Main > Main Forum
Upgrading CPU worth it?
(1/6) > >>
cmoses:
I have a MAME machine that is currently running a 2.8 Ghz Pentium 4 CPU on a socket 775 Asus motherboard.  I run mostly older "classic" games, Donkey Kong, Centipede, Galaga, etc.  I also do have a few more advanced games on there, Shuffle Shot, World Class Deluxe Bowling as well as a few CHD games, Killer Instinct, Killer Instinct 2, Simpson's Bowling.  I am running Windows XP 64 with 2 MB of RAM and a 1 GB Nvidia video card.  I am using HyperSpin as my front end and everything runs smoothly.  Simpson's Bowling doesn't run at 100% but is not to bad, with just a little bit of slow down/choppiness. 

I got a little extra money and have been considering upgrading my CPU to a Pentium Core 2 Duo, probably the E7500 at 2.93 GHz, 3MB L2 Cache, 1066 Front Side Bus.  Fry's has them for $120.00. 

I was hoping that some of you out there have done a similar upgrade and could share your experiences.  I know it won't suddenly make it possible to play Blitz on my cabinet, but it may allow me to play a few more games that I currently cannot.  I know it will also help with some of the non Mame emulators that I have been thinking about adding.  I also know it will help when compiling MAME which I also do on this machine.  Please let me know what you think, especially if you have done a similar upgrade, what you found out and what if any differences you noticed.

Thanks 
Smeghead:
Doesnt seem worth it to me, you seem to already know nothing is going to be enough to play the Blitz type games so im not sure its worth it.
Your CPU is plenty for Mame. Which other ones are you hoping it will make a difference with?
VanillaGorilla:

--- Quote from: cmoses on October 28, 2010, 10:54:32 am ---I got a little extra money and have been considering upgrading my CPU to a Pentium Core 2 Duo, probably the E7500 at 2.93 GHz, 3MB L2 Cache, 1066 Front Side Bus.  Fry's has them for $120.00. 

--- End quote ---

I upgraded from the same hardware you are currently running to an AMD phenom II and its over-clocked to 3.8Ghz, from a stock 3.5Ghz. When you get close to the 4Ghz mark, things that weren't possible become possible :) I also unlocked the additional cores on the chip, and now its a quad core. Im also running Windblows 7 Ultimate Failure Edition [64bit]. I got the mobo + processor from Frys for 85 bucks. I Had the extra money, so it was easy and inexpensive. I'm really glad I did this. For one, Many of the games that ran choppy previously (2K era fighters mostly) smoothed out dramatically and I now get 100% frame rate. Many classic atari games that used to have really bad clipped sound now sound great. Games like CarnEvil and Area 51, while I dont play them, appear to run smoothly now, where before they definitely did not. I can also now use triple buffering and effects filters (god I love 'effect: scanlines 75x4' !!) on classic games that need it in mame. Also, Dreamcast emulation and Playstation emulation run great...another big plus. Then theres the front end issue. I am running Hyperspin, and it uses Flash heavily and is a HUGE tax on any system, but it runs WAY better than it did on my old setup. I am running it all at 1600x1200 native on a 20.1 inch S-IPS LCD. Tempest or Space Duel at 1200x1600 with the flicker filter cranked up is a thing of beauty. This may be sacrilege, but I think they look BETTER than they did on vector monitors. Go for it, you wont regret it. CPU is the biggest way you can impact the quality of your emulation experience (until the mamedevs offload more processing onto the graphics cpu). And you can ALMOST run blitz!! Its nice just to see some of them run poorly, but dramatically better, than they did before. But I can play blitz on nullDC now if I want to..runs great!
bkenobi:

--- Quote from: VanillaGorilla on October 28, 2010, 12:08:49 pm ---(until the mamedevs offload more processing onto the graphics cpu)
--- End quote ---

You will be waiting quite some time for that to happen.  That's not the goal of the MAME project, so it will never happen officially.  Perhaps someone out there will write a new set of drivers that makes things run better, but the MAMEdevs have been pretty clear that they will not spend time focusing on that aspect.
ragnar:

--- Quote from: bkenobi on October 28, 2010, 02:55:06 pm ---
--- Quote from: VanillaGorilla on October 28, 2010, 12:08:49 pm ---(until the mamedevs offload more processing onto the graphics cpu)
--- End quote ---

You will be waiting quite some time for that to happen.  That's not the goal of the MAME project, so it will never happen officially.  Perhaps someone out there will write a new set of drivers that makes things run better, but the MAMEdevs have been pretty clear that they will not spend time focusing on that aspect.

--- End quote ---

GPUs can only be used for parallel processing.  Games are mostly serial tasks.   You would get no benefit from GPU offloading.  What is needed in all honesty is dual cores and as many GHz as possible along with improved chipsets.  From talking on PC forums and asking, most agree that the i7 chipset with the fastest CPU for it will give you the best single threaded performance.  Actually, by most.  I should say that everyone thinks this.  While clock for clock, i7 CPUs are not the fastest, it is the chipset that makes the difference.

There are a few breakthroughs that should cause the MHz to start ramping up in the future.  In 5 years, I expect 5 GHz+ to be commonplace in PC hardare.  When that happens, all of our problems are resolved.

An i7 with its fastest CPU should outperform the AMD phenom II @ 3.8Ghz but not for $85.  You really need to be willing to toss money at such a project.  Hundreds if not thousands.
Navigation
Message Index
Next page

Go to full version