Just curious about building dedicated Mame PC

[SpatzST]

I heard somewhere that Mame only utilizes two cores in your processor and runs most of the emulation through the cpu, not the graphics card. Would this mean you only need a powerful i3 and no graphics card? (dual core hyperthreaded) as opposed to an i5 or i7? Though I suppose having the extra power for windows and what have you may be necessary.

What kind of power is necessary for running CHD games like Blitz.  My current laptop from 2011, running an i7 (not sure which generation that is), seems to give some audio lag in blitz, but that may just be the emulator.  Basically, whats the best computer I would need to at minimum run all mame games. 

thanks

[dkersten]

I would still go with an i5, just because as a dual core cpu it is far better than an i3.  Yes, from what I understand mame and other emulators only use 2 cores, although if you have other processes running in the background, your OS might take advantage of more cores so having a 4 core CPU is not completely going to waste.

While mame doesn't really take advantage of any GPU power, other emulators do, and sometimes in a big way.  So if you are only after playing mame games, stick with a decent 2 core cpu.  If you want to be able to play games that mame can't run (or can't run well) that emulators like Demul or Model 2 can run, then you better have a decent GPU.

[SpatzST]

Ok, thanks!  So i'd really just need, motherboard, cpu/fan, harddrive, power supply and ram.

[Diet_Pepsi]

You can't go wrong with an i5 (quad core).   There are some titles that will use the extra cores (blitz, gauntlet legends, etc).  However, these titles are few and far between, so you are not really giving up much by sticking with a dual core processor.  Also, I have read that Haswell cores are a significant improvement over previous generations so a dual core may be able to run those intensive titles just fine.  Intel has just released an unlocked dual core processor (pentium g3258) which is very interesting.

The one piece of advice that I can offer is that hyper threading does not benefit mame in any significant way.  So if you are strictly looking for a mame pc, and want to buy new hardware, buy a pentium over an i3, and an i5 over an i7.  Spending the extra cash on hyper threading will not benefit your mame rig.

[SpatzST]

Good to know, thanks

[cools]

My MAME CPU bible is here: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html#

Picked up an Intel Core i5-4690 based on that (bang for buck). Important to note - if not overclocking you don't need a fancy motherboard, and newer chipsets do not usually offer any performance benefit over older ones: it's all in the CPU. So scrimp a bit on the motherboard by buying an older reliable one and use the savings on a better CPU and fast timing RAM.

My recent full spec is here: http://rogalian.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/windows-7-mame-pc-in-taito-egret-3.html

Need to fix the pictures :/

[IAmDotorg]

I heard somewhere that Mame only utilizes two cores in your processor and runs most of the emulation through the cpu, not the graphics card.

MAME, for emulation, doesn't use the graphics card. HLSL does, though, and can be laggy, choppy, or lower quality if you don't have sufficient graphics. (I had issues with it running on Intel's HD4000 graphics, for example.)

So depending on how important you thing HLSL is, you may want more video card.

Other emulators, too, make substantially more use of the GPU, so other things you're emulating without MAME may need more GPU (and/or CPU).

Personally, I went with a new i3-4360 with a new LGA 1150 Z97 motherboard. I didn't want to go full-bore $1000 PC for it, and the $100+ savings in CPU got a better well-rounded setup for the same cost.

[SpatzST]

I heard somewhere that Mame only utilizes two cores in your processor and runs most of the emulation through the cpu, not the graphics card.

MAME, for emulation, doesn't use the graphics card. HLSL does, though, and can be laggy, choppy, or lower quality if you don't have sufficient graphics. (I had issues with it running on Intel's HD4000 graphics, for example.)

So depending on how important you thing HLSL is, you may want more video card.

Other emulators, too, make substantially more use of the GPU, so other things you're emulating without MAME may need more GPU (and/or CPU).

Personally, I went with a new i3-4360 with a new LGA 1150 Z97 motherboard. I didn't want to go full-bore $1000 PC for it, and the $100+ savings in CPU got a better well-rounded setup for the same cost.

what is HLSL and when would I be using it? Other emulators outside of Mame?

[Slippyblade]

what is HLSL and when would I be using it? Other emulators outside of Mame?

HLSL is basically filters that MAME can use to apply over the screen to achieve effects like scan lines or pincushioning.  Basically was to make your LCD look like an old CRT or other effects.

[SpatzST]

what is HLSL and when would I be using it? Other emulators outside of Mame?

HLSL is basically filters that MAME can use to apply over the screen to achieve effects like scan lines or pincushioning.  Basically was to make your LCD look like an old CRT or other effects.

oh ok, i dont use that stuff so.. doesnt matter =)

thanks

[SpatzST]

My MAME CPU bible is here: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html#

Picked up an Intel Core i5-4690 based on that (bang for buck). Important to note - if not overclocking you don't need a fancy motherboard, and newer chipsets do not usually offer any performance benefit over older ones: it's all in the CPU. So scrimp a bit on the motherboard by buying an older reliable one and use the savings on a better CPU and fast timing RAM.

My recent full spec is here: http://rogalian.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/windows-7-mame-pc-in-taito-egret-3.html

Need to fix the pictures :/

4gb ram is enough? even with running win 7?

also what was the final cost for that build? Just the components that is

[big10p]

My MAME PC has an i3-4130 @ 3.4GHz and runs everything I've tried just great - I can't see how an i5 could do any better. For graphics, I have a GTX750 Ti which does a great job of running games at 1920x1080 with full HLSL effects.

[cools]

My MAME CPU bible is here: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html#

Picked up an Intel Core i5-4690 based on that (bang for buck). Important to note - if not overclocking you don't need a fancy motherboard, and newer chipsets do not usually offer any performance benefit over older ones: it's all in the CPU. So scrimp a bit on the motherboard by buying an older reliable one and use the savings on a better CPU and fast timing RAM.

My recent full spec is here: http://rogalian.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/windows-7-mame-pc-in-taito-egret-3.html

Need to fix the pictures :/

4gb ram is enough? even with running win 7?

also what was the final cost for that build? Just the components that is

4GB is overkill!

Final cost came to about £500 including interfaces and cables. The case alone was just under half of that...

[cools]

Just fixed the pictures.

[nitrogen_widget]

4GB is overkill!

Final cost came to about £500 including interfaces and cables. The case alone was just under half of that...

32 or 64 bit Windows?
I'd think once you loaded up a .CHD you'd be out of RAM.

[yotsuya]

4GB is overkill!

Final cost came to about £500 including interfaces and cables. The case alone was just under half of that...

32 or 64 bit Windows?
I'd think once you loaded up a .CHD you'd be out of RAM.

RAM's so cheap that it's overkill that isn't going to break the bank. I'd go 4-8 if you're running 64-bit.

[cools]

64bit.

There are precisely zero of the larger CHD games I want to play, I don't even bother storing them. Even so, MAME doesn't load the whole CHD at once. 8GB wouldn't have broken the bank but it would've been unused, so money better spent on other parts At the time the 4GB was £28 (special offer), the 8GB equivalent was £65.

Name a game you'd like me to test and watch the RAM usage of.

[dkersten]

2 gigs is more than enough.  Granted software has become bloated over the years, but 10 years ago we were running 32 bit OS's on 256 megs of ram and you could run mame and even some great games.. 64 bit only means it CAN use more than 3 gigs of memory, doesn't mean you have to.  The latest cab I built had 2 gb and I never maxed it out, even with every option turned on, 1080 resolution for both mame and the FE (big image files for the layout and artwork), and running killer instinct with a hefty CHD.  I still had over 500 mb free even when the cpu was pegged out and all the plugins were loaded.

4gb is more than sufficient unless you are going to be running 6 or 8 other programs in the background while playing mame...  I often have 15-20 windows open at once on my work computer, and not just web browsers, but memory hogs like photoshop, dreamweaver, and illustrator along with 3 or 4 spreadsheets, email, a few web pages, 2 different browsers, and sometimes a handful of other programs as well as a few dozen various programs running in the background.  And the 12 gigs of ram I have in this has never run out.  Heck, I have loaded 127 excel files at once, while all that other stuff was going, and didn't run out of physical memory.  Just because it is cheap doesn't mean you need it.

[nitrogen_widget]

64bit.

There are precisely zero of the larger CHD games I want to play, I don't even bother storing them. Even so, MAME doesn't load the whole CHD at once. 8GB wouldn't have broken the bank but it would've been unused, so money better spent on other parts At the time the 4GB was £28 (special offer), the 8GB equivalent was £65.

Name a game you'd like me to test and watch the RAM usage of.

I've a quad core amd i plan to test this on tonight in 64 bit but i'd love to know how the Gauntlet games run for you.
also what version of mame your using.

[cools]

It'll be GroovyMAME 154 64bit. I'll grab those and give them a try when I can - hopefully this weekend.

[IAmDotorg]

RAM's so cheap that it's overkill that isn't going to break the bank. I'd go 4-8 if you're running 64-bit.

Lots of things are cheap, doesn't mean they're needed. Running 64 bit or 32 bit doesn't make a damn bit of difference -- the emulators aren't aligning each byte of emulated RAM to an 8-byte boundary.

Its vastly more important to align the amount of RAM to what the motherboard's chipsets wants to see. Does the chipset need three DIMMs for max performance? Does it need two? Four? Three gig may be faster than four if 3x1GB sticks fully fill the banks and 2x2GB don't. Other motherboards want pairs, so 2x2GB may be a good option. In no circumstances does MAME need more than 4GB of RAM, though. Even if you had HUGE games, they aren't using all the RAM at once and pages will swap in and out just fine.

[nitrogen_widget]

It'll be GroovyMAME 154 64bit. I'll grab those and give them a try when I can - hopefully this weekend.

I've never actually played these games on mame so this was a first for me.

I've got an A10-5800k.
using .149 on windows 64 bit Dark Legacy was chuggy & sound was just a loud hum.
Legends was surprisingly good but still a little on the slow side.
Legends looks just like the version on my dreamcast.
dark legacy is on the game cube also.
Will probably run those emulators for now.

.149 on 32 bit linux with the kernal that allows more ram it took FOREVER for the game to start and it lagged so badly It took a few seconds for the coin to register.
It was also spanned over my two monitors which was annoying.
I had just compiled it so i didn't have it configured and probably won't bother since I know my PC can't run it smoothly.

[Generic Eric]

RAM's so cheap that it's overkill that isn't going to break the bank. I'd go 4-8 if you're running 64-bit.

Lots of things are cheap, doesn't mean they're needed. Running 64 bit or 32 bit doesn't make a damn bit of difference -- the emulators aren't aligning each byte of emulated RAM to an 8-byte boundary.

I'm not a mame dev, but here is what a mamedev says about that
run a 64-bit OS and 64-bit MAME which gives a significant boost

[yotsuya]

RAM's so cheap that it's overkill that isn't going to break the bank. I'd go 4-8 if you're running 64-bit.

Lots of things are cheap, doesn't mean they're needed. Running 64 bit or 32 bit doesn't make a damn bit of difference -- the emulators aren't aligning each byte of emulated RAM to an 8-byte boundary.

There is a definite performance difference between MAME32 and MAME64. So if you can run MAME64, run MAME64. And your OS supports 4GB, run 4GB. 

[IAmDotorg]

There is a definite performance difference between MAME32 and MAME64. So if you can run MAME64, run MAME64. And your OS supports 4GB, run 4GB. 

We were talking about RAM. The usage doesn't increase on 64 bit, generally speaking. Perf-wise you should always use 64 bit if the OS is 64-bit because otherwise you're running through WOW64 call thunking and everything gets very slow. And for newer hardware, you're going to have poor driver support for 32-bit OSes.

But running 64-bit windows doesn't mean you magically need a lot more memory. But "run 4GB" because the OS supports it is absolutely the WRONG answer if your mobo chipset is using triple-channel DDR3, the system will be MUCH faster with three 1GB sticks than two 2GB sticks, so you need to go 3GB or 6GB. And 6GB is VERY overkill, so 3GB on a 64-bit OS is the correct answer for performance on quite a few chip/mobo combinations. A blanket "your OS can use it, so you should use it" is wrong in most cases.

[yotsuya]

Everyone listen to IAmDotorg because he's obviously invested time into researching this. Me, I'm going to continue to use as much RAM as I can because, well, 

[dkersten]

Not to split hairs, but he is correct, even though it is fairly moot.  My only point is that 4gb is more than enough for anything unless you are running some insane memory hogging software or loading up dozens of apps at once. 

RAM and hard disk space have become so cheap and plentiful that people think that more is better, but at some point you are just buying it because you can.  Usually larger disks DO mean a slight performance boost, so even if you don't need the space the larger disks can help.  But more RAM doesn't equate to more performance unless physical memory is already a bottleneck.  There are actually situations where more RAM can hurt your performance and stability.  If you are running more sticks of memory, you will draw more voltage per bank, and stability at higher clock rates can degrade rapidly.  I have actually had motherboards in the past that couldn't run at max clock with all banks filled, meaning having to run less memory at a higher clock rate (and lower latency) or more memory at a slower rate.  Plus if you look at motherboards after a few years that have run all banks as opposed to just the minimum, you will see more blown out, swelled, and dried up caps around the power regulators.  I have thrown away a lot of motherboards that still worked but had become unstable because of this exact problem. 

As for the number of banks, there is only one chipset that used triple banks instead of dual, and it would be very clear even to a novice that to get your machine to perform the best you will need a certain multiplier of sticks of memory. 

Bottom line: build the machine you can afford to build, mame will run on it.

To reiterate: 32 bit os = ~3.2 gigs of ram max usage, so anything more than 4 in a 32 bit OS is a complete waste, it can't even be accessed by the software.  64 bit OS doesn't have that limitation, but also doesn't use MORE ram. 

[yotsuya]

Not to split hairs, but he is correct, even though it is fairly moot.  My only point is that 4gb is more than enough for anything unless you are running some insane memory hogging software or loading up dozens of apps at once. 

Oh, I'm not saying he's not correct. I'm just saying that if I'm running a Windows 7 64-bit machine, I'm going to put 4 GB in it to compensate for the overhead that Windows 7 brings as well as any FEs or other programs that need to run.

[dkersten]

Although I have built one cab that runs 2gb with windows 7 and it seems to run just fine, I tend to agree with you, if at all possible, I don't use less than 4gb.  I was running into performance issues on the latest cab PC (caused by using a .154 ini with a .153 mame build) and in troubleshooting I dug up 2 more sticks of ram and bumped it from 2gb to 4gb.  No difference in performance, and in both cases I had plenty of ram free still. 

But I didn't try it with the FE fully loaded with 2 LED controllers each running different animations, and the amount of free memory was only around 500 megs with 2gig in the machine, nor did I try to run a game with a large CHD file.  And windows DOES use a little more if it has it, which theoretically means it should help in bottleneck situations (my free ram while running mame off the FE went from 500 megs to around 1.5 gigs after adding 2 more gigs). 

[Vigo]

The thing about RAM is that if you have more than enough, it is completely worry free. If you are low on RAM, then it becomes a PITA. First you have to identify that the emulation is slow due to RAM. Second, if you cheaped out on RAM in the beginning and playing slot games to boost performance, you are most likely filling all your slots with smaller RAM sticks. It would have just been better to get one stick larger at a time, so you won't need to trash the current RAM in order to upgrade. Also, If you end up tossing a 1 gb stick to put in a 2 gb stick you end up risking performance or instability issues from having uneven RAM sized sticks.

There is no point to examine the best configuration of ram for your motherboard, simply fill up on enough from the get-go, and fill evenly. If you underestimate your RAM need, then you end up wasting a lot more time and money than overkilling on RAM.

[yotsuya]

Although I have built one cab that runs 2gb with windows 7 and it seems to run just fine, I tend to agree with you, if at all possible, I don't use less than 4gb.  I was running into performance issues on the latest cab PC (caused by using a .154 ini with a .153 mame build) and in troubleshooting I dug up 2 more sticks of ram and bumped it from 2gb to 4gb.  No difference in performance, and in both cases I had plenty of ram free still. 

But I didn't try it with the FE fully loaded with 2 LED controllers each running different animations, and the amount of free memory was only around 500 megs with 2gig in the machine, nor did I try to run a game with a large CHD file.  And windows DOES use a little more if it has it, which theoretically means it should help in bottleneck situations (my free ram while running mame off the FE went from 500 megs to around 1.5 gigs after adding 2 more gigs).

Exactly.

There is no point to examine the best configuration of ram for your motherboard, simply fill up on enough from the get-go, and fill evenly. If you underestimate your RAM need, then you end up wasting a lot more time and money than overkilling on RAM.

I am reminded of the  son-of-a-motherless previous IT director my district had running the show. He INSISTED that we'd be fine with only 2GB of RAM on our new Windows 7 machines to save something like $10 per computer. Every time the students sit there and wait for programs to load, every time Photoshop bogs down, they curse his name.

[lamprey]

<snip> only 2GB of RAM on our new Windows 7 machines <snip> Photoshop <snip>

WAAAHHH?!?!

Damn, That's just crazy! Luckily, on my home workstation, I have gobs of memory. I just wish the faster Xeon procs were cheaper! 

[yotsuya]

<snip> only 2GB of RAM on our new Windows 7 machines <snip> Photoshop <snip>

WAAAHHH?!?!

Damn, That's just crazy! Luckily, on my home workstation, I have gobs of memory. I just wish the faster Xeon procs were cheaper! 

I know, right? Dude ran our district IT into the ground, then bailed.

[lamprey]

It'll be GroovyMAME 154 64bit. I'll grab those and give them a try when I can - hopefully this weekend.

I sound like a broken record, but apparently, a lot of people don't know.. if you have any issues playing gauntlet, I assume you are talking the 3D ones, then try an older version of mame (like 0145). That plays about 20-30% faster than the latest version of mame (0154) for those types of 3D games.

[Vigo]

<snip> only 2GB of RAM on our new Windows 7 machines <snip> Photoshop <snip>

WAAAHHH?!?!

Damn, That's just crazy! Luckily, on my home workstation, I have gobs of memory. I just wish the faster Xeon procs were cheaper! 

Damn, and I have been complaining about my work Computer. I am the only employee in my company who works with the Adobe creative suite, and because my work has a "fairness" philosophy, we are all stuck on dell laptops from 2007. It has been fun trying to explain to my boss why the software that costs $600 a year is useless for me to make training videos with because Adobe Premiere and after effects will not work with a 32 bit system. At least I was able to get upgraded to 4gb or Ram so photoshop and indesign are not too terrible. I just can't run them both at the same time.

[dkersten]

Exactly.

Which is why I said I tend to agree with you.  But the question isn't if 2gb of ram is enough, but rather 4 gb.

There is no point to examine the best configuration of ram for your motherboard, simply fill up on enough from the get-go, and fill evenly. If you underestimate your RAM need, then you end up wasting a lot more time and money than overkilling on RAM.

I am reminded of the son-of-a-motherless previous IT director my district had running the show. He INSISTED that we'd be fine with only 2GB of RAM on our new Windows 7 machines to save something like $10 per computer. Every time the students sit there and wait for programs to load, every time Photoshop bogs down, they curse his name.

@Vigo, I get what you are saying, but sometimes throwing money at something "because you can" is just throwing money away.  I have yet to run into a game with any of the emulators I have tried that used more than 70% of the 4 gigs of memory I used, and like I said, about the same percentage when I had half that much RAM.  And considering that just a few short years ago utilizing more than 3.2 gigs of ram was not even an option in any desktop OS, yet people were running the very same games we are talking about and not running into problems, I can't sit here and agree that "4 gigs isn't enough" for mame.  That isn't to say that if you can afford more memory you shouldn't put it in (although I gave an example of why you shouldn't fill your banks if you can avoid it), just that spending more money for no gain is wasting money.

@yot, to expand on what I said above, I completely agree that when using memory hog programs like Photoshop, having more RAM is always good.  But Mame is not Photoshop.  And 4 gigs is more than enough.  I also wouldn't recommend he put a Titan graphics card in, or double up some SSD's in a raid array for better disk performance, even though the price of SSD's is way down and very reasonable.   

As for the cheap IT guy, to YOU that $10 or $20 (or more like $50-100 in recent years given the cost of RAM) might seem trivial and well worth it, but to the guy writing the check (or responsible for the budget) for dozens or even hundreds of computers, it adds up fast and isn't trivial.  As an IT director, I look at the needs of the individual and decide if they need more or can get by with less.  And frankly I am the kind of guy who leans toward spending a few extra dollars where it matters most.  My guys don't need 500 gb of storage, they use maybe 40gb, sometimes as much as 60gb after 4 years of use, so why spend even $5 more for more storage?  But then I will put a Core i5 in their desktops and laptops instead of an i3 or something slower and cheaper, because I know it is money well spent.  But I won't put 8 or 16 gigs of ram in a desktop and especially not a laptop (takes more power to run more ram) because 99% of my employees don't need it.  I also won't skimp out and put 2 gigs in a 64 bit computer because I know how much it can limit things, particularly with windows 7. 

I relate this to an arcade cab because it is so damn easy for costs to get out of control, yet there pretty much isn't any one part outside of the monitor that costs more than $100 by itself.  It gets out of control because you look at it and say "well, I can get the buttons for $2 each, or the better buttons for $3.  But wait, there are good ones with leaf switches for $4.  Or I can go RGB lit buttons for $6, or OOOH, I can do brighter RGB lights with leaf switches for only $9.50 each!".  Each increment in itself is small, and even the total cost of one button is small, but when you have 20 or 30 buttons, and hundreds of other parts and pieces in that cab, spending just a few dollars more on this and that can easily mean $500 more overall..  Every time you have an opportunity to save $20, you are one step closer to saving yourself hundreds of dollars..

[Vigo]

Dave, you definitely have an IT director approach to things. (And not one who works for an AZ school district.) 

I am gonna say, as far as my philosophy on RAM, is that I might not be as good as many people at benchmarking my computers needs, but I have always taken the cheap route in the past, thinking I could just upgrade as needed. It usually worked out for me, but a few years ago I was burned by underestimating my needs. I think it was a few newer gen emulators were taking their sweet time. When I flipped in new ram, I ended up having to toss some of the old ram, and started getting BSODs much more often. I can't verify if the RAM was the cause, I never spend the time to look into it. I did just end up getting a whole new computer out of frustration with speed issues that were cropping up. Ended up realizing that it was just worth it for me to just get a step above the ideal RAM I felt I would need.

I think it might be a safe philosophy to just say, when in doubt, don't skimp on RAM. If someone is gonna do their homework on their exact needs, more power to them, just plan on possibly needing more than you think.

[dkersten]

The irony in my case is that I started out budgeting $1200 for my own 4 player cab and ended up pushing just over $2500, not including the $160 it just cost me to change out all my LED's.. lol!

It is all semantics in the end, just fodder for some discussion really.  If ya got it to spend, spend it where you think is best.  I still think about my first PC and when RAM was $100 for 1 megabyte and I scraped and scrounged for the $400 (back when that was about 3 weeks worth of take home pay) to upgrade from 2 megs to 6 megs.  Or my last "bleeding edge" gaming rig where I spent $290 per stick for 4 sticks of 1gb ultra low latency ddr2 ram.  Funny thing is I just gave that motherboard and ram away to a friend who is reporting fairly regular blue screens due to the capacitors bring fried on the power regulators for that expensive RAM that never would run stable at the max capable clock and lowest possible latency. 

A gig is a LOT of memory, even though we take it for granted today when you can get a 4 gig stick for like $60..  MOST software doesn't take as much as we think because we are used to memory hogs like windows 7 and photoshop that will easily burn up a couple gigs.  I believe a lot of programs will reserve a percentage of memory "just in case", which is why I can run the same software and have about the same percentage of free physical space left whether I am running 2 or 4 gigs.  It is easy to look at that and think "I'm using 70% of my memory, I better get more."  Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft is just reserving chunks of memory so that people will buy into the idea that they NEED 8 gigs to run internet explorer... I need someone to tell me why internet explorer actually needs to use 150 megs of physical ram to have one forum window open, when I could run netscape with 2 megs of ram and 80 megs of hard drive space 20 years ago, and have the same exact information on my screen..     

[yotsuya]

Damn, and I have been complaining about my work Computer. I am the only employee in my company who works with the Adobe creative suite, and because my work has a "fairness" philosophy, we are all stuck on dell laptops from 2007. It has been fun trying to explain to my boss why the software that costs $600 a year is useless for me to make training videos with because Adobe Premiere and after effects will not work with a 32 bit system. At least I was able to get upgraded to 4gb or Ram so photoshop and indesign are not too terrible. I just can't run them both at the same time.

I would punch someone in the nuts if they made me use Premiere (which I LOVE, BTW) on a 32-bit platform with 2GB ram.

And, Dave, I love you, bro, but I haven't "clocked" a system since the Days of SiSandra.

I use an eyeball test, now: Does it play what I want? Am I happy with it? Good. 

As for the cheap IT guy, to YOU that $10 or $20 (or more like $50-100 in recent years given the cost of RAM) might seem trivial and well worth it, but to the guy writing the check (or responsible for the budget) for dozens or even hundreds of computers, it adds up fast and isn't trivial.  As an IT director, I look at the needs of the individual and decide if they need more or can get by with less.  And frankly I am the kind of guy who leans toward spending a few extra dollars where it matters most.  My guys don't need 500 gb of storage, they use maybe 40gb, sometimes as much as 60gb after 4 years of use, so why spend even $5 more for more storage?  But then I will put a Core i5 in their desktops and laptops instead of an i3 or something slower and cheaper, because I know it is money well spent.  But I won't put 8 or 16 gigs of ram in a desktop and especially not a laptop (takes more power to run more ram) because 99% of my employees don't need it.  I also won't skimp out and put 2 gigs in a 64 bit computer because I know how much it can limit things, particularly with windows 7. 

Yeah, but that extra RAM was REQUESTED because we knew our users and students. You know what the savings were spent on? ---smurfing--- docking stations for teacher laptops. Which they forgot to buy keyboards and mice for and have been sitting in boxes for two years now, unless we open them up to raid the power supplies from them. 

[cools]

Right, now I've tested:

Gauntlet Legends uses about 200MB when running (monitoring in Resource Manager, not Task Manager)
Gauntlet Dark Legacy is a little more, at 210MB.

Legends works well, it's a little glitchy which I'll put down to using the latest MAME. Dark Legacy requires 153 rather than 154 to work. It's also a little glitchy. Neither have any sort of performance issues - they run unthrottled at a few hundred percent.

With nothing other than 64bit Win 7 running (it's not a slimmed down install), after I've been running stuff and closing it and I'm sitting at the desktop - RAM usage is almost exactly 1GB. My chosen frontend (Attract Mode) uses 90MB.

The pagefile is also disabled.

FWIW I'd throw an SSD into a Win7 or higher machine before I upgraded the RAM beyond 2GB, the performance difference just doing that far negates any benefit from the extra RAM for the majority of use cases.