Suggestions for low end systems

[Wienerdog]

I have some laptops that I will be running some games on and I wanted to get your opinion.  I have access to and knowledge for just about any OS.

What OS and version of MAME/ROMs would you run on a:
Pentium 100Mhz, 32mb RAM, 1GB HD
Pentium 233Mhz, 64mb RAM, 5GB HD
Pentium II 200Mhz, 64mb RAM, 6 GB HD
Pentim III 450Mhz, 128mb RAM, 6 or 10GB HD

[ErikRuud]

I can say that DOS and MAME verion 0.61 will work for most older games (pre 1985 or so) on the 200 and 233mhz systems. A few games (vector games in particular) will need to be run using version .36xxxx (Pre Alphablending) to get good frame rates.

The same setup should also work well on the 450mhz system.

I have never tried to run mame on anything slower than 200mhz.

[DeathMonk]

Use the PIII 450 and windows 98.

[Cooper]

I have a Pentium 200 MMX with 64 MB of ram in my cabinet.  I run Mame .36 final from the command line in Win 98.  It plays most of the classics with no problems, and most of the vector games run fine as well.  Most of the newer games run slow or not at all, but I was surprised at how many newer titles did run ok with this setup.

[Wade]

Most of the classics will run fine with Mame 0.36 for DOS and a P-133.  The ones that come to mind that didn't work was Burgertime had a slur in the sound when starting a leve, and Moon Patrol bogged if sound was on.

If you're into classics and want to use an older "junker" machine, you could run just about all the popular classics with an old version of Mame and DOS.  Beats paying big bucks for an X-in-1 jamma board.

Wade

[papaschtroumpf]

If you want to play pacman or galaga then you're OK.
On the other hand a lot of games will not run well/at all on that.
If you wan to play games that have graphics in the style of 1941, 64street or any kind of vector graphics (Asteroid) you're going to need more power.

[Wienerdog]

What version of DOS do you guys run?  I know where I can get it, but where do you guys get it from?  It's not like the kids at Best Buy and CompUSA even know what DOS is anymore...  "I'm sorry sir, is DOS a game or a piece of hardware?"

I'm looking at my options for building multiple cabs.  I'll have the full purpose upright cab, and a classics cocktail.  I'm very much into woodworking, so I can see myself building some extra cocktails for fun/profit to offset some of my costs on my personal systems.  I have the extra notebooks so it would be nice to be able to use those somewhere.  It sounds like DOS/.36 is the way to go to build a PacMan/Galaga cocktail.  I'm sorry to hear about BurgerTime, that _needs_ to be on there, no matter how choppy it is (for the wife).  So the ROMS I'll put on there are BurgerTime, PacMan, Ms. PacMan, Galaga, Galaxian (to make the guy in the other thread happy, ha), Donkey Kong, Asteroids, Defender.  I'll check around for one, or start compiling a complete list.  I'll assume I won't go smaller than my 200Mhz machines.  Feel free to help me add to my list.    

Here are all the machines I have to work with.  lol, it's no challenge on the Celron, P4, and 1800+, but the low end notebooks are a different story.
Desktops
Intel P4 2.4
AMD 1800+

Mini System
Intel Celron 2.4

Notebooks
AMD 1Ghz 512mb RAM, 20GB HD
Pentium III 450Mhz, 128mb RAM, 6 or 10GB HD
Pentium II 200Mhz, 64mb RAM, 6 GB HD
Pentium 233Mhz, 64mb RAM, 5GB HD
Pentium 100Mhz, 32mb RAM, 1GB HD

Some other 200mhz MMX notebooks that are currently broken.  

[dphirschler]

For the slower machines, you might try the Sparcade emulator by Dave Spicer.  I used to play it back when all I had was a 486-66mhz and Frogger, Pacman, and others ran at full speed.


Darryl

[Wienerdog]

Great, I'll look into that.  I think I might actually start playing some games again...

[Hoe]

RAINE would run every game at full speed with sound on my p2 233 (win2k) with 198mb of ram. It's a very efficent emulator.