GroovyMame vs older version of Mame

[Bunghoolio]

Can someone help me out please, I am really confused on which way to gowith my first build.

I was planning on using GroovyMame, but just read I will have to use a newer version of roms/mame. I was going to go with an older version of mame like v.72 or 106 because it just seems like a good place to start out with less overhead, less processing power demands, and Page Oliver put a bug in my head - I'm interested running old games ACCURATELY and EFFICIENTLY. I'm not a flashy $2000 rig with Hyperspin type guy.

Is it true or false that some on the functionality of the old classic games is lost with the newer versions of Mame?
And whats the deal with our Spanish speaking friend ID4's Arcademame?

Here is what I have:
- Windows XP Home 32-bit
- Core 2 Duo 2.33ghz
- 2 GB Ram (can order another 2 GB)

WG 9200 27” monitor (tri-sync)
Dell Radeon X600 256mb PCIE video card
Minipac
Sanwa JLW joysticks

Mame v106  (1,492 roms)
Mala frontend
 

[cools]

Groovy is the only way youll get an experience that is authentic. None of the older builds will provide smooth, tear free scrolling and minimal input lag.

I'd written MAME off for actually playing games until I tried GM

[Calamity]

Hi Bunghoolio

Is it true or false that some on the functionality of the old classic games is lost with the newer versions of Mame?

May I know where did you get this idea? Not only modern MAME supports a lot of games that weren't emulated by older versions, the emulation itself is much better, hundreds of bugs have been fixed during these years.

And whats the deal with our Spanish speaking friend ID4's Arcademame?

ID4's ArcadeMAME is a totally legit solution, it's based on MAME v0.106, and has included SwitchRes (the original standalone utililty) so it can tweak the existing modelines on the fly in a similar fashion to GroovyMAME, provided you use an ATI card and CRT Emudriver. It's a great alternative for people who want to recycle an old PC.

- Core 2 Duo 2.33ghz
- 2 GB Ram (can order another 2 GB)

That said, with this computer of yours, you can run modern MAME just fine, you don't need to stick to older MAME versions really. I have a similar computer in my cabinet.

[Bunghoolio]

Hi guys,  thanks for the quick replies and all the work you dedicate to this project.

I fell under the impression that sacrifices were made on the classic games, in the progression of Mame (especially with the advent of v.107), so that newer, more modern games could be emulated.
I have also read that some folks will direct their front end to point to different versions of Mame and roms, for those games that have been somehow compromised with the newer builds.
So your saying any compromises to classic games have been overcome with the latest versions of GroovyMame and Mame?

Based of your opinion of my hardware being sufficient, I will probably go with Groovymame as my first build, since the support is here and I keep seeing glowing reviews of its presentation. I have the ATI X600 ready to install. You don't foresee any lag with my system I hope.
I will be using this guide for the build: http://forum.arcadeotaku.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=24216

I would really like to implement a second build (or third even) on the same PC , just to satisfy
my curiosity with how they differ. Maybe I will try ID4's, although I am not finding much doco in English.

One last question now that I have your ear. To make a folder structure for two versions of mame on the same box, will this will create any problems, or if there is a better way:
 C:\emulators\programs\mame149
 C:\emulators\programs\mame106

Is their an advantage or need for a specific "mame" folder , C:\emulators\programs\mame

Thanks again!

[cools]

If anything the classic games are better emulated nowadays - bug fixes, more accurate dumps, discrete sound.

In some cases benchmarked performance will have taken a hit, but benchmarking pacman at 1600% speed vs 1400% speed when you actually only want to play it at 100% is only worthwhile as a thought exercise.

The old builds are useful for the classic stuff if your hardware cannot handle the newer builds for the same games. If your hardware is modern however you're just wasting your time worrying about it. Use the most up to date build unless you know something you want is broken in it.

[Haze]

there are a couple of cases where you'll want to be careful tho..

The most notable examples are Mario and Tempest, both of which did work better in some older builds.

In Mario the discrete sound emulation still isn't quite right, as people point out many times.  There's been movement in that field lately tho (the discrete emulation system that runs Pong looks like it's going to be expanded to cover sound too, and should give a more accurate experience) so who knows, maybe it will end up being applied to Mario.  For the time being an older build where it still used samples will probably work better.

Tempest is less obvious, it's a protection fail when you reach a certain score, it's been broken for long periods of MAME's history, was fixed for a while, but apparently broke again when Liberator was fixed (the two games seem to expect conflicting behaviour from the Pokey chip)

Other than that, yeah, the newer builds are full of bug fixes, improvements, better audio quality, better visual quality, better timing, cpu logic fixes, and are just better all round in every way except performance.  If you have a good enough machine you should be using them, and from what people have said GroovyMame is perfect for cabinet use etc.