Processor Upgrade?

[ramos8414]

Will upgrading from a 2.66 Ghz pentium 4 to a 3.06 Ghz pentium 4, make games like killer instinct play better?

I have 1.5gb pc27000 ddr ram
Nvidea GeForce FX5200.

[05SRT4]

Yes, But I am not sure by how much. Someone else correct me if I am incorrect but isn't MAME mostly run off CPU power anyways? So I figure the better CPU the better game performance.

[ark_ader]

I would increase the RAM to 8gb and install a RAMDISK.  Load your OS in the RAMDISK and you will see a huge improvement.

[Haze]

I would increase the RAM to 8gb and install a RAMDISK.  Load your OS in the RAMDISK and you will see a huge improvement.

Running from a RAMDISK will not change MAME runtime performance at all, not even for CHD based titles.  This is just bad advice.

Upgrading to a 3ghz P4 from a 2.something one will make a minor difference, but probably not one significant enough to be worthwhile, no other upgrade to the machine will make any noticeable difference to MAME.

[ark_ader]

I would increase the RAM to 8gb and install a RAMDISK.  Load your OS in the RAMDISK and you will see a huge improvement.

Running from a RAMDISK will not change MAME runtime performance at all, not even for CHD based titles.  This is just bad advice.

Upgrading to a 3ghz P4 from a 2.something one will make a minor difference, but probably not one significant enough to be worthwhile, no other upgrade to the machine will make any noticeable difference to MAME.

I'm not referring to MAME but to the OS.  IF there is no bottleneck then the system performance will run applications faster.  This includes Solid State HDD.

When I run Linux in Ram I see a huge improvement.  Care to back that up Haze?

[Someinterwebguy]

Will upgrading from a 2.66 Ghz pentium 4 to a 3.06 Ghz pentium 4, make games like killer instinct play better?

I have 1.5gb pc27000 ddr ram
Nvidea GeForce FX5200.

I'd upgrade to an Intel i3/5/7 chip made in the last few years. Something like that will allow you to run most of the games in MAME at full speed.

I remember seeing a spreadsheet comparing CPU's in MAME, but where I saw it escapes me at the moment.

[Malenko]

I used to run KI on a P4 2.8 so I think the 3.06 will get you over the hump. Unless you're getting the CPU for next to nothing, you should either get get the best processor for your board, or upgrade everything. If you upgrade the board, it typically means upgrading the chip and RAM.

[BadMouth]

What OS are you running?

8GB isn't going to benefit you at all if you're running 32 bit XP.
It can only handle 4GB, including the video card.
I have 2GB in my XP machines.

[Haze]

I would increase the RAM to 8gb and install a RAMDISK.  Load your OS in the RAMDISK and you will see a huge improvement.

Running from a RAMDISK will not change MAME runtime performance at all, not even for CHD based titles.  This is just bad advice.

Upgrading to a 3ghz P4 from a 2.something one will make a minor difference, but probably not one significant enough to be worthwhile, no other upgrade to the machine will make any noticeable difference to MAME.

I'm not referring to MAME but to the OS.  IF there is no bottleneck then the system performance will run applications faster.  This includes Solid State HDD.

When I run Linux in Ram I see a huge improvement.  Care to back that up Haze?

His question was about Killer Instinct in MAME, not the OS.  The performance of the OS is completely irrelevant here.

[404]

Honestly, it's time for a platform upgrade. Jump over to at least a socket 775 Pentium D machine. You should have no problems finding a second hand  unit for cheap.

[JDFan]

Also that FX5200 is not helping any -- The Nvidia FX line had alot of problems with their implementation of shaders as Nvidia made some tweaks to get better benchmark results that caused problems since they did not work properly and certain shader calls brought the FPS down to >1 FPS in some games (ie. Oblivion any time you got near any fire in game - causing Bethesda to develop a patch for the game to remove shaders and introduce an Ultra low setting for those cards since they were listed as able to run the game.) You may find that even a small investment in a different GPU to get away from the FX line of cards might help (even though Mame is not really that GPU dependent in this case it might help)

[ark_ader]

I would increase the RAM to 8gb and install a RAMDISK.  Load your OS in the RAMDISK and you will see a huge improvement.

Running from a RAMDISK will not change MAME runtime performance at all, not even for CHD based titles.  This is just bad advice.

Upgrading to a 3ghz P4 from a 2.something one will make a minor difference, but probably not one significant enough to be worthwhile, no other upgrade to the machine will make any noticeable difference to MAME.

I'm not referring to MAME but to the OS.  IF there is no bottleneck then the system performance will run applications faster.  This includes Solid State HDD.

When I run Linux in Ram I see a huge improvement.  Care to back that up Haze?

His question was about Killer Instinct in MAME, not the OS.  The performance of the OS is completely irrelevant here.

I beg to differ. 

But for everyone's sanity I will in future just agree with you, like I treat my bombastic uncle. 

[Haze]

Given that it's our software you're talking about it would be wise to stop acting like you know more about it than us at every turn, yes.  Also if you want to drop the sarcastic comments, that would be nice.

This is why I can't block you on here unfortunately, because tragic advice like this is only going to get the hopes of somebody up to unreal levels, when the reality is what you're suggesting won't change a thing.

The only way MAME is going to be affected by the underlying OS is if it's degraded to a state of having spyware, adware and other random programs running in the background randomly eating up CPU time, and in that case the OS should just be reinstalled.  The Windows install on one of my secondary boxes is what, 5-6 years old, it's gone through so much Windows churn it takes a good 10 minutes to boot, but it runs MAME exactly the same as it did 6 years ago because once you're running MAME very few things actually matter.

Your intention here is clearly just to give bad advice and waste time, plus drop the odd sarcastic insult, you are detrimental to progress, and bad for this forum.

[ppv]

p4 3 ghz
1.5 gig ram
GeForce 6200
KI2 speed: 99.82%.

Never had trouble running those games before.

[ark_ader]

Given that it's our software you're talking about it would be wise to stop acting like you know more about it than us at every turn, yes.  Also if you want to drop the sarcastic comments, that would be nice.

This is why I can't block you on here unfortunately, because tragic advice like this is only going to get the hopes of somebody up to unreal levels, when the reality is what you're suggesting won't change a thing.

The only way MAME is going to be affected by the underlying OS is if it's degraded to a state of having spyware, adware and other random programs running in the background randomly eating up CPU time, and in that case the OS should just be reinstalled.  The Windows install on one of my secondary boxes is what, 5-6 years old, it's gone through so much Windows churn it takes a good 10 minutes to boot, but it runs MAME exactly the same as it did 6 years ago because once you're running MAME very few things actually matter.

Your intention here is clearly just to give bad advice and waste time, plus drop the odd sarcastic insult, you are detrimental to progress, and bad for this forum.

Yes Haze.  You are right.  Thanks for letting us know.

[ramos8414]

I have a dell dimension 2400 the max ram is 2 gb, and the best processor It can use is the 3.06 Ghz pentium 4.

[ramos8414]

p4 3 ghz
1.5 gig ram
GeForce 6200
KI2 speed: 99.82%.

Never had trouble running those games before.

What version of mame do you have?

[DGP]

I went from a 2.8 dual to a 3.4 dual to a 4 ghz quad in my multi-cade and saw a nice performance boost each time (600 MHz boost at each upgrade and it made a difference as I can now play Blitz and Ridge Racer).

I would agree that going from a 2.66 to 3.06 is not likely to yield any substantial results but it will improve just the same, if the 3.06 cpu is cheap/free then go for it.

* Oh and my games do load faster running an SSD, obviously they play the same once loaded.

 

Jason

[saint]

Given that it's our software you're talking about it would be wise to stop acting like you know more about it than us at every turn, yes.  Also if you want to drop the sarcastic comments, that would be nice.

This is why I can't block you on here unfortunately, because tragic advice like this is only going to get the hopes of somebody up to unreal levels, when the reality is what you're suggesting won't change a thing.

The only way MAME is going to be affected by the underlying OS is if it's degraded to a state of having spyware, adware and other random programs running in the background randomly eating up CPU time, and in that case the OS should just be reinstalled.  The Windows install on one of my secondary boxes is what, 5-6 years old, it's gone through so much Windows churn it takes a good 10 minutes to boot, but it runs MAME exactly the same as it did 6 years ago because once you're running MAME very few things actually matter.

Your intention here is clearly just to give bad advice and waste time, plus drop the odd sarcastic insult, you are detrimental to progress, and bad for this forum.

Yes Haze.  You are right.  Thanks for letting us know.

For the sake of my sanity drop the sniping and vitriol please. I don't care if you disagree but do it politely. Thank you for your cooperation in advance, I'm sure this won't need my attention again for which I am greatful.

[lilshawn]

don't forget there is different flavors of the P4 processor. the "regular" and the "HT" version. you will see a little boost with the hyper threaded version vs a same speed "regular" version.

i think your real issue here is the slow as all hell DDR1 memory. all things being equal. you should be able to scoop a new(ish) board with ddr2 or even ddr3 for next to nothing now. with a ram speed increase from about 1200 MB/s for DDR1, up to 3200 and 6400MB/s respectively

[TopJimmyCooks]

Peeps, PC's are so cheap these days why mess with super old cpus/sockets/mobos?  I just built a $350 pc that runs everything in mame plus demul, etc. no problem.  New Mobo/I3 3.6ghz, 4g ram, $100 nvidia vid card/windows 7.

Deliver pizzas or something for 2 weekends and you'll have your $300.  It will save a lot of aggro wondering what will/won't work. 

[of course, if you deliver pizza's your first $300 needs to be reserved for getting a handgun. so maybe not the best advice     ]

[ark_ader]

don't forget there is different flavors of the P4 processor. the "regular" and the "HT" version. you will see a little boost with the hyper threaded version vs a same speed "regular" version.

i think your real issue here is the slow as all hell DDR1 memory. all things being equal. you should be able to scoop a new(ish) board with ddr2 or even ddr3 for next to nothing now. with a ram speed increase from about 1200 MB/s for DDR1, up to 3200 and 6400MB/s respectively

Also don't ignore Linux platforms for Mame.  You will get more out of legacy kit than Windows. 

Things are getting better on the linux drivers and graphics compatibility front also.

[404]

don't forget there is different flavors of the P4 processor. the "regular" and the "HT" version. you will see a little boost with the hyper threaded version vs a same speed "regular" version.

i think your real issue here is the slow as all hell DDR1 memory. all things being equal. you should be able to scoop a new(ish) board with ddr2 or even ddr3 for next to nothing now. with a ram speed increase from about 1200 MB/s for DDR1, up to 3200 and 6400MB/s respectively

Yep, lilshawn has a point. DDR1 is your major bottle neck here imo.

I'm probably the only idiot around here that has no working cab but for the "lolz" i have experimented quite a bit with different rigs for mame and how well they benchmark. Modern day builds of mame on both single channel and ddr1 ram don't really run well at all from what i have gathered. IMO, the rig mentioned in the first post is better suited for mame 0.106 or below.

Peeps, PC's are so cheap these days why mess with super old cpus/sockets/mobos?  I just built a $350 pc that runs everything in mame plus demul, etc. no problem.  New Mobo/I3 3.6ghz, 4g ram, $100 nvidia vid card/windows 7.

Deliver pizzas or something for 2 weekends and you'll have your $300.  It will save a lot of aggro wondering what will/won't work. 

[of course, if you deliver pizza's your first $300 needs to be reserved for getting a handgun. so maybe not the best advice     ]

You can still get a stable second hand ddr2 or even entry level ddr3 rig for 1/3 that price or even less if you really look around.  That price normally includes, hdd, psu, board, cpu, ram case and OS. Hard to ignore that, especially when you are on a budget.

[TopJimmyCooks]

.  . . especially when you are on a budget.

guess that;s what I'm saying.  readjust the budget.  I have spent $30 buying a sufficient mame rig pc in the past, with the sacrifice that entails.  Now I'm ready to spend $300 and do it right and that's what I recommend.  I used to make $300 a weekend DJ'ing sometimes back in the day. 

If you have to think hard about whether a $30 to $300 piece of equipment will do what you need it to do, I urge you to consider upgrading.  it's not an $8000 option for possibly better carbon fiber brake discs on your porsche, it's the basic engine guts of your gaming toy.  Either afford it or don't.  That's all.  I always sacrifice appearance for function and recommend you get the function functional first.  A hurtin' pc will put a hurtin' on your fun sooner or later if you wish to play more recent games. if you want to go 106 or earlier and play classics', no problem.

[DeLuSioNal29]

What version of mame do you have?

Best question of this entire thread IMHO.  If you are running a recent version of MAME then you need a heftier processor.  The opposite is true as well.

D

[paigeoliver]

I am of a different opinion, if you have to skimp somewhere in your project then skimp on the PC. It is the one component that you WILL end up having to replace later down the road. Todays $500 computer is a $100 computer a year and a half from now and a $50 computer a year and a half later. Nothing else in your game is going to depreciate like that. You cannot future proof your cabinet with a more powerful computer.

In fact nothing in the holy trinity of COMPUTER, CONTROLS, DISPLAY gives you less bang for your buck than the computer does. Nothing will be less apparent to your guests who play it either.

You don't have to use an almost 10 year old computer like I am, only reason I do is because it still works. But if there is a single place to save, it is in the computer. In three years from now you know what the difference is between the guy who spent $500 on a new computer and the guy who initially spent $50 on a used PC and then replaced it 3 years later with another $50 used PC? The second guy has $400 in his bank account, that is the difference.

.  . . especially when you are on a budget.

guess that;s what I'm saying.  readjust the budget.  I have spent $30 buying a sufficient mame rig pc in the past, with the sacrifice that entails.  Now I'm ready to spend $300 and do it right and that's what I recommend.  I used to make $300 a weekend DJ'ing sometimes back in the day. 

If you have to think hard about whether a $30 to $300 piece of equipment will do what you need it to do, I urge you to consider upgrading.  it's not an $8000 option for possibly better carbon fiber brake discs on your porsche, it's the basic engine guts of your gaming toy.  Either afford it or don't.  That's all.  I always sacrifice appearance for function and recommend you get the function functional first.  A hurtin' pc will put a hurtin' on your fun sooner or later if you wish to play more recent games. if you want to go 106 or earlier and play classics', no problem.

[UFO]

Your intention here is clearly just to give bad advice and waste time, plus drop the odd sarcastic insult, you are detrimental to progress, and bad for this forum.

Finally!

 

[TopJimmyCooks]

Paige, I respect your input.  I addressed the classics Angle in my reply.  You are a confirmed classics guy, which is fine.  I like them too.

But here's my take on what you said about the PC:  OK, 5 years from now a new PC rig of today will be worth $50.  A 10 year old PC today will either not be working or will be worth $10.  The new PC takes higher depreciation damage I agree.  Here's the difference:  the new PC will be able to run demul/psx etc while the old rig will run .106 or earlier.  The capability is just different.  Respectfully,not everybody cuts off their emulated gaming at 1988. 

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2

[paigeoliver]

Paige, I respect your input.  I addressed the classics Angle in my reply.  You are a confirmed classics guy, which is fine.  I like them too.

But here's my take on what you said about the PC:  OK, 5 years from now a new PC rig of today will be worth $50.  A 10 year old PC today will either not be working or will be worth $10.  The new PC takes higher depreciation damage I agree.  Here's the difference:  the new PC will be able to run demul/psx etc while the old rig will run .106 or earlier.  The capability is just different.  Respectfully,not everybody cuts off their emulated gaming at 1988. 

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2

The Playstation was being emulated full speed while it was still an active system and my 10 year old mame PC handles pretty much everything outside of the CHD and 3D titles (the same stuff modern systems still seem to choke on). I run .78 for the most part with a fairly current version for a few titles that had noticeable improvements since .78

Just tried Demul on my 5 year old desktop (Quad Phenom 9750, 8 GB Ram, Radeon 5700 series, Solid state main drive) and it did choke a little bit. Only game I tried was the PAL version of Crazy Taxi, which should be 50 frames per second but I was only averaging about 45. So you are right on about demul. However most of those console games are chock full of analog controls that no one has on their cabinet in the first place.

Guess that also makes me a dirty game thief, since I don't own the Pal version of Crazy Taxi, I only own the NTSC version, which I was nice enough to buy again a SECOND TIME for PC, but for some reason Sega shipped the darn thing with no analog control support and it is totally unplayable. Never felt more ripped off in my life, paying money for a game I already own and then having the new one be unusable.

[ramos8414]

don't forget there is different flavors of the P4 processor. the "regular" and the "HT" version. you will see a little boost with the hyper threaded version vs a same speed "regular" version.

Is the hyper threaded version better for mame?

[mike_bike_kite]

I would increase the RAM to 8gb and install a RAMDISK.  Load your OS in the RAMDISK and you will see a huge improvement.

I thought RAMDISK's work by downloading all the data they need into the RAM and then accessing the RAM rather than the HDD if that data is needed again. This means the computer still need to read the OS, MAME and whatever game you're playing onto the RAMDISK before being able to make use of it. This means there would be no saving in time. If you later stop MAME and then restart then it should restart faster with the RAMDISK but this isn't how most of us run MAME. Getting an SSD and installing both the operating system and MAME onto it would provide a decent speed improvement when starting the PC and when opening MAME but it won't make any individual game play any faster (unless they pull a heck of a lot of data from the disk for each new level). I personally wouldn't bother improving a computer of that age as it's hardly worth the trouble. Instead I'd just pay a few dollars for a better one on ebay - just look for a PC with a dual core CPU and a pretty basic GPU. If you want even more speed then get a small SSD (60GB - 120GB) and install the OS and MAME onto that. Either way it will run like lightening compared to your current set up.

[404]

I am of a different opinion, if you have to skimp somewhere in your project then skimp on the PC. It is the one component that you WILL end up having to replace later down the road. Todays $500 computer is a $100 computer a year and a half from now and a $50 computer a year and a half later. Nothing else in your game is going to depreciate like that. You cannot future proof your cabinet with a more powerful computer.

In fact nothing in the holy trinity of COMPUTER, CONTROLS, DISPLAY gives you less bang for your buck than the computer does. Nothing will be less apparent to your guests who play it either.

You don't have to use an almost 10 year old computer like I am, only reason I do is because it still works. But if there is a single place to save, it is in the computer. In three years from now you know what the difference is between the guy who spent $500 on a new computer and the guy who initially spent $50 on a used PC and then replaced it 3 years later with another $50 used PC? The second guy has $400 in his bank account, that is the difference.

I actually agree with you to a certain degree. Hence why i mentioned second hand computers. They are a dime a dozen so to speak lately and its more than enough to get you by if you are on a budget.