Mame When To Stop

[actioncomics]

Need some advice....or better yet, I would just like to hear other's opinions.  When to stop downloading mame?

I download mame every month a new release comes out.  This is starting to get a bit much.  When would you stop and say "I will stick with this for a while"?  Is there a previous version that is reliably stable?  Is there an up coming release that will have a ton of new features?  Or does it really matter and I just stop with the version i have now.

This doesn't mean I won't update in the future?  but to be honest I would like to spend time finalizing my build, instead of spending that time updating to the latest and greatest.

Same question could apply to Launchbox, but mostly curious what other people did with Mame.

Thanks for any advice.

AC

[Retro808]

I update 1-3 times a year. I look at the update notes for each new version and if nothing major as far as new playable machines or fixes I leave it as is. 

[Lordmonkus]

I haven't updated in a couple of years now, there has been no game or feature added that I wanted.

[actioncomics]

Thanks for the input.  I am not really seeing alot of features worth updating myself either.  I think i will cut down to 1-2 times a year, that way i am not to far behind.

[SimonLev]

On this topic, at what point is it worth (or do you need to) upgrading the ROMs? I have a working full set of 0.198 ROMs with a configured 0.198 version of MAME. I can't see any features in more recent MAME builds to make me upgrade. I have only really started using MAME and had to go through a process of learning all about ROM sets, merged and unmerged, BIOS files, BGFX filters (which are great!), bezels (great again!).

My main worry is that some of the ROMs will stop working if I upgrade MAME. Is that a risk?

Everything is working as I want, so I don't see any reason to upgrade....or should I?

Edited January 23, 2022 by SimonLev

[neil9000]

11 minutes ago, SimonLev said:

On this topic, at what point is it worth (or do you need to) upgrading the ROMs? I have a working full set of 0.198 ROMs with a configured 0.198 version of MAME. I can't see any features in more recent MAME builds to make me upgrade. I have only really started using MAME and had to go through a process of learning all about ROM sets, merged and unmerged, BIOS files, BGFX filters (which are great!), bezels (great again!).

My main worry is that some of the ROMs will stop working if I upgrade MAME. Is that a risk?

Everything is working as I want, so I don't see any reason to upgrade....or should I?

Never upgrade the emulator if not upgrading your roms. A MAME romset is only ever guaranteed to work with the matching emulator version. Same romset, same emulator version will never break, using a different romset and emulator version WILL break things.

[JoeViking245]

15 minutes ago, SimonLev said:

My main worry is that some of the ROMs will stop working if I upgrade MAME. Is that a risk?

What @neil9000 said.  But also, I read there was a recent cease-and-desist order against the emulator developer(s) for [I thought] a couple of Cave machines.  One of which is "Akai Katana" which will be "removed" in v0.240.  So I suppose that could be considered "a risk".  

[neil9000]

5 minutes ago, JoeViking245 said:

What @neil9000 said.  But also, I read there was a recent cease-and-desist order against the emulator developer(s) for [I thought] a couple of Cave machines.  One of which is "Akai Katana" which will be "removed" in v0.240.  So I suppose that could be considered "a risk".  

This is true, but they just uncommented those to games in the mame code. It is my understanding that when @MadK9 does his no nag versions he is going to re-enable those games when he compiles his build.