how do I find out what MAME version first ran a specific ROM?

[TheNoodleMan]

I'm trying to put together a mame machine but its got an underwhelming processor (1.25ghz AMD, 1 gig of ram), so I've been experimenting with older builds of mame to lose the lag of 0.129.
The problem I'm having is that I don't know if an older build of mame can run a specific game until I give it a go.
In this instance, I've been trying to figure out just which build of mame first supported NBA JAM TE, obviously I can keep using  trial and error and figure it out, but that will be pretty annoying to repeat for another game down the line. Is there an easier way?

[Turnarcades]

Your best bet is to use a pre-0.106 build on a PC of that spec. I've done extensive real-time testing on low-spec PC's as we use P3 systems primarily but have managed to squeeze a lot of power out of even sub-1Ghz processors. The reason it is advisable to use a pre-0.106 build is because from that point onwards the devs started to make changes to the sound and graphics core that causes the lag and incompatibility on older/more basic machines. v 0.105 is great and to be honest since 0.100 not many games have been added or made working that you would miss, or that wouldn't require a massive spec upgrade to function half well.

[CathalDublin]

http://www.mameworld.net/maws/
will tell you, its been there since the early days

added   .037b05

[TOK]

Not really into basketball games so I don't know about the NBA Jam game you're looking to run, but .99 was what I consider one of the last fast "complete" builds. It had the Golden Tee games in it, and fixed a lot of the messed up stuff on older games (Robotron speed issue, etc).

After that, things seemed to get progressively klunkier and also ROM's seemed to get broken with every new release. Its the latest version I run on any of my cabs, all of which are pretty meager hardware-wise. 2ghz P4 and a 2ghz AMD.

[u_rebelscum]

http://www.mameworld.net/maws/

Maws gets this info from catlist.  Good to get if you want a complete list of all games and when each were added.

...will tell you, its been there since the early days

added   .037b05

Er, Maws says NBA Jam TE has been in mame for longer than that:

version added     .036rc2
last change(s)    .127u4

As you can see, Maws also lists when the romset changes, so it'll tell you if you might need a different zip file.

However, neither Maws or catlist tell you how well (if at all) the game was emulated at the different versions.  You can look at the comments in Maws and see if big bugs were fixed, assuming they were noted.

[TheNoodleMan]

Thanks guys, MAWS was exactly what I was looking for. Believe it or not I had already been to that site in my searching but completely missed that it had the info I was after... doh.

Also thanks for the tips on matching a mame version to my hardware specs. I'm running 0.99 and its working beautifully on my machine.