older versions of mame, where to find them? Also a computer question

[boogieman]

I have heard in several places that you can run most games on slower computers using older versions of mame.  My problem is I can't find the older versions online anywhere.  So where do you find them?

I may be going with my dell 8200 2 ghz pentium 4 computer.  I would assume this is still overkill...  The main reason is it has an atp slot for using an arcadevga and the other computer I bought for this project doesnt have any slots other than pci (not pcie).  Anyways, what games will I NOT be able to run?  Is there any way to find out what versions of mame support what games and such?  Also, is there a place to see what games won't run on a computer with specs like the dell one?  I guess what I need to know is what games I won't be able to play at full speed if using the latest version, or if I need an older version, what games will I miss out on?

Sorry to be such an idiot, I am reading so much wiki stuff and google stuff that smoke may start coming out of my ears soon.

 

[EndTwist]

http://mamedev.org/oldrel.html is a list of the old releases, including source and binary downloads. As well, the "whatsnew" text files list the new game additions, and so on.

[IG-88]

For Mame32 versions:

http://www.joymonkey.com/

As far as what games run well on what systems with what version of Mame you'll have to experiment. Sucks, I know, but with all the variables in system specs it's kinda hard to nail down what runs good on what. Just make sure your romset version is the same as your mame version or that'll give you headaches too...

[boogieman]

Ah, I didn't even think about the rom sets.  I have the complete set of .124 with all the .chd files.  I don't want to try and find all the old ones!  I suppose I will just have to play what plays on the system at the current version.   

Oh well, I suppose it will still do most games I care about anyways.  Street fighter stuff, mortal combat is about as new as any arcade stuff I care about anyway.  It may work, we'll see.

[Hoopz]

You can downgrade the roms you have to a previous version.  Find the .dat file that corresponds with the version, run it through clrmamepro, and you are set.  It may sound like a pain, but it's pretty easy to do.

[EndTwist]

A follow up with what Hoopz said:

You might want to try this to convert your 0.124 romset to an older version: http://www.logiqx.com/Tools/ROMBuild/

I haven't tried it myself yet, but it is supposed to be able to make your current roms compatible with older MAME versions.

CLRMamePro should also work fine, of course.