Is this even worth it?

[BarontheFirst]

I was thinking of upgrading my MAME cabinet but first want to make sure there will be a real noticeable improvement in the games.

Currently I have

Athlon XP 1800+ 1.53ghz
512DDR
266mhz FSB
Geforce 2 MX

Looking into getting

Athlon XP 3000+ 2.17
1Gig DDR
333mhz FSB
Geforce 2 MX

This upgrade will be after the holidays but want to see what kind of money I might spend. So please anyone who has done a similar upgrade please let me know if you were pleased with the results or if I should wait since the improvment isn't really worth it. I am not worried about the 400FSB it doesn't seem to be much more than 333FSB and for the difference in price well lets just see were it in in 3 months. So please give me some info before I decide on my upgrade.

[Safron]

Most (95%) of the mame games I have run fine on a P3 500, and 100% run fine on a P4 1.6.

I cannot imagine you seeing any increase in performance for MAME using the systems you described.

[BarontheFirst]

Does that 95% also include the new supported CHD games wich are cpu suckers? On my system I can't even get Cruising USA or World to run at full speed and there not CHD's. I see Carnevil running at 40% if even that. Now Max Force and Area 51 run at full speed on my system.

[TalkingOctopus]

I dont think it is worth it.

[Apollo]

No way you need that much RAM dude 1G is way overkill.

[eightbit]

Define worth it to you. If it allows you to play 10 more games then is that worth it? I don't think your going to see much more than that in mame at least.

Now if there's a rom that you desperately want that you can almost play then it might be worth it to you.

[BarontheFirst]

See now that helps. Thank you! If I am not going to get a real improvement then hell no it isn't worth it for just a few games. Now if I upgrade the video card to a geforce 3 or better and my system will it improve more or is it still a few games only. I really just want to be ready for future MAME releases.

[paigeoliver]

See now that helps. Thank you! If I am not going to get a real improvement then hell no it isn't worth it for just a few games. Now if I upgrade the video card to a geforce 3 or better and my system will it improve more or is it still a few games only. I really just want to be ready for future MAME releases.

Mame isn't really a "3D" program. Almost any video card is suitable. Upgrading your video card will most likely show no difference whatsoever.

[Jakobud]

Yeah even the newer "3d" games in mame are not taking advantage of the 3d acceleration of your video card.  Not sure if the Mame dev's will ever really add in 3d acceleration.  To me, I don't think it would make sense to, in light of their goals.

[Tiger-Heli]

Does that 95% also include the new supported CHD games wich are cpu suckers? On my system I can't even get Cruising USA or World to run at full speed and there not CHD's. I see Carnevil running at 40% if even that. Now Max Force and Area 51 run at full speed on my system.

Sorry to rain on your ideas, but I wouldn't recommend that upgrade.  As posted before, if you have a few favorite games that "almost" run on the current system, the upgrade might help.

For Cruisin, etc. try enabling cheats "-cheat" command, and underclocking CPU 0 after the board init and checkout completes.

Aaron Giles estimated that Cruisin and World and Blitz '99, SF rush, etc. will need on the order of a 4Ghz P4 to run properly.

And the Athlon XP is retiring, so no future upgrades.  If you're waiting three months anyway, you might see where Athlon64 prices are then.  At least that way, you'll get a system that more advanced processors will be produced for and you could just do a processor swap as faster versions are released.

[paigeoliver]

Yeah even the newer "3d" games in mame are not taking advantage of the 3d acceleration of your video card.  Not sure if the Mame dev's will ever really add in 3d acceleration.  To me, I don't think it would make sense to, in light of their goals.

No, it wouldn't make sense at all. With 3D acceleration you get different results depending on your video card. Mame is about having the original results.

Anyway, if you want better than arcade results, then a lot of the 3D arcade games do have PC ports, and you might be able to crank up the resolution. I certainly know I can run Pod Racer at much higher resolutions than the arcade version.