Linux based Mame Machine

[Dave Wave]

I built a nice XP based Cab over a decade ago. It was working great until XP gave up the ghost and I cannot find the installation disc.

Instead of bashing my head against the wall anymore, I was wondering if anybody had any input on perhaps changing the OS over to one of the linux based all-in-one-solutions (groovymame?)

I have an Athelon CPU at 1.2 GHZ (I think), SBlaster for sound. IPAC for control interface and an Arcade VGA driving a 15 KHz monitor. I have a rotating monitor, so I need to be able to flip the screens as needed.

I am only interested in playing older games, so this setup served me very well performance wise.

Many Thanks!

-Dave

[Jimbo]

Get a cheap groovymame supported radeon card and install groovyarcade (based on arch linux).  Boots up in seconds, exact resolution and refresh in pretty much all the games, nice interface.  I did this on my rotating setup where I also had XP and an ArcadeVGA card.... it's soooo much better now. 

[ark_ader]

I built a nice XP based Cab over a decade ago. It was working great until XP gave up the ghost and I cannot find the installation disc.

Instead of bashing my head against the wall anymore, I was wondering if anybody had any input on perhaps changing the OS over to one of the linux based all-in-one-solutions (groovymame?)

I have an Athelon CPU at 1.2 GHZ (I think), SBlaster for sound. IPAC for control interface and an Arcade VGA driving a 15 KHz monitor. I have a rotating monitor, so I need to be able to flip the screens as needed.

I am only interested in playing older games, so this setup served me very well performance wise.

Many Thanks!

-Dave

Try and source Tiny or MicroXP.  You have a license from your old version, so you can add it to legitimize it.

I run all my tiny cabs with it and it runs great on a P60.

I am finding that good old Linux is ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- for entertainment appliances.  Better stick to what you know.

Now there is a fork of Kodi and it is called CoinOps Forgotten Worlds.  Add it with a cheap PC from Newegg (i3, 4gb, 250gb HD SFF with Win10 Home) and you will have a decent setup for less than $80. 

Your xp kit would probably lag out as you will need something this century to run it on.

[phulshof]

I’m running MAME with RetroFE on my Linux (Kubuntu 18.04) machine. It’s currently set up for 10:16 cocktail mode.

[barrymossel]

You could try RetroPie. https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Debian

[Zebra]

I also have an interest in this topic and other alternatives to Windows for vintage gaming.

I saw a review on YouTube for that $130 Nvidia emulation "console" and this tiny little thing seemed to offer better emulation performance for later consoles like the Dreamcast and Wii than my enormous Windows 7 tower.

The Nvidia machine runs on an android operating system. It got me wondering how much difference the OS makes to emulation performance. Windows always seems to have a lot going on in the background (no matter how much to try to turn off).

My understanding (which is limited) is that a lot depends on how well optimized an emulator is for Linux or Android etc. Apparently, on regular PC games, Linux can match (but not beat) Windows performance for games that have been optimized for Linux. On games that haven't, they run slow (or not at all).

I know Linux boots faster (at least it does on my CNC machine) but has anyone done any in game comparisons with Groovymame for Windows vs Linux?

[keilmillerjr]

If your talking about mame, I assume operating system would not make a difference in performance since it uses sdl that seems multi platform? Operating system overhead can reduce performance and boot speed. Hardware is more important for performance.

I can boot my pi to mame using Linux quicker than my faster hardware using windows 10. But I am limited in mame performance. I don’t know. It’s not so simple.

I wish groovyarcade had more support. However, after using raspbian lite - I think I could create my own little package for pc if I had the time.