Deciding which version fo a game to use

[sstralkowski]

Ok I'm not sure if this is the exact place for this question, but I guess it's software.  Anwyay, I've noticed that there are a billion different version of a number of games and I have no idea how to decide which version belongs on my front end.  I don't even know what the difference is for half of them.  I don't want to have to scroll through a ton of versions of Street Fighter to get to another game.  Anyone know a way I can figure this all out? 

[Ginsu Victim]

Most frontends offer a "no clones" filter.

[sstralkowski]

It's not necessarily clones I'm having issues with.  There are 50 version of Street Fighter and all are considered unique due to a color change in a background scene somewhere.  Or take the Konami 4-player scrolling brawlers.  X-Men has the 2/4/6-player versions that are all technically unique. 

[8way]

Most people will use the latest version of the game, because it will have all the bugs worked out. Some like to use older versions that had certain exploits, MK and SF series were famous for this. But in general most are just updated versions. But their are some that are different regions, some that are hacks, bootlegs and alternate dumps. To some that just want one working copy, this may be useless. But MAME's intention is archiving and preservation of arcade games. An easy way to have a nice list of games, is just use your frontend to make a favorites list. That's alot easier the trying to add each rom separately and dealing with split & merged sets.

[sstralkowski]

I'm just starting to get into making playlists.  Thanks for the input. 

[SlayerAlex]

usualy the latsest version is best. But sometimes not. Like in NBA jam TE when they took out playing as MK characters

[I/O]

With MAME, you have to use the 'latest' version, relative to your version number. As for games version, I almost always use the parent set. Region-wise, I mostly use the US set, unless the world version is the parent set.