radeon or cheap card?

[Sephroth57]

does mame really need a radeon 9800 128MB? its 140$ which is a good price for the card but does it affect how MAME plays? i plan on running as new of games as i can, Killer Instinct 2, Soul Edge, etc. will this be needed?

[MiKman]

Mame, and emulation in general relies on pure raw CPU power.  So no your radeon 9800 will not make the new emulated mame games any faster than the low end ati rage fury pro.  

[Sephroth57]

hmm, do you think i should add the money i was planning to spend on the vid card to get the highest processor possible? i was budgeting about 400-450$ for my PC setup and the vidcard was taking up 140$ of it

[BLACK KNIGHT]

From what I've been told altho I haven't fully tested it yet.  A 8 meg video card is the maximum you need for MAME.  It would explain the VERY little difference I see between my XP 1700+ system with Geforce4 Ti-4200 and my XP1600+ with Geforce4 MX440se.  The 2 video cards are miles apart performance wise and my XP1700+ has new mobo, faster hard drive, etc. over my XP1600+ system but the games run identical.  BTW, I believe Killer Instinct and War Gods are pretty much impossible to play without about a 10Ghz CPU.

[Popcorrin]

The Killer Instict games can be played at full speed with a decent system but you are correct about War Gods. Probably won't be playable for quite awhile.

[Jakobud]

Yeah Killer Instinct you can play at full speed with a 2Ghz+ cpu.

[greywolf22]

Just to remphasize what's already been stated, Killer Instinct 2 runs smooth on my Athlon XP 2400+, but still no go on wargods (very very choppy)

[snowdogg187]

yeah man, it won't help you much at all to have a good vid card like that. Unless of course you plan on playing pc games on there.

[grafixmonkey]

Just a thought - it won't help you play Mame games, but hey there are lots of other games that are lots of fun to play on an arcade machine.  Say, playstation emulation, N64 emulation, or just plain PC games.  There are some really awesome racing games for PC that would rock with a steering wheel and pedals, plus games like Vice City can play pretty well on a cab.  There was also a thread way back a couple months or so, where people talked about PC games that were basically arcade-style games with killer modern 3D graphics.  My theory is you'll almost never regret spending a little more on computer hardware to get more flexibility.

Plus, since you're putting a high power modern system together, if it's near your main television and has a video input, you could use it as a digital VCR and record episodes of your shows to XviD files on CDs.  

But, all that does complicate the cab a little bit - you end up needing an accessible keyboard, and maybe some cords going into the back too.  My "arcade cab" (if it can be considered a cab) doubles as a Maya network render node, and helps me render my graphics faster, plays some PC games as well as Mame games, and I use its hard drive for networked storage.

[Tiger-Heli]

That's overkill for MAME, but for a new system, I wouldn't go with an 8M Rage Fury either.

Personally, I'd get either a 64M Radeon 7000 ($35, newegg), or around a 64M or 128M Radeon 9200 or 9600 ($55 newegg, $70 BestBuy after rebates), (with at least S-Video out) and yes, put the extra money into the processor and/or RAM (processor first).

This is mainly based on what Nintendo 64 and PC games are looking for.

[Lilwolf]

The ONLY reason to have a very nice video card in a cabinet (other then playing PC games is this).

Zinc... I looks GREAT with 6x AA at 640x480 (max on my monitor) and yes it does make a difference.

So if you want to play some 3d emulated games (non - mame) that allows for AA... And your running a low resolution monitor...  It is worth it.

but again.  100 bucks extra for a 10 games isn't worth it in my opinion.  You will do better to upgrade your CPU by a big... or save it and upgrade the processor in a year (and double the speed then)

[Sephroth57]

hmm yeah i forgot about playing actual PC games and console emulators. last night i went through again and calculated costs and picked out all my parts, now i just need to get the money =P ill probably end up bringing my PC in my room back and forth to the cabinet which will be in my garage since i wont have the cash for a new PC till after christmas.

heres what i came up with:

Athlon XP 2700 333 FSB
Biostar M7NCG 400 Socket A Micro ATX Motherboard
Upgraded CPU Fan/Heatsink (70mm)
Qty 2 - 80mm Case Fan
-- that part comes preassembled from portatech.com with a 1 year warranty for 249$

60GB HD 50$
1GB PC2700 DDR RAM 105$

total: 444$

now this is excluding a videocard but i have a spare geforce2 i can use in the mean time, and also i think my mobo has a onboard geforce4 heres the specs is that what it means under video?

Manufacturer PART#: M7NCG-400
CPU: SOCKET A, SUPPORTS AMD ATHLON XP/ATHLON/DURON
CHIPSET: NVIDIA NFORCE2 IGP/MCP
FSB: 200/266/333/400MHz
MEMORY: 3x 184-pin DDR400/333/266/200 DIMM UPTO 3GB (DUAL CHANNEL 128-bit)
SLOTS: 3xPCI, 1xAGP(4X/8X), 1xCNR
IDE: 4x EIDE devices ULTRA DMA 33/66/100/133
AUDIO: REALTEK ALC650 6-CHANNEL AC97 CODEC ON BOARD
VIDEO: NVIDIA GEFORCE4 MX GPU W/ UP TO 64MB FRAME BUFFER on board
LAN: MCP NVIDIA MAC+ REALTEK RTL8201BL PHY ON BOARD
Ports: 6xUSB 2.0 (2xREAR; 4xFRONT), 1xParallel, 1xSerial, 1xVGA, 2xPS/2, Gameport, Audio In/Out, 1xSPDIF, 1xLAN

[Spaced Invader]

Unless you are going to use a TV or an arcade monitor in your cab (this is for a cab...right?) You'll be fine with a Geforce...even for PC stuff. If you use a TV a Radeon is a must...IMHO (the TV out Rocks). And you'll want an ArcadeVGA card (Radeon inside) if you use an arcade monitor.

Opinions vary!  

[Tiger-Heli]

now this is excluding a videocard but i have a spare geforce2 i can use in the mean time, and also i think my mobo has a onboard geforce4 heres the specs is that what it means under video?

On-board Geforce4 MX - basically on-board Geforce2, but plenty for MAME and probably okay for other games.

I think on-board graphics are harder on the CPU (performance-wise) than separate, but with 1Gb of Ram and XP2700, you should still be okay.  Can always try it and add video later if you see problems.