Best OS for MAME? Good Specs for a MAME computer?

[MarcusTurtle]

This question has probably be asked before but.... help?

Okay so this is what i got
dell OptiPlex GX240
Intel Pentium 4 CPU 1.80 GHz
511.0MB of RAM
Video card Radeon 9200
Hard drive capacity 40 GB

my basic plan.... the video card have a composite output in which i will connect to a TV which is inside a virtua fighter cabinet... for controls i'm going to get the XArcade TankStick controller see here (http://www.xgaming.com/tankstick-arcade-game.shtml). i want to be able to play some games but i'm not asking for the best.... anyone have a suggestions? the cheaper the better since i'm a high school student, the tankstick is already killing me. i already have a windows 98 and a windows ME that i'm not using, is it worth getting XP? i'm going to upgrade my RAM when to maybe 1g but nothing more than 2g. is that good enough? what are my options? what makes a pretty good MAME computer?
Thanks for any suggestions

[Hoopz]

A lot depends on what you are going to want to play.  If you pick the "classics", that PC is fine.  98 would be a good choice since you don't have XP. You'll probably want to pick an older version of MAME also as most of the classics have been perfected for a while.  The newer versions have implemented sound/video/art work changes that will be slower on an older machine.

FYI that I have a similar system running Mame .98 and 99% of everything works well. 

Now, if you want to play more CPU intensive games (3d games for example), it's going to be hit or miss.  You may find earlier versions of MAME run more smoothly for some games than others.  You may have to play around with different versions to find your sweet spot.  You can have different versions for different games without a problem.

Good luck.  Let us know how we can help you out.

[MarcusTurtle]

so games like tekken 3 for PS1 or maybe Street Fighter third Strike wouldn't work out well? my first thoughts were to put more or less everything before 3d, (NES, SNES, ect) and then maybe get a PS2 or a Xbox 360 and just get an adapter for the x-arcade tank stick. how much better would my computer have to be to be able to play things like crazy taxi and tekken 3; basically 3d games? ALOT better or? because all the computer parts i've gotten were free, i kinda just put it together from everything extra i have, so i cant say i'm expecting much from the computer..

[Dartful Dodger]

After years of collecting parts I've finally decided not to bother building a cab from scratch, so I've bought a shell cab.  About 8 years ago when I started this project I built a temporary control panel and installed MAME .62.  Now that I’m actually going to finish this, I decided to test that 8+ year old computer so I install MAMEwah on it.  When I launched it the computer started to cry.

Hoopz can you play Area 51 and how do other gun games play on your machine?

3D fighting games are unnecessary for me, but the new light gun technologies is what lit a fire under my butt, so gun games are a requirement.