Should I upgrade to latest MAME?

[wonderalex]

Hi there everyone - been away while renovating my basement. 

I'm nearly done with that and getting ready to move my cab back into the basement and starting up some new projects in the workshop.

My cab has been in the shed over the winter and we've had a few real bad deep freezes (below -22deg C) and I'm worried about the PC - especially the hard drive.

I'm expecting the worst - since I'm running MAME .134 and hearing about recent improvements I'm wondering if I should upgrade to .148 on this cab and my next project (a VLT conversion for a friend).

Any thoughts?

Be seeing you,

WonderAlex

[yaksplat]

Just don't boot it up right away.  Let the entire thing come up to ambient temperature first.

[wonderalex]

Yeah yaksplat - I figured that would be the proper procedure - still - should I upgrade? This latest update of MAME seems to be a fairly big step from mine.

WonderAlex

[BadMouth]

Yeah yaksplat - I figured that would be the proper procedure - still - should I upgrade? This latest update of MAME seems to be a fairly big step from mine.

WonderAlex

Effects to simulate the appearance of an old CRT on a modern LCD monitor has been added, but it requires a reasonably powerful computer & video card.  Some of the games now give better descriptions in the menu where you map buttons.  They say "High Punch" instead of "Button 6"

As far as games, I've said this in a bunch of other threads, but a few of the PGM games added in v.146 made it worth updating to me.
Search MAME PGM on youtube and see if they are worth it to you.  I think I had v.137 on my machine before and don't remember anything making me want to update it until v.146.

Be wary of v.147 as the midway games (mortal kombat) were broken.
They are back and fine in v.148

If you hold out a bit longer, there may be some video effects to simulate the glow of vector monitors (tempest, star wars, etc)

I keep the newest main release and MAMEUI on my laptop so I can check out the things that have been added.

[brad808]

I say update. You obviously want to or else you wouldn't have asked in the first place  Plus you get a bunch of cool new games to check out (*caugh* cave sh3 builds)

[wonderalex]

Yeah -

I'd forgotten about PGM games... time to upgrade.  Plus it will give me a reason to switch to MalaFE.  Been having trouble with AtomicFE.

WonderAlex

[dekar24k]

I say update. You obviously want to or else you wouldn't have asked in the first place  Plus you get a bunch of cool new games to check out (*caugh* cave sh3 builds)

Are Cave SH3 drivers re-added in .148?

[brad808]

I say update. You obviously want to or else you wouldn't have asked in the first place  Plus you get a bunch of cool new games to check out (*caugh* cave sh3 builds)

Are Cave SH3 drivers re-added in .148?

No you need to get a build with them added in or add them yourself.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

[dekar24k]

I say update. You obviously want to or else you wouldn't have asked in the first place  Plus you get a bunch of cool new games to check out (*caugh* cave sh3 builds)

Are Cave SH3 drivers re-added in .148?

No you need to get a build with them added in or add them yourself.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Yeah, that's what I thought too. I run a separate MAME version in my cab just for the Cave games.