Newbish MAME Questions

[deepblue]

Hey Guys - Now that my cab's completion date is within sight, I'm getting more serious with MAME.

My PC isn't powerful enough to run the latest MAME - its a P4 2.5Ghz (old school - Socket 478) with 1GB of RAM. When I try running MAME 12X, I get audio skipping in some games (like Donkey Kong) and general video slowdown in others (like Afterburner).

I decided to utilize an older MAME build. I'm really lacking education on how the relationship between MAME ROMS and MAME versions work. I get that each release of MAME contains updates and often changes to ROMS (resulting in update sets, etc.). I've got some ROMS compatible with MAME .95 - does this mean that the MAME .95 executable is the most optimal version to use with them, or should I utilize a newer version of MAME with the older ROMS? I'm sure the answer is to keep the versions identical - but I wanted to check.

I am also having trouble getting my U360s to work correctly with MAME .95...not sure if that's a common challenge, but they work perfect with MAME 122.

Thanks.

[TelcoLou]

I've got some ROMS compatible with MAME .95 - does this mean that the MAME .95 executable is the most optimal version to use with them

Exactly .. for example, a ways back I got a .torrent for the full .110 romset, so I use mame version .110 for 90% of my games. I have mame .128 for a few games (custom-compiled for high-score support, etc.), so I had to get a few roms for the .128 mame executable.

[deepblue]

Thanks. Mame .95 doesn't support high scores?

[Deefish]

Hey Guys, I want to jump in here to ask some questions along the same line.

So, from the comments above it looks like roms need to match Mame release number. Right?

My question is, does it matter for all the other stuff, snaps, cabinets, cpanels, and videos? I assume that if the rom name matches the artwork name then all should work fine, right?

I am fine with the mame version I have and the roms all play that I like. I just want to update all he artwork to the newest stuff from Emumovies and want to know if there will be any issues.

Thanks,
Deefish

[cmoses]

Deepblue,

Have you done any optimization to your Windows?  I have a P4 2.8 and run .127 without any issues.  I have gone in and following a thread on here, taken out all unnecessary services, turned off animations, etc in windows.  Just a thought

[deepblue]

Hi Cmoses - if you can point me to that thread I'll definitely check it out. It's tough to describe the issue I have on the newer MAME releases - Donkey Kong isn't a graphical or CPU intensive game, but I'll be playing it and the sound will start to sort of double up on itself in a stuttery sort of way - I see it on other games too.

I'm not sure if there's an optimization guide or thread I can check out - I'm not sure what the optimal MAME settings are either, and I suspect that's where I'll get more bang for the buck as I'm already running TinyXP with minimal features activated.

[NOP]

donkey kong sound issues are typically due to video sync issues.
IIRC, in later versions of mame, the audio and video are now synced up.  So if you're not running the game in its proper refresh rate screen wise, the audio will not play correctly.

there are a few threads on fixing this, do a search (even a google search) on sound stuttering and donkey kong or galaga and you should find the correct switches to throw on your command line to fix that.

as for the high score stuff, that was taken out too, but there are patches (see the stuck messages at the top of this forum page) to let you compile your own and roll hiscore back in.

[deepblue]

donkey kong sound issues are typically due to video sync issues.
IIRC, in later versions of mame, the audio and video are now synced up.  So if you're not running the game in its proper refresh rate screen wise, the audio will not play correctly.

there are a few threads on fixing this, do a search (even a google search) on sound stuttering and donkey kong or galaga and you should find the correct switches to throw on your command line to fix that.

as for the high score stuff, that was taken out too, but there are patches (see the stuck messages at the top of this forum page) to let you compile your own and roll hiscore back in.

NOP - Thanks, I'll check this out this weekend.