Golden Tee Fore Complete

[southpaw13]

How much computer power is needed to run Golden Tee Fore Complete?

Thanks for your help

[DarthMarino]

What are you specs?

[southpaw13]

That's a great question.  I would like to buy a new computer just to run it.  I don't want to go all out, just enough power to run it.

Thanks,

[ABACABB]

You would want a speedy Intel iCore 2nd gen or later.  Even then you have to run it on low resolution for it to play smoothly.  For the price of the PC you are looking to build just for GT, you could buy the actual hardware online and play the real thing on med. resolution.  At least consider going that route.  It is simple to hook up..... You just need board and hard drive, power supply and controls.

[DarthMarino]

I play all the time on an i5-3550 (3.3 GHZ) but I'm playing on low resolution. I agree that it might not be worth it just to play that  one game. A non-Intel chip running at 3.3 GHZ isn't going to perform as well so a cheaper AMD isn't going to cut it.

[brad808]

I've owned a few of the golden tee games and currently own gt complete. For some reason I can never get mame to feel like the real deal. I've never gotten the trackball to feel right regardless of how many settings I tweak.

[southpaw13]

Thanks for your help.  I need to looking into this a little more.  I thought there was more to it like the nighthawk system that requires a couple more boards to run.  I see the boards and hard drives out there.  I didn't think it was the full system.

[DarthMarino]

The Nighthawk system is for Golden Tee Live.

[haynor666]

Even heavily overclocked G3258 won't run those games at full speed.

[southpaw13]

I think I am going to download a manual for it to see what is needed to make a cab.

Thanks!

[ed12]

if u want to make a single gtcomplete ?
the cab u want is a dynamo h5

if u are going to emulate it ?
u want some good horse power

the green/red board's used by its-gamming
are dual porcesser style unit's

if u dig in the fourm's a bit u will find a few quide's on the green/red board's
this will give u an idea of what the what is

ed

[ABACABB]

Check out this guy's project.  He does a good job explaining what you need.  I like it, other than the orange trackball.

http://arcarc.xmission.com/Kits%20and%20Hacks/Golden_Tee_Fore_Portable_Kit.pdf

P.S.  You don't need any of the audio line converter hardware he talks about.  You can wire a speaker directly off the JAMMA harness

[southpaw13]

That's cool.  Looks like I just need to figure out which board, red or green.  Any suggestions for a scratch build?

[ed12]

green  board is the most common golden tee golf
the higher the serial # the better

ed

[ABACABB]

They're not readily available so you can just go with whichever color is available (and fits your budget).  Both boards play the EXACT same, there are no additional game features/courses available on one board over another.  There are 2 different power supplies, you just have to get the one that matches a green or red board, whichever you come up with.

I put one of my own together about a year ago.  I thought it would never make it to MAME.  Well, it was in MAME about 4 months after I bought all the real hardware.  I don't regret it though.  Like Brad808 said, the real hardware plays better than MAME, in my opinion.  I was hesitant at first because I had no clue what I was doing.  Once you get the parts you need, hooking it up really is easy.

[ed12]

abacabb 
>Both boards play the EXACT same<
                                    ^^^^

i do not know where u got that idea from ?
but they do differ
sure as i outlined gt/buckhunter/goldenstrike will play on green/red board's if u know the dif. ? in them
but exact the same..no..

ed

[ABACABB]

Golden Tee ed.  The game plays the same on a green board as it does the red board.  No difference in gameplay.

[ed12]

that is not how u stated it
well ok,i re-read it
my bawd
yes they play exactly the same green/red
again my bawd
i thought u said there was no :board diff:

ed

[BuZz880]

How much computer power is needed to run Golden Tee Fore Complete?

Thanks for your help

I have a 2500k processor with 4gb Ram. Tried gtfore6 this evening for the first time  - plays real well other than occasional audio stutter. I have not tried low resolution and have not tried any optimizations. I also have a real Gt Fore Complete 2005 version (green board). The Mame version with no settings adjustments plays very similarly (same trackball on both). I was impressed.

So not entirely the answer you want but should give you a start point.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[southpaw13]

Thanks for trying it.  Still thinking about a red board vs a green board.  There are a lot of YouTube videos of it running good in Mame.  That's what got me thinking about it.

[DarthMarino]

Keep in mind that if the videos were recorded directly from MAME with aviwrite, they won't show any slowdown.

[BuZz880]

I've got a real one. Full cab, hardware all of it.  Paid $500. 

it's better than Mame because its legit. Just connecting a board to some modified control panel won't be too impressive might as well run it in Mame. Just make sure you buy the Happ ball and a faster CPU than mine.

If I remember tonight I'll try Low Res. In medium Res mode it looks better than my real one which is probably due to the monitor, not sure. Both k7000's but different tubes.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[southpaw13]

Thanks for trying.  I was going to look into a Jamma switcher and hook it up to a Silver Strike Bowling cab.  Then I was thinking about Mame to also run all the other older ones too.

[BuZz880]

Well for silver strike that's the only option.

But at leastMame gets you a good pause option and an easy reset option when your 4th player wanders off. And of course faster boot times due to save states. And a bunch of other trackball games from Centipede on become accessible easily.

I'd also say the original hardware is pretty hard on the hard drive for home use.  It would be fine if you left the thing on 24/7 but you likely won't.  I was careful with mine but it eventually crashed anyway. There's no soft-off option far as I can tell. I bought a Flash memory version of the hard drive so that should hold up better but who knows. Definitely not an issue with the Mame version.

I'll try a couple older gtfore versions in mame and let you know. GT2K definitely works well. Haven't tried others.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[DarthMarino]

But at leastMame gets you a good pause option and an easy reset option when your 4th player wanders off.

Go to your Operator Adjustables Menu and select Delay Time Adjustment.  You can turn the delay penalty off here so there is no need to pause it. 

During gameplay, hit the start button and you can drop a player or skip their turn if they went to the bathroom.

[BuZz880]

Just to finish this up.  DarthMarino is absolutely right and I actually knew that but its been so long since I've played with a group I wasn't thinking.  Though I still prefer the MAME Pause in general.

I also notice Save States don't help I guess because its a CHD game so the boot time is faster but not much faster than the real one.  Mind you I will point out even with my Flash drive on my real one, sometimes it needs to go through sort of a scandisk on startup looking for corrupted files and this is time consuming and not something that would be an issue in MAME.

As for my testing.  I have an Intel 2500K ,4GB, HD4350 Video card with Groovymame 169.  The CPU is a work horse but not the fastest around anymore.  I could easily overclock it a couple hundred Megahertz but did not bother trying. 

I tried GTFORE02, 05 and 06.  06 is the one you want in My Opinion as it is the Complete version with 20+ courses.

I can get 02 and 05 running over 99% in Low Res Mode, 02 is basically perfect after the first hole.  05 is not as good but you hardly notice the sound glitching after the first hole.  I didn't try too much optimizing my Mame setup much for these two as I found them acceptable already if you don't mind the look of Low Res mode.  I suspect 02 could be made perfect even in Medium Res if you know your stuff with Mame.

I did try some things with 06 and I cannot get it perfect even in Low Res Mode, but in Medium Mode I decided to try a few things.  At best I could get 98%+ average speed.  The sound issue is barely anything after you get past the first hole and it is a complete non-issue during gameplay its only between holes when it is playing the music and loading the next hole where you see any problems (maybe it would be better if I had an SSD?).  I should  note I am no pro with some of these mame.ini settings, I tried a bunch of things and most made it worse but it did seem like increasing Frame Delay made an improvement and in this style of game I did not find it impacting the gameplay.  There might be smarter ways to adjust things, and my understanding is if your video card happens to support a closer resolution and refresh rate to the original game you will have better syncing than I do.

I hope this helps someone, I'd be interested in hearing if someone runs it perfectly I might get rid of my real GT cab and put something else in its space.

[DarthMarino]

If you really want to go all out on a MAME machine for this, I would recommend the Intel i7-4790K.  I don't personally have one but I discussed the speed with a MAME Dev when he first posted the video of it running using that chip. He said it pretty much ran full speed on Medium Res and would stutter once in a while when he was in the middle of the woods where a there are a lot of transparencies from the trees, etc.  This was before some tweaks were made that helped speed it up a bit. It's not a cheap chip and it might not be exactly perfect, but it's likely the best you can do at this time.  It runs 4.0 GHZ out of the box.

Edit: 06 is pretty much all you need.  There are two 9-hole courses on the first Fore! game that didn't make it to 06 so I keep that one just to have the complete set of courses.

[southpaw13]

Great info!  So an i7 computer with those specs is about 600, the original board is 350-400.  I will be running this on a 640x480 vga CRT.  Probably use Groovy Mame.  What would you do?  I am not a Golden Tee pro.  I would just like to have it available for party's...

Thanks!

[DarthMarino]

That's really your call.  Obviously you can play more than Golden Tee. Classics like Centipede/Millipede, Marble Madness and Missile Command are good single player fun.  World Class Bowling and Shuuz work well for parties... Shuffleshot to a lesser extent.  I can vouch for the consistent popularity of Golden Tee over the past 10 years when my friends come over but you just have to decide how much all of that is worth to you. 

Do you have another machine for standard games like Street Fighter II, Turtles In Time, NBA Jam, etc. that people will always want to play as well?

[southpaw13]

Yes, still have my first Mame machine for that, some Williams games, a PI system running just Neo Geo, and a few ArcadeSD games in different configurations.  I had a party, put everything on tokens to see what was being played.  2 player games ruled.  Laser disc games were a dud.  I think Golden Tee is the next best to add....

[DarthMarino]

The 3D series (3D, 97, 98, 99, 2K and Classic) doesn't require a ton of horsepower. Maybe do a "test run" with those games and decide if it's worth upgrading to the Fore! series.

[southpaw13]

Thanks.  I already have those.  Is an upgrade worth it?  It looks pretty updated from what I saw.

[ABACABB]

I think the upgrade is well worth it.  With GT Complete you get 29 courses and the Backspin button + the Fly-by button.  Major improvements.  Running it on MAME may be fine for those of us that are good players and mostly hit the ball on the fairway.  What about when you have guests over to play (GT is more fun with a group) and someone slices one out into the woods?  All the extra trees drawn on the screen plus the fog and the rain, is really where a MAME PC would be put to the test.

[southpaw13]

So conflicted....to Mame or not to Mame....that is the question