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Upgrading CPU worth it?

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Donkbaca:

Yup, toss hundreds if not thousands only for blitz and gauntlet legacy to be a little less choppy.

Before you upgrade, see how things run on your system, figure out what you want to play and then go to MAWS and check the state of the emulation.  Some games, like time crisis don't have the emulation done yet, so even on the best system in the world, they will not play great.

That being said, you can play MOST games on a midlevel system if you compromise and play blitz on a dreamcast emulator.  I would investigate that route first

VanillaGorilla:

I am aware of the mame teams stance on GPU development. You would definitely see an improvement in rendering in many more modern games, where polygon generation and floating point tasks could be offloaded to the GPU. The only reason it doesn't exist YET is due to cross-platform compatibility, which is part of the mame charter if I remember correctly. But, I digress. My intention was not to open up the hardware acceleration can of worms. That can be read easily enough with a quick search on the forums. You're a nut (or have a lot of discretionary income) if you spend I7 dollars solely on a mame arcade setup (not that being a nut is a bad thing. Just, wow, what a nut!). Dollar for dollar, you get quite a PHENOMinal bargain out of the phenom II chipset.  :P

--- Quote ---In 5 years, I expect 5 GHz+ to be commonplace in PC hardare.  When that happens, all of our problems are resolved.

--- End quote ---

I remember saying that about 12 years ago about mame, except the number being bandied about then was the 1Ghz mark! Many problems were resolved, but somehow we always manage to find/create new ones that outstrip available resourses! Something about the human condition, I think.

If you can get a power-up for low investment, I say DO IT. New hardware is always fun!

Rusty Shackelford:

Ive seen vids on youtube of simpsons bowling playing great on MAME. It runs choppy with no sound on my 3Ghz pc.
I have a feeling it may be a MAME version/rom thing tho.

Any thoughts?

Rusty Shackelford:




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.


[/quote]

Isnt it cooling that holds this back?

LeedsFan:

I'm in the process of building a new PC for a project. It needs to be on Mini-ITX board to fit and I've decided to go with the i3-540 processor. It's dual-core and very reasonably priced at around £80. (Well that's reasonable compared to the i5 650+ range). It's 3.0 GHz out of the box and can be easily oc'ed to 4.0 on the standard cooler. Plus being the i3 it's uses less wattage than the i5's, though oc'ing will use more ofc. Gonna go with the Radeon HD5570 (low profile card) so it can also play modern games reasonably well (medium settings).

I have no idea how other emulators perform outside of Mame. I just thought getting the fastest possible processor at a reasonable price would be the most sensible way to go to as it's a new build. Of course if I had other stuff lying around unused that would be a different matter.

For the OP if you can upgrade your processor cheaply without having to change the MB then I say give it a shot. But if you have to change the MB then ofc there's more to think about... and more expense.

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