Important MAME versions

[krick]

What are the most important "milestone" versions of MAME (not ports).

I know that 0.92 was important because it was the last version before Aaron's major sound re-write.

I think that 0.36 is significant for some reason, not sure exactly why, though.

What are the other important versions, architecturally or performance wise?

[Sizzler]

.55

[krick]

.55

Why, exactly?  What is 0.55's specialty?

[Sizzler]

.55

Why, exactly?  What is 0.55's specialty?

.55 seems to be more recommended than any other past version.  It can be run on a throwaway PC and plays most all the classics that people want to play.   

FWIW, .36 won't have as many games as .55 (obviously), but .55 seems to have 99% of anything that people play with regularity.

[jelwell]

.95 was a large input rewrite. It also broke Network play on xmame - since then there has been no official way to play Joust 2 players over a network.

Joseph Elwell.

[pointdablame]

-  .36 is often recommended for very old machines, it seems to be a sweet spot for classic games being run on older machines
-  .37 ended the beta numbering scheme, and jumped from .37b16 to .53
-  .55 is recommended for low end machines.  As far as I can really tell, there isn't anything specifically "great" about .55, it's just recommended very often (as I recommended in that quote above lol).  It's more of a general timeframe than anything else IMO.  Something in the .55 area is a good "sweet spot" in my mind for slightly older systems

I don't really use newer versions since I've been too lazy to update, but some big ones I can think of (without knowing actual versions)

-  .92 as you mentioned for the sound rewrite
-  Introduction of newer Golden Tee games was pretty big to many people (.9x maybe?)
-  Multiple mice change is very recent and big IMO (.105ish??)

[krick]

-  .36 is often recommended for very old machines, it seems to be a sweet spot for classic games being run on older machines
-  .37 ended the beta numbering scheme, and jumped from .37b16 to .53
-  .55 is recommended for low end machines.  As far as I can really tell, there isn't anything specifically "great" about .55, it's just recommended very often (as I recommended in that quote above lol).  It's more of a general timeframe than anything else IMO.  Something in the .55 area is a good "sweet spot" in my mind for slightly older systems

I don't really use newer versions since I've been too lazy to update, but some big ones I can think of (without knowing actual versions)

-  .92 as you mentioned for the sound rewrite
-  Introduction of newer Golden Tee games was pretty big to many people (.9x maybe?)
-  Multiple mice change is very recent and big IMO (.105ish??)

That's the kind of stuff I'm looking for.  I figure that this stuff can go in the wiki eventually.

Oh, just to clarify, 0.92 was the last version *before* the sound re-write broke everything for several subsequent versions.  Also, the later versions are generally a little slower because of the re-write.  It's much better designed and easier to work with from a programmer's standpoint but usually that sort of thing results in slower code.

There were a couple of important versions for the (slower but more accurate) discrete sound emulation (if that sort of thing matters to you).  Asteroids and Phoenix come to mind but I'm not sure the exact versions.

[SirPeale]

.96 - the version Galaga's explosion sound was perfected, and could drop the samples.

[destructor]

.62, because from version .63 are some bugs in record/playback input files. Bug is knows as "mame63 bug".

[Havok]

.104 - finally Phoenix sounds right! (Mostly)

[Howard_Casto]

Also (while I don't have the versions handy)

The version that ctrlr files were added

The version that cfg files were changed to xml (so they can be edited manually)

The version that ctrlr files were converted to xml

The version that allowed you to finally map individual axis on mice inputs as well as use a mouse for an analog joystick input and vice-versa (you could do it before, but it never really worked). 

The recent version which added multiple mice support in windows.


Also at first positional gun game's inputs were treated as analog joysticks (as they should be)  then when the act-labs guns came out they were (wrongly) changed to act as lightguns.... as of .105u3 (i think) positional gun games are analog joysticks again, due to improved mouse configration. 

[TOK]

.99 - Robotron blitter emulation fixed, which slowed the game down so that it runs at same speed as original.

[krick]

Version 0.106 was the last version before the video and artwork system was re-worked.

This is the version I am still running in my cabinet, by the way.

[gonzo90017]

Here's some info I copied from u_rebelscum??

I was searching for releases best suited for older machines as well and compared releases from 0.93 through 0.106... Don't know if any of this will help or not.

* v0.93 had the audio rewrite.
* 0.107 is the first full release for the new video code - the actual rewrite appeared in 0.106u1
* hiscore.dat was removed (and replaced with save state) in v0.108
* CPS2 decryption was added in v0.112
* There was a big Donkey Kong update in v0.116
* CPS3 decryption added in v0.116u2

[Minwah]

-  .36 is often recommended for very old machines, it seems to be a sweet spot for classic games being run on older machines
-  .37 ended the beta numbering scheme, and jumped from .37b16 to .53

It was around this time the colour depth went to 16bit...previously many (most) games were 8 bit, which is partly why 0.36 is good for old PC's. I can't remember if this occurred in 0.37x or 0.53 tho.

[tikbalang]

Version 0.106 was the last version before the video and artwork system was re-worked.

This is the version I am still running in my cabinet, by the way.

also, the last (unofficial) versions available for DOS (defcade and advancemame).

[Ummon]

But didn't .106 drop savestates? Or maybe it was the last official build to have them and added some more...but for some reason I still use .104 .  I know in Advancemame .106 SmashTV has weird artifacting with sprite, resulting in traced layers and stuff.

[MAME TIME]

106 has save states , high score, nag screen removal,  what about 117 for cps3 or was that 116?