Which mame version?

[mred84]

Hi guys,
I am at the point with my arcade cab. project where i can turn to the software side of things. I have been reading this forum for a quite a bit, but i can't find answers to my questions.

My main question concerns Mame. And as you can see from the header, which Mame version to use.

First my specs:
Pentium 2 celeron 466mhz, 384mb memory, SB64 ISA, ArcadeVGA card and a Ipac for controls.

I'll explain things a bit. I want to play the old games. Mostly pre 90's and a few just after that. I'm talking Galaga, Pang, Pengo, Galaxian, Pac man, Ikari Warriors, Ghouls n Ghost.... stuff like that. I know that my system is enough to run all these oldies. I am not interested in Mortal Kombat, Primal Rage, Killer Instinct or any of the CHD games.

Now i know that most of the changes currently made to Mame are for the latter games. CHD and such like. And i know that with newer versions, the older ones seem to get slower and need more power to run. So using the latest Mame version is not really a good idea.

Question is, which mame version is the best for these specs? Which one is fastest (or best)?

Now i have a complete set of .76 roms. But i have no idea if this is the right version for me. If .6x or .5x is better for this system then i could downgrade the roms (with a program called CLrmame i think, never used it though). I just need to know the sweet spot for Mame.
Which version emulates all the pre-90 perfectly and fastest without having mayor bugs in many of these games? When did they start adding stuff for the newer games that slowed the old ones down?

Anyone?

Mr Ed

[Spaced Invader]

Pentium 2 celeron 466mhz, 384mb memory, SB64 ISA, ArcadeVGA card and a Ipac for controls.

I'd use Mame .55...no question about it.

[mred84]

Thanx a lot!!!

.55 here i come...