Most retro gamers justify the 0.78 set by owning original cartridges/boards or because the copyright holders no longer sell the arcade versions. However, for modern re-releases (e.g., Sega Astro City Mini ), you should buy the official product.
For those unfamiliar, MAME is an open-source emulator that allows users to play classic arcade games on their computers or other devices. MAME was first released in 1997 and has since become the go-to platform for retro gaming enthusiasts. The emulator works by mimicking the original arcade hardware, allowing users to run ROMs (Read-Only Memory) of classic games. mame 078 rom set new
RetroPie and Recalbox rely heavily on MAME 0.78 (via the lr-mame2003 core, which is a backport of 0.78). On a Pi 3 or Pi 4, 0.78 runs full-speed with shaders and save states. Newer MAME versions (0.200+) chug on ARM hardware. Most retro gamers justify the 0