I use Version 0.123u2 on a 64-Bit OS and have no problems.
MAME has gotten ''slower" as time has gone on because computer technology has changed throughout the years resulting in newer code that is far more efficient on more modern CPUs than it was on older, horrifically unefficient CPUs of yesteryear.
In addition, earlier versions of MAME were typically quite buggy and inaccurate with regards to the emulation. This is because knowledge of the systems being emulated wasn't nearly as detailed as it is now. As MAME progresses, more and more accurate emulation of the hardware is acheieved and the horrific hacks that were used to just get the game running in the first place are removed. (They basically just replaced a beat up panel on their Pinto instead of throwing some Bondo and Masking Tape on there.
).
Donkey Kong is a great example of this. When DK was first emulated, the details about how the sound system worked wasn't fully known and hence wasn't fully emulated. Therefore, a hack was thrown in which we know as "Samples". These were simple recordings of the sounds generated by the board because the developers didn't fully understand how the board generated the sounds. As a result, the emulation was much faster because they didn't have to bother emulating the sound system. They could just use samples.
Recently, they fully learned how the sound system worked on those boards and as a result they were able to get rid of the samples. Now, your computer has to fully emulate the sound samples which it didn't have to do before. The more that you emulate, the slower the speed.
The addition of new games to MAME does NOT slow it down AT ALL. The way MAME is built, when you go to run a game only the items that the game needs to run are loaded. So you could make a hacked down version of MAME with just one game available and it will play the same speed as the version with all games available.
As time has gone on, the emulation of the games in MAME has gotten more and more accurate. In many instances, however, this increase in accuracy can't really be seen by people who aren't COMPLETELY aware of every minute aspect of the game. What the end-user such as yourself and myself will wind up seeing is perhaps a decrease in emulation speed, but in same cases an increase in the emulation speed. However, the emulation itself is much more accurate and the games behave just as they really should.
Also, MAME gets slower as hacks are removed which were put in place simply to allow further development to occur. The "hacks" in MAME are akin to putting a piece of plywood over a hole in your floor. The plywood does the job of allowing you to cross over that hole in your floor and get to the other side, but it does have some faults in that it's not as strong as the real floor and it just looks ugly. Removing that plywood and putting in real flooring will take quite a bit of work and will force you to tread very carefully over that area until everything is set securely, but in the end it will be much cleaner looking and make you much happier.
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Topic: What vers of mame do YOU run?? (Read 2370 times)
