Best MAME Version for Compatibility With Old Games

[Goatz18]

I searched but couldn't find, if there is, any post on what version of Mame, be it a mame32 or a completely different arcade emu, to support the play of mid 90's to older arcade games. Any wisdom on the subject would be awesome. I have an old PC and am configuring it as a Mame machine for my future cab and am having trouble with games that I think could play on my system if I had the right stuff. This can also serve as a guide for people to follow in the future who are doing the same thing with an old PC that they no longer need and would like to make into a Mame machine.

Here are my current specs, but don't just reply with get a faster processor or more memory, I am looking for the optimum software, not hardware, to match with any hardware one might acquire simply to play older games, none more complex than the ones I list further down:

Intel Pentium III 800 Mhz
512 MB RAM
ATI Radeon 9550 XL 256 MB S-video to an old CRT TV (looks great, vintage)
Sound Blaster Live!
Windows XP cut down to 100MB RAM in use when running MAMEWAH as shell
All drivers and everything up to date and I currently run Mame v1.06

I am hopefully looking to be able to run the following games that are so close to running smooth:

Jurassic Park (Why do they go back to the island? For some blood, dino blood)
Mortal Kombat (Klassic)
Street Fighter: The Movie (underrated, might not work on my system even with ideal software but one can hope)
others that I haven't acquired yet to test if they work or need the same tweaking...

Frameskip helps get MK from 7 fps to about 35 for me, even though it creates a sort of lag and 35 is still not that great. It's the sound that skips and repeats and makes things even more unplayable though. I have found many people have this sound problem and it seems that the older the game and the newer the Mame (sorry that rhymes, kinda catchy though), the more likely this is. I am wondering if the same can be said about video too and if older versions of Mame would make MK playable. Anyway, thanks for any info you guys can give.

Also, would even Windows 9x, Mac OS, or a version of Linux be better suited for these older games? Even though XP has better emulator compatibility with all game systems, right? When it comes to a pre-1995 arcade games emulator, is XP optimum? Please share your knowledge and post your experiences.

[TelcoLou]

Some good info here:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=89152.0

[Goatz18]

Ok, cool. Good stuff. What then would be a good version of Mame strictly for pre-1995 games? Would v0.95 (I just so happen to have access to a bunch of v0.95 compatible roms that I haven't tested yet) be good or even lower? Like a version to play just the staples, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter II, Turtles in Time, NBA Jam, and classics like Gyruss (My personal Fav), Pacman, and Donkey Kong. Might I also say that I never heard of Zombie Raid and gave it a shot simply because it had 'Zombie' in the title. It's a sweet two player shooter game that runs flawlessly on my current settings, just FYI.

[cmccaff1]

With sincere apologies for the necro-post, I wanted to add my two cents, 15 years late...but this may be helpful for anyone who still has a Pentium III and wants to use it with MAME.
The earliest release of MAME to have all of the listed games is 0.64, as this was when Jurassic Park and Zombie Raid were added.
For a P3 your ideal range is between 0.64 and 0.72 (which was the final release [not counting U releases] with the DCS sound system speed hacks that made it possible to play later Midway games on modest hardware).

In general, for a P3 I recommend any version up to/including 0.106, with the overall ideal range being from 0.37b15 (which was the first release with hardware stretching) to 0.102 (the last release that benchmarks well on P3s).
If I had to recommend just one release, it would be 0.61, which was the final release where ALL of the supported games ran at full speed on hardware of the time (starting with 0.62 the Cruis'n games were added, and CHD games were gradually added after that...good luck getting any of those to run at full speed on a P3).

I hope this helps someone!