Will this work for my first MAME machine???

[Nickjs311]

Hey guys! I recently got really heavy into playing older games through emulation.  Ive decided to build a MAME arcade machine and Ive done alot of research but I wanted to ask the pros before I started spending money.  Im going to buy everything individually and build it over time.  For the first thing I decided it would be best to pick up a pc tower to run the front end, MAME, and all the emulators.  Im a little concerned about the pc Im looking at not having enough processing power.  As I said earlier Im new to emulation so I dont know how cheap I can go.  This is what Im looking at:


http://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-inspiron-desktop-intel-celeron-4gb-memory-500gb-hard-drive/5858051.p?id=1219165148215&skuId=5858051&st=categoryid$pcmcat212600050008&cp=1&lp=2

Im wanting to run MAME, and emulators for NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, Game Boy, Game Gear, GBA, Nintendo DS,and possibly PS1.  Im pretty sure the memory will be plenty (as long as I go easy on the PS1 roms).

Sorry if this seems like a dumb question.  I just dont want to hit a major roeadblock before I even get started.  Thanks for any help guys!

[blitzd]

That machine right there is capable of playing every console at full speed up until PS2/gamecube.

So if you are sticking with the classics as far as MAME gaming goes, that computer is more than enough.

But at the same time, it's 250 bucks, and 250 bucks for a computer to just do 8-32 bit emulation is overkill. I'd suggest either Craigslist or family/friends who may have an older pc laying around. I would never pay more than 70 bucks for a computer that is doing strictly console and older arcade game emulation.

Also windows 7 & 8 might look great but if you only want the computer to put in a cab I'd look for one with windows XP. windows 7 & 8 are RAM hogs and that computer you linked to would perform much faster with windows xp than with windows 7 or 8.

One more note. Think about what PS1 and N64 games you want to play. the problem with them is the amount of buttons they require. Which is fine if you use a controller, but not in a cab. PS1 has 4 buttons & 4 shoulder buttons. plus start and Select, for a total of 10. N64 has analog AND directional buttons, an A and B button, 4 C buttons, 2 shoulder buttons and a z button. that's 2 different joysticks and 10 buttons as well, counting the start button. That is a lot of buttons for systems that most likely won't get as much playtime as the others.

[Slippyblade]

Here's a thread you might wanna look at.  Place sells refurbs.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,140112.0.html

[Nickjs311]

Thanks for the help guys! Good points on Windows 7/8 being memory hogs and the possible button issues.  I was planning on picking up a tankstick so Ill have to be careful with my game selection.

http://www.xgaming.com/store/category/arcade-joysticks-and-game-controllers/

One of the other reasons I was looking at that particular pc is it has an HDMI port.  I know some people frown on the use of an LCD monitor/tv but Im not very worried about it having an authentic arcade look.  Because its a little more difficult to find older pcs with HDMI, do you guys have any other suggestions?  Im really wanting to avoid using an older (non flat) tv or moniter.  Thanks again for your help!!

[blitzd]

I won't knock ya for going HDMI. If the monitor or TV has decent audio you solve a big problem with an HDMI cord. I checked www.microcenter.com and there are 2 cards for under 30 that have HDMI ports.I'd go with this one. Cheap, but powerful enough for whatever you need.

http://www.microcenter.com/product/380573/NVIDIA_GeForce_210_1024MB_DDR3_PCIe_20_x16_Video_Card

or http://www.microcenter.com/product/363989/AMD_Radeon_HD_5450_1024MB_DDR3_PCIe_20_x16_Video_Card

[Haze]

I disagree on the XP part, there's no good 64-bit version of XP (XP64 is alpha quality and lacks drivers for most things) furthermore Win 7 is fine on 4Gb.

Running a 64-bit version of MAME on a 64-bit OS gives you a ~20% performance boost over 32-bit builds which can be handy in edge cases.  New hardware support with XP is starting to get bad too, it even struggles with things you'd expect to take for granted (eg. HDDS >2TB)

The processor is average, 2.8ghz clock, but it's a Celeron and they don't stack up well against the more expensive chips.  There are 2D games in MAME that it will struggle with (not a hope in hell of it maintaining 100% all the time on the Cave SH3 based shooters for example, but also some less obvious cases like Photo Y2K on PGM have high requirements due to the high sync required with the ARM protection device in that case)

It will run most of the classics, but it's not going to perform well on discrete stuff (eg. Pong) in either MAME or DICE, because that stuff has insanely high requirements which increase almost exponentially with the complexity of the game (so you're probably not missing out on much, by the time we fully simulate the circuits of Monaco GP I think we'll have a new contender for slowest driver in MAME)

The intel HD video isn't going to perform well with HLSL, you need a decent dedicated card for that but you've said you don't care about the 'arcade look' anyway, so I guess you're not going to want to waste time trying to simulate it ;-)

One thing I would keep in mind is cooling, that's a very small case, emulation pushes your CPU hard, emulation of 3D systems in the console emulators will also push your GPU (part of the CPU in this case) hard at the same time, that's going to generate a lot of heat.  I've found with laptops that the heat generated when running emulators quickly results in the CPU stepping down the speed to prevent overheating which can cut your framerates in half in the middle of a game.  People have experienced this a lot when turning HLSL on with small form factor PCs and laptops for the same reason, games becoming inexplicably jerky after 10 mins; there's simply nowhere for the heat to go in the case and inadequate cooling to remove it quickly.

It's a 250$ machine, it does pretty much what you'd expect from a 250$ machine, it's leaps and bounds ahead of an old P4 or Raspberry Pi and will run a LOT more in MAME than either of those, but there will still be some limits.

[Nickjs311]

Thanks for helping clear this up for me guys! These are the games I'm mainly interested in running on MAME:

Early 90s fighters (street fighter 2, MK, MK2, MK3, Killer Instinct, Marvel vs Capcom, etc...)

Side Scroller fighters (ninja turtles, x-men, simpsons, avp, metal slug, etc..)
Do you think I would have any issues with games like these? Thanks again!

[nitrogen_widget]

Thanks for helping clear this up for me guys! These are the games I'm mainly interested in running on MAME:

Early 90s fighters (street fighter 2, MK, MK2, MK3, Killer Instinct, Marvel vs Capcom, etc...)

Side Scroller fighters (ninja turtles, x-men, simpsons, avp, metal slug, etc..)
Do you think I would have any issues with games like these? Thanks again!

If it were me and I just wanted to play those games i'd just look for a P4 or old core2duo system.

Doesn't need to be the latest version of mame unless there are specific bug fixes for the games you wish to play.

[Malenko]

Thanks for helping clear this up for me guys! These are the games I'm mainly interested in running on MAME:

Early 90s fighters (street fighter 2, MK, MK2, MK3, Killer Instinct, Marvel vs Capcom, etc...)

Side Scroller fighters (ninja turtles, x-men, simpsons, avp, metal slug, etc..)
Do you think I would have any issues with games like these? Thanks again!

I recall running everything you mention on my old P4 2.4 without issue. Im with HAZE on getting Win7 over XP.

[JDFan]

Here's a thread you might wanna look at.  Place sells refurbs.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,140112.0.html

+1 on this recommendation (esp if you use the code HP deal for the $80 discount !!) for example Here is a Core2Duo 3Ghz with 4GB RAM and 160Gb Hdd with win 7 home included for $50 shipped including Tax which would run MAME and those games mentioned just fine and leave the extra $200 for better CP parts !!

[dkersten]

I agree that with your game list, a 3 or 4 year old used computer with a core2duo or first gen i5 will work plenty well.  If you intend to get into any 3d fighters (mk4, tekken, virtua fighter, doa, etc) then you need a discreet card, and I would highly recommend win7 64 bit with directx11.  Demul and others really need a decent 3d card for games like that.  But if you stick with the 2d games in mame, you probably won't have a problem.  I ran my first mame cabinet with a tankstick and a c2d cpu on winxp and aside from the aforementioned 3d games, it works perfectly.  When I decided to run the 3d stuff is when that older machine had an issue.  I needed dx10/11 support, a discreet card, and a little more horsepower under the hood.  My current rig is serious overkill for the majority of games I play, but just right for the newer stuff.

Personally anything that will require you plugging a game pad into I would keep out of the cabinet.  That is just my opinion, but there are plenty of better ways to play consoles than standing in front of a cabinet.  It is one thing to run NES or Atari games on your cab, but trying to use arcade controls to run an 8 button gamepad with an analog stick and a d-pad also being emulated is, in my opinion, not worth the effort.

[Malenko]

Another thing to consider is that if you plan to emulate consoles, you can usually get away with slightly lower specs to run the console version of arcade games (for example the Tekken games dont requires a beefy PC to run on a Playstation emulator), and it adds more arcade style games to the mix, like Mortal Kombat Trilogy.

[Nickjs311]

Thanks for all the advice guys! I will deff be going with something a little cheaper now.  This is why i ask the pros! 

[RetroGreg]

Edit...wrong thread