Help in selecting MAME version for PIII

[maxstang]

Forging ahead with my MAME cabinet and I'm overwhelmed by the many choices I have for OS and MAME.   I'm running an PIII 500mhz  (it was free) and am wondering which combination would give me the greatest number of games I could play.  I've been running 98SE and MAME32 on the PIII and it will run most of the classics but starts to have trouble with sound or stuttering video on late 80's and later games.  Would it be better to run DOS and Arcade OS, or maybe a commandline version of MAME to maximize my speed.  Thanks for the help.  

[daywane]

are you wanting to keep the pc as is?
everyone always says memory is the best upgrade.
I am not 100% sure of this.
I think if you have onboard vid. a pci or agp video card help me out more than a boost of memory.
I have a cab with 700 mghrtz celeron
512 memory
and a 64 meg (tv out) pci radion card and I can play most all mame 56 games (some take forever to load not many) also I have xp pro on that system

If you are able to do dos ( I am not ) (dont even want to learn it) go that way.
Me if I was going to learn a new OS (new to me) I would go lenux  (check spelling) before I went to old dos.
I have been playing around with it some and the speed is very sweet. I have not tried it with mame yet
I will go to linux for my internet pc soon .

I have had a few good EMU's going on a HP 500 system with 64meg memory onboard sound and vid.

[TalkingOctopus]

Try using an older version of MAME.  The newer versions of MAME take more horsepower to run.  I use MAME .66 in my cab on a PIII 733 and it runs nearly everything.