MAMEWorld Forums - Hardware - Best OS for mame

> Hello all!
> It seems like a billion years since my last posting...
>
> It looks like my 15 year old Mame system (in my 4 player cabinet) needs to be
> overhauled. But first, some back history...
>
> It was a top of the line system when assembled back in 04 and the goal was to have
> the ultimate Mame system (as well as being able to play all the other home computer
> emulators that are out there). Well, it has been just that and that's why you haven't
> heard from me -not that anyone was eagerly awaiting my return.
>
> But ( I digress), it's time to overhaul it. It was an unconnected system (from the
> internet) running XP. That's starting to BSOD. I have a 27" Wells Gardner monitor
> that's also had enough. Had a CRT tech come out and try and recondition it, etc. To
> no avail. I've been hanging on to it because I have a myriad of lightgun games that
> wouldn't cross over to LCD flatpanel monitors -until now; it looks like there's
> technology out there that will allow me to play these games on flat panels. I'm going
> to miss the vibe and smell of CRT but they're just not being supported anymore. In
> any event it looks like the monitor issue has a positive direction.
>
> My tech fixed the boot sector of the BSODing machine, and asked me what I wanted to
> do. I told him to hang on while I waited to hear back from you guys. I'm looking to
> basically pick up where I left off:
>
> A top of the line system that will play all the Mame games, as well as all the other
> system Emus that are out there. I may try some newer games as an experiment but it's
> not essential (I had Half Life and Half Life II that ran beautifully on it) but I'm a
> purist and the old games rule. Period.
>
> So.
> Same deal as before; A top of the line system that once configured it will NOT be
> connected to the internet.
> I'm leaning on Windows 7. But my tech says Windows 10. NOTE: He's NOT a Mamer. He
> told me that 7 will no longer be supported in the very near future. If it's not
> connected after configured I can't see why this would be a problem -but maybe I'm
> missing something.
>
> I did do some reading here before posting this and am leaning towards Windows 7.
> However, I would like to NOT have to mess with any of this again in another...15
> years??
> I realize I'm coming across as delusional -but I've been called worse. You get the
> picture.
>
> I'm hoping that I've explained my intentions and greatly appreciate any advice.
>
> Thanks for reading.

With the BSODs you're getting (which is almost always from a dying HDD or power supply or dried caps on the board), it's probably the best time to pull the Pentium 4 era board and move to a modern 64-bit system, doing so will also allow you to make use of any new games and emulation fixes MAME has done over the last 15 years (for example, extracting the copy-protected data from Bubble Bobble (and recently, the Taito C-chip games), dumping and emulating the protected sound chips in Toaplan games, encrypted CPS2 games (which no longer need XOR tables), Raiden 2/DX, the Gaelco games with the infamous Dallas DS5002 chip etc. - and one which I still believe deserves a mention, Tekken Tag Tournament).

If it's just set up for MAME only, Linux might even be a viable option if you want something that isn't Windows 7/8/10, IIRC Linux can also drive an arcade monitor, although I don't have any experience with anything like that (the closest I had was plain old AV out to a CRT TV).