Noob Question about MAME romsets

[dongweilong]

Hello Everybody,
I'm pretty new to MAME and I don't fully understand which ROMs to use.
I'm using MAME Wii, and MAME4droid(0.37b5) & MAME4droid Reloaded(0.139)
I've gotten alot of the games to work, but alot of them do not work.
I've gotten my roms all mixed up and don't know which rom sets are which now.
Its been alot of trial and error, mostly error.

Now my Question is: How do I know what romset to use?
It seems that for MAME4droid I should be using 0.37b5
and for MAME4droid Reloaded I should be using 0.139
and for Mame Wii 0.135 or 0.134 ????

I do not fully understand which set of ROMs to use.
I do see that theoldcomputer.com offers MAME roms for 0.37b5, 0.137-0.147,..
Is the higher the number rom (ie 0.147) the latest update? and the lower number rom (ie 0.137) the oldest?

Why not just use 0.147 because it is the latest rom update?

[SE7EN]

I can't help you with what specific version is needed for what non-windows version of MAME, but I may be able to clarify the other stuff for you. The higher version is the latest version, but unfortunately you cannot just use the latest set. unlike other emulators, the actual roms change over time.. some technical blah blah, 'better' dumps, etc. so in version X, game A is a 45kb zip file; in version Y, game A is a 32kb zip file. Now version Z comes out, and still uses the 32k zip file. x can't use the later version of the rom, y and z can't use the earlier version. (also, I am just using file sizes as an example, they could be the same size and have different contents, and will still not work on the incorrect version of mame) now with your WiiMame and AndroidMame, they are based upon a certain Mame standard set, and must use the roms that are compatible with that. Luckily, not all roms change every new Mame version, which is why you have the update packs, it just overwrites/adds the changes to your existing set, which also means that if you have a rom, there is a pretty good chance that it will work in multiple versions of mame.
Mame is a pain in the butt, and unless you are always going to stick to one set, or always going to have the latest set, it will continue to be a pain in the butt for some games.

[Hot Trout]

In general you can use

Mame 0.37b5 for Most Mame4Droid installs
Mame4All for Mame4Droid and other Emulators
Mame 0.139 and 0.139u1 for more powerful hand helds.

You can also download complete sets in the MAME Single Download Mega Packs

We pride ourselves on providing more historical complete sets than any other website out there.