Decent PC specs for MAME?

[nimsu]

Looking to build a new PC for MAME. What kind of specs should I look for in a PC? Is a Pentium 4 with 1 gig of RAM decent? I'm okay with spending a little more money if need be but dont want to bother if the resources wont be needed

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883255979

[chopperthedog]

I was out of it for 6 years and for a recent build used a P4 2.8 with xp and I could not get the classics to run smooth on any recent version. Learned about a mame rewrite/overhaul at .106 and tried aversion previous and all is well. I ended up compiling my own mame .105 with the no nag edits (diffs didn't exist in pre .106 apparently) bashed my head against google and dead end forum posts from 2008 for days but I succeeded in the end. Guess it depends on the expectations of games that you're going for.


good day.

[harveybirdman]

I have a pentium 4, it plays all but 60 or so of my 1200 plus ROMs.

Here are some important questions for you to ask yourself....

Will I be satisfied without any 3 dimensional games?  Can I be happy with No Beastorizer, No Virtua Fighter, No Battle Arena Toshinden 2, no G Darrius, no NFL Blitz or Gauntlet Legends?

How painful will it be to lose out on the Sega Titan Video or STV games?  list here

http://segaretro.org/Sega_Titan_Video

if you can live without these games, then you can get yourself a rig for less than fiffty bucks.

If you want to play NFL Blitz or Gauntlent Legends, you might want to get something with some serious intel firepower such as an i5-2500k chipset.

Also you might want to factor in other platforms you intend to emulate.  My Pentium four delivers a close to arcade experience Strider 2 using the pSX emulator EPSXE.  Additionally NullDC can play a ported version of Gauntlet Legends.  However integration of additional emulators can mean a greater commitment to find creative solutions to solve front-end integration and shelling issues.  And in many cases the resulting gaming experience has varying degrees of authenticity.  After all, the ported versions were designed with consoles in mind and in some cases it shows more than others.

I have chosen to eventually upgrade PC's because, the list of ST-V games is too appealing to not have on my finished cabinet, but to each his or her own.

[WindDrake]

I've got two cabs.

One runs an AMD Tricore CPU (3.2ghz@3.72ghz), 4GB RAM, 750/7200rpm HDD, and a Radeon 4870 1GB running Windows 7 x64.

The other is an Intel Core2Quad 2.33ghz, 4GB RAM, 320/7200rpm HDD, and a Radeon 4870 1GB running Windows 7 x64.

This is hardware I either upgraded out of, got cheap at work (the C2Q unit), or bought purposefully.

I wanted everything to run nicely and have zero limitations as far as 3D went (using things like Demul, Supermodel, M2, etc.)

But it's overkill if you're only playing 80's/90's Non-3D stuff.

[edekoning]

I'm okay with spending a little more money if need be but dont want to bother if the resources wont be needed

So what's a little?

You need to decide on some thing's if you are on a budget (either money wise or cabinet space wise ):

Do you want to play MAME exclusively? All games or from a certain period? --> MAME likes CPU power, but does not need a dedicated GPU
Do you want to play regular (3D) PC games? --> Anything 3D requires GPU power
Do you want to play (3D) console games? --> These might require a GPU
How much space do you expect to need to store all you're roms/games/software/whatnot? --> Small SSD or big HHD
Are you OK with building you're own PC? --> Its usually a lot cheaper.
Do you already have an OS or are you fine with using Linux? --> Windows is expensive
Would you mind buying 'not exactly what you want' now, and upgrade to 'what you really want' later on? --> upgrade to a faster/bigger GPU/CPU/HDD
Do you have a current laptop/desktop that plays all the games you want to play? --> use that as a reference

[BadMouth]

Think of the games in MAME as individual games.
What games are important to you?

MAME exists to emulate original hardware, not necessarily make games playable on your pc.
There are games in MAME that are emulated, but there isn't a powerful enough processor on the market to run them full speed.
You will never find a pc that will "run everything in MAME"

The PC you linked to can probably run 2D games up through Mortal Kombat 3, but not the 3D games like Tekken.
(It will probably run Tekken using a different emulator though - Zinc)
If you're only going to play classics from the 80's, spending any more will be a waste.

It becomes a case of diminishing returns where you are spending a couple hundred bucks more to make a half dozen more games playable.
I don't mind doing that for particular games, but you need to decide where to draw the line.

I have 3.4Ghz Athlon X3's in two of my cabs.  They can do the early 3D games like Tekken.  NFL Blitz is playable, but has some sound skips.
California Speed is playable on my driving cab, but it chokes hard on Ridge Racer. 
For other emulators like Demul and Supermodel, it's just enough.

[brad808]

Get a cheap 2 core processor. Good bang for buck. P4s are too old now. You can find much newer processors used for like $20

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

[kahlid74]

It's been covered by the others above but I'll give you the top end spec from what I've read before.  If you're looking to play NFL Blitz 99 you're going to need north of 9Ghz of processing power total.  Most people feel confident that a Core i5 at the 3 Ghz range is the minimum to play all MAME games including NFL Blitz, Gauntlet Legends and SF Rush.

[rCadeGaming]

Ok, say you do want to run demanding stuff like Blitz, Rush, Cruisn', etc., and you want be to as future proof as you can with currently available processors.

AMD's with much higher advertised clock speeds than comparably priced Intels are readily available, but I've also heard that Intels can perform more actual operations per second with lower clock speeds than AMD's, so I'm still undecided.  What is the feeling on Intel vs. AMD for MAME? 

Also, I built my last PC with the idea that more than two processors is of no use to MAME.  Is this still true?

[adder]

its interesting that some people say a P4 is still ok and others say its no good with the latest versions of mame

i imagine which P4 plays a part in it.. as my p4 651 HT cedar mill 3.4ghz 2MB L2 cache (the last of the P4's made) is just fine for all the games i love (ie. everything up to the 3d games/racers/the more intensive shooters)... and i did a comparision with my intel core2duo 2ghz and found that although the core2duo was better in performance, it was only slightly!

[harveybirdman]

its interesting that some people say a P4 is still ok and others say its no good with the latest versions of mame

i imagine which P4 plays a part in it..!

FWIW mine is a Pentuim (R) 4 CPU 2.8GHz and I don't have crap for RAM, according to "system" only 504MB

And I'm running 146u5 with no issues, other than no STV and No 3D, kinst and kinst2 are playable, and some games I can get by with frameskip such as Guardians.

[BadMouth]

Ok, say you do want to run demanding stuff like Blitz, Rush, Cruisn', etc., and you want be to as future proof as you can with currently available processors.

AMD's with much higher advertised clock speeds than comparably priced Intels are readily available, but I've also heard that Intels can perform more actual operations per second with lower clock speeds than AMD's, so I'm still undecided.  What is the feeling on Intel vs. AMD for MAME? 

Also, I built my last PC with the idea that more than two processors is of no use to MAME.  Is this still true?

The current official MAME build is optomized for Intel. 
The i7 in my laptop (3.8Ghz "turbo boost") runs Ridge Racer at 100%.
If you're talking about flagship processors, there is no comparison.  Intel wins by a wide margin.

AMD is usually a lot more bang for the buck (but it is less bang).
All the PC's I've built for emulators used AMD because they were budget builds.

Browse the processor charts on www.tomshardware.com and you'll  get an idea of how they stack up against each other.
Offered a 4.2Ghz AMD vs a 3.8Ghz Intel for a similar price, I'd take the Intel (even though every PC in my house except my laptop use AMD).

I went from Athlon X2's to only slightly faster X3's on two of my emulator PCs.
The boost was bigger than I would have expected from the .1Ghz and .2Ghz increase.
It's my belief that the third core does help out a lot by taking care of background processes.
I don't have any evidence or testing to prove it, but it's what I believe.

Also, other emulators like Supermodel use the extra cores and eventually MAME will use more cores, even if it's not for the primary emulation.
(kinda like it only uses the video card for effects like hlsl, which isn't part of the emulation)

When my current build is finished, I plan to start building a powerhouse i5 pc.

[Yourname942]

I'm not sure what specs you should get but here is a guide that I'm going to be using:

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/af150/The_FalconO6/CurrentLogicalPCBuyingGuide/Guide.png

[rCadeGaming]

Thanks for the informative reply.

Browse the processor charts on www.tomshardware.com and you'll  get an idea of how they stack up against each other.

This is a great resource.  Unsurprisingly the Intels top just about every benchmark.  What is surprising is that these Intel Core i7's are doing more at 3.3 or 3.5gHz than the AMD FX's are at 3.9 or 4gHz.

It's my belief that the third core does help out a lot by taking care of background processes.
I don't have any evidence or testing to prove it, but it's what I believe.

My thinking is similar, but why does this require a third processor?  Wouldn't MAME run mostly on one core with the background stuff going on the other?  I guess MAME can make full use of two now?

My fastest PC right now is my home theater PC which I built about a year ago with a 3.4gHz Core i3 (Sandy Bridge if I remember correctly).  It's still a little slow for certain things in MAME, so I want to be sure to make the most of the PC I build for my cabinet.

If I had an unlimited budget, the choice would be easy.  When the time comes I'll have to look at those benchmarks a little harder with prices in mind.  How much of an advantage is there from MAME being "optimized" for Intels?

[Steve248]

If you're looking to play NFL Blitz 99 you're going to need north of 9Ghz of processing power total. 

Hi,

As a 9 GHz processor does not exist I assume you are adding up the total value of the cores? In the case of a 3GHz processor with 4 cores it does not run at 12GHz, it runs at 3GHz but has the ability to multitask much more efficiently but only if the applications are compatible.

Recent versions of MAME do seem to be able to take advantage of muti cores but this does not make it run at 6 or 12 GHZ. I guess a pipe analogy is useful. Multi cores make the pipe bigger but does not make the water go through faster. So more data can be processed at a time but it does not get processed faster. I think that makes sense.

Anyway, where all this helps is with choosing the most appropriate processor. For purely running MAME, a high clock rate and less concern about the number of cores will be better. Even though MAME can make use of multiple cores it will not make very good use of more than one most of the time.

[thaddeussmith]

If you're looking to play NFL Blitz 99 you're going to need north of 9Ghz of processing power total. 

Hi,

As a 9 GHz processor does not exist I assume you are adding up the total value of the cores? In the case of a 3GHz processor with 4 cores it does not run at 12GHz, it runs at 3GHz but has the ability to multitask much more efficiently but only if the applications are compatible.

Recent versions of MAME do seem to be able to take advantage of muti cores but this does not make it run at 6 or 12 GHZ. I guess a pipe analogy is useful. Multi cores make the pipe bigger but does not make the water go through faster. So more data can be processed at a time but it does not get processed faster. I think that makes sense.

Anyway, where all this helps is with choosing the most appropriate processor. For purely running MAME, a high clock rate and less concern about the number of cores will be better. Even though MAME can make use of multiple cores it will not make very good use of more than one most of the time.

or he was being facetious.

[clok]

I just started a thread about this ( search failed me ) but am too wondering some stuff.. it seems the intel 2500K will do the job.. on almost everything. And as AMD is step behind  how far a step behind? will a AMD Multi core 4.0GHz (doesn't help AMD has so may different cores now, but they are within $10-30 of each other) do enough to play Blitz? Somebody must have a cheap AMD running mame. A cheap AMD and MB is about $150, a cheap Intel 2500K setup is about $100+ more (if you want to future proof a bit with OC options its $200+ more)..  I would prefer blitz in a playable state.. and some slight stuttering wouldn't be end of world.. but I simply have no idea.. and cant find anybody who has ran an AMD with any google searchs. My last setup was a e8400 OC to 3.8 or 4.0 Ghz and as far as I can remeber it ran everything I wanted.. I know I played a Blitz game and Gauntlet Dark legeacy..

So anyboyd got one of these Newer $100-140 AMD chips going with Mame?

[edekoning]

The i5-2500K (sandy bridge) has been replaced by the i5-3570K (ivy bridge). For OC you would want a Z77 chipset motherboard. If you don't care about OC get a far cheaper B75 chipset board. If you want to know how much faster a 3570K is compared to an i3 or even a AMD FX processor, check out http://www.anandtech.com/bench/. There you can also compare GPU's or SSD's, and read in-depth hardware reviews.