Help me get Donkey Kong running!

[zauxier]

So I am about 99% finished with my mammoth project of building a Donkey Kong mame cabinet from scratch.  Everything is looking great and running smooth with the exception of Donkey Kong, the one game that SHOULD run on this thing.
Currently I have almost 250 games up and running including many Neo Geo games (metal slug series, money puzzle exchanger, kof, etc.)and 80s Era games (Pacman, tapper, donkey kong Jr) but the original Donkey Kong runs very very slow, around 15fps?
The computer I'm using is an old Windows XP machine, unsure of the processor at the moment. However, given the fact that so many other games are running just fine, I don't understand why donkey kong continues to give me problems? Any suggestions from the group on things I can do?

[meyer980]

Do you know which version of MAME you're running? Have you tried launching the game on its own vs. launching through a frontend? (sometimes frontends do weird things).

Have you tried some different versions of DK roms (US vs. Japan for example)? Do they all perform the same?

If it's an older XP machine, I'd be inclined to say you should be using an older version of MAME too with its matching romset. Normally I'd suggest the newest version though.

[wp34]

As I recall at some point the Mamedevs decided to emulate the sound in DK rather than use samples.  That made it so you needed more horsepower than would seem required to play it.

[PL1]

As I recall at some point the Mamedevs decided to emulate the sound in DK rather than use samples.  That made it so you needed more horsepower than would seem required to play it.

- 0.116: Couriersud implemented discrete sound from schematics in Donkey Kong. Color generation from schematics (resistor mixer). Replaced DAC/Samples sound with Discrete. Removed all samples.

There have been several other sound-related improvements to DK since then.


Scott

[wp34]

As I recall at some point the Mamedevs decided to emulate the sound in DK rather than use samples.  That made it so you needed more horsepower than would seem required to play it.

- 0.116: Couriersud implemented discrete sound from schematics in Donkey Kong. Color generation from schematics (resistor mixer). Replaced DAC/Samples sound with Discrete. Removed all samples.

There have been several other sound-related improvements to DK since then.


Scott

You never fail to deliver.   

[zauxier]

OK, so I just got home and can verify that the version of MAME I have running on my machine is MAMEUI32 0.122u1.

To some of the other questions that have been asked earlier, I have tried running outside of the front-end and using the different versions of the rom as well. I have unfortunately not had success with either of those. I just tried again to play it and when the barrels start coming it gets to around 5fps.

[meyer980]

Maybe try stock MAME instead of MAMEui? Other than that I don't have many more recommendations, except different hardware, which I'm guessing you don't want.

[Osirus23]

Man that cabinet looks really nice.