MAME - Versions, CHD's and Glitchy games

[Guidope]

In short, i'm building a bartop arcade so I want to get a nice library of arcade games using MAME.

I've been doing a lot of research and testing and i'm getting most stuff to work fine. There's some things I just cannot understand. Let me explain;
I'm mainly using MAME 0.139b because i've found a good source of ROM's with matching CHD's. 
I'm also fiddling around with MAME 0.201 because I have downloaded a matching romset, but no CHD's. And I don't know how to find these.

Stuff i'm running into:
MK4 - in 0.139b the life bars are always empty, some weird visual glitches like black smoke coming off Sub Zero.
MK4 - in 0.201 i'm getting a missing CHD error, and I have no idea how to find a CHD for this version.

It feels like witchever version I try there's issues to be found. I'ts mainly the 3D games that are giving issues. I've downloaded Soul Calibur versions (and CHD's) nearly hundreds of times but I always get an error.

Could someome guide me in the right direction to:

• A reliable/recent version of MAME with corresponding ROM's and CHD's?
• Maybe some tips and tricks on how more veteran MAME-users solve these issues.

Thanks in advance!

[Lordmonkus]

14 minutes ago, Guidope said:

It feels like witchever version I try there's issues to be found. I'ts mainly the 3D games that are giving issues.

Yeah, that's how Mame is currently, once you get into the 3D era of games the emulation of them is hit and miss. You are better off looking for console versions of those games if you want to play them.

16 minutes ago, Guidope said:

Could someome guide me in the right direction to:

• A reliable/recent version of MAME with corresponding ROM's and CHD's?

Pleasure Dome is the best and most reliable place for up to date sets but you will need to maintain a good standing and ratio with them. Another site is The Internet Archive which has sets but not quite as up to  date.

[neil9000]

20 minutes ago, Guidope said:

In short, i'm building a bartop arcade so I want to get a nice library of arcade games using MAME.

I've been doing a lot of research and testing and i'm getting most stuff to work fine. There's some things I just cannot understand. Let me explain;
I'm mainly using MAME 0.139b because i've found a good source of ROM's with matching CHD's. 
I'm also fiddling around with MAME 0.201 because I have downloaded a matching romset, but no CHD's. And I don't know how to find these.

Stuff i'm running into:
MK4 - in 0.139b the life bars are always empty, some weird visual glitches like black smoke coming off Sub Zero.
MK4 - in 0.201 i'm getting a missing CHD error, and I have no idea how to find a CHD for this version.

It feels like witchever version I try there's issues to be found. I'ts mainly the 3D games that are giving issues. I've downloaded Soul Calibur versions (and CHD's) nearly hundreds of times but I always get an error.

Could someome guide me in the right direction to:

• A reliable/recent version of MAME with corresponding ROM's and CHD's?
• Maybe some tips and tricks on how more veteran MAME-users solve these issues.

Thanks in advance!

I just tested MK4 here and it seemed to work OK, (im on 0.211 although i dont know if that game has been updated in a while), i have very low audio but the game seemed to work fine. However MAME itself does warn you on load of that game that its imperfect and has graphical issues.

[JoeViking245]

It looks like MK4 was last updated (Jan 2013). So somewhere between Mame revision 0.148 (Jan 2013) and 0.149 (June 2013) .  (Assuming where I'm looking at is telling me correctly)  So that's probably where the life bar and visual glitches you see with 0.139b weren't quite fixed yet.  Although it's still not perfectly emulated. But is playable.

It also requires the device file tms32032.zip. 

[Guidope]

It's a bit late but I went on vacation and was offline for a good three weeks. Thanks everyone for chipping in. I ended up just installing the regular PC version for MK4 wich works perfect. Most 3D roms i donwloaded from other locations seem to work OK, but I will probably use console/PC versions for those (i.e. Soul Calibur).