i think part of the confusion is that mame-libretro is a rom folder installed in ~/RetroPie/ where you put your roms in for any of the libretro MAME cores. eg, this folder is used for the default lr-mame2003 core that uses the 0.78 MAME romset. however, there is also a 'lr-mame' ("libretro-mame") emulator that is an experimental (not installed by default), that uses the current (or close to) MAME romset.

in any case, put your 0.78 roms in /mame-libretro/, use lr-mame2003, and if you get any issues please post the verbose log as instructed.

@mediamogul still not working..guess I will have to compile 3.7 sigh
I'll report back

@goodpi31 It's a great game :)