulate an arcade game.  I understand why they've dropped the older OS's, but I have older hardware and would like a simpler setup.  But, if I wanted to run say Win95, I'm not sure what versions I'd be limited to.

Does anyone know if there is already a list for what mame versions supported what OS's or will I need to crawl through the whatsnew text files and/or archive.org?

If you hate Windows, just run Linux.  MAME has full Linux builds available.   

Windows 10 is almost 10 years old now, so your hardware must be really old.

[Mordac85]

I know the latest version of mame can run on a lot and I have no idea how you got that my hardware is ancient or that I hate Windows.  None of that was what I asked so let's just skip those.
I happen to have all Microsoft OS from DOS 3 to Server 2022.  I've used linux for years and have a few RPis lying around so my options are very broad for and OS and hardware isn't a problem either.  So I'm trying to understand the software, but if they're keeping pace to run on newer hardware and OSs then it's probably got it's own bloat.  Since they have every version of mame since they started available and I know at some point an older OS either can't or shouldn't run past a certain point.  With all of the historical data I was hoping there was an easy way to identify those OS limits.  I'll assume nothing like that exists or I still don't know enough about it yet.

[Fursphere]

I know the latest version of mame can run on a lot and I have no idea how you got that my hardware is ancient or that I hate Windows.

From  your own words...

I understand why they've dropped the older OS's, but I have older hardware and would like a simpler setup. 

Anyway...

So I'm trying to understand the software, but if they're keeping pace to run on newer hardware and OSs then it's probably got it's own bloat.  Since they have every version of mame since they started available and I know at some point an older OS either can't or shouldn't run past a certain point.  With all of the historical data I was hoping there was an easy way to identify those OS limits.  I'll assume nothing like that exists or I still don't know enough about it yet.

Memory is fuzzy, but I think its indirectly tied to DirectX versions.  So you'd have to search the release notes and see when support for the major DirectX versions was added (9, 10, 11, 12), and then cross-reference that with Windows OS support. 

For reference, one of my cabinets is an old Intel i5-2600k with a Geforce GTX 660 Ti GPU (hardware that is over a decade old) running Windows 10 and MAME 0.254 (haven't updated to the newest version yet).   No issues to speak of.   That system can emulate everything up to PS2 easily, and some newer stuff.  It's been able to handle most Tekonoparrot games too that I've tried.  Mostly lightgun stuff.   

I'm not entirely happy with the direction Windows 11 is going (crazy amount of user telemetry, and adding "Bing AI" integration directly into the OS), so I'm not sure my cabinets will every see Win11 or beyond.  But Windows 10 is fine once you hack out Cortana.