Author Topic: Why is my new computer running Mame games slow?? (Read 8514 times)

reebboy · « **on:** April 11, 2004, 07:58:34 pm »

I just bought a new Compaq computer with an Athalon 2400 and 128mg and running Win XP. According to what I have read this should be good enough to run most early Mame game but for some reason may games are still skipping frames. I am running the most recent version of MAME 32.

For example Asteroids Deluxe is only getting up to about 45 FPS. That is with basic settings. If I try to up the resolution it drops down to about 5 FPS. Cyberball 2020 is even slower.

I boosted the memory to over 600mg and there doesn't seem to be much difference. I would like to know if adding an video card will help or should I just stick with the onboard video card. Also will downgrading to WIN 98 make much difference.

I'm at a loss as to why it is running many games so slow.

Edgedamage · « **Reply #1 on:** April 11, 2004, 08:12:11 pm »

Try these settings. Sometimes if you set scanlines to on the vector games start sucking wind. So make sure scanlines are off for vector.

reebboy · « **Reply #2 on:** April 11, 2004, 08:47:08 pm »

I have no effects on at all and I'm using auto resolution . Compaq loads their computers full of junk programs, I'm wondering if one of them is eating up my processing power. I thought I deleted most of them out but maybe one is slipping by. It seems I should have no problem running Asteroids Deluxe or just about any other older game. Out of curiosity, what type of system are you using?

Edgedamage · « **Reply #3 on:** April 11, 2004, 09:19:03 pm »

Homemade system with athalon 1800. But I just built a system with an all in one board and was using mame32 for a quick test before I went through the steps of installing mame080b and a front end. And found that I had set scanlines on and the vector games ran like crap. As soon as they were disabled the games ran full speed.

JustMichael · « **Reply #4 on:** April 11, 2004, 09:19:20 pm »

I would suggest you kill stuff running in the background. Second, buy a video card. Most of those video-on-board systems have crap for video. The manufacturer uses the cheapest chips so they can to boost their profit.

Edgedamage · « **Reply #5 on:** April 11, 2004, 09:25:05 pm »

True on the background stuff. But don't knock all on board video. My cheapo $130 all in one motherboard with on board vid and sound plays all the new visual pinball tables with no problems at all. And handles mame no prob only MK2-3 cause the sound to crackle.

SirPeale · « **Reply #6 on:** April 11, 2004, 10:37:37 pm »

For whatever reason Asteroids runs dog slow on my system as well, and it's no slouch. AMD 2400+. All the other games run okay, but I haven't tried other vectors. Try some other games and post here with your results.

Edgedamage · « **Reply #7 on:** April 11, 2004, 10:53:21 pm »

Quote from: Peale on April 11, 2004, 10:37:37 pm

For whatever reason Asteroids runs dog slow on my system as well, and it's no slouch. AMD 2400+. All the other games run okay, but I haven't tried other vectors. Try some other games and post here with your results.

What ver of mame are running?

JustMichael · « **Reply #8 on:** April 11, 2004, 11:09:18 pm »

To run the vector games faster, add -nohws to your command line. This turns off hardware stretching.

SirPeale · « **Reply #9 on:** April 11, 2004, 11:26:07 pm »

Running .81u4, but I just tried it and it was just fine. How odd, must have been bad a few versions back.

fredster · « **Reply #10 on:** April 12, 2004, 11:38:09 am »

Check the cmos. You may have the video card set as PCI, not AGP. I had that problem. If there are any chipset settings in the CMOS, clock them as fast as you can. The motherboard may be wanting to use it's own video as primary.

zaphod · « **Reply #11 on:** April 12, 2004, 12:04:31 pm »

Windows XP will run significantly better with more than 128meg onboard. I personally consider 256 an absolute min on XP machines.

And Asteroids did run poorly for a release or two a while back. Seemed like .78.

Sylentwulf · « **Reply #12 on:** April 12, 2004, 12:18:11 pm »

I think Zaphod nailed it. Windows XP alone requires at least 256mb RAM. Ram is so cheap these days there's really no reason NOT to have at least 512mb.

Tiger-Heli · « **Reply #13 on:** April 12, 2004, 12:22:58 pm »

Quote from: Sylentwulf on April 12, 2004, 12:18:11 pm

I think Zaphod nailed it. Windows XP alone requires at least 256mb RAM. Ram is so cheap these days there's really no reason NOT to have at least 512mb.

But the OP has 600mB now and said it still didn't help

Apollo · « **Reply #14 on:** April 12, 2004, 04:37:05 pm »

Have you tried using windows command line mame with a front end like Mamewah?

GGKoul · « **Reply #15 on:** April 12, 2004, 06:16:22 pm »

I think its a Ram issues too....

When you start up your machine, does the systems recognized the 600 meg of Ram? Also, does the startup say you have a "1800+ AMD". As you may want to check your BIOS to make sure the mhz & multiplers are set correctly.

Another thing, Compaq mainly uses "cheap" parts to build their systems. As they don't usually put a high end motherboard in their systems. So you may want to get another video card. As most "All in one boards" have a 16 or 32 meg onboard video card and usually aren't the best for gaming. 3D or non-3D.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised in there's a 5400rpm Hard drive in there as well... So check your BIOS setting and/or try another video card.

Hope this helps.

-GGKoul

Sylentwulf · « **Reply #16 on:** April 12, 2004, 07:29:30 pm »

If you've upped the ram, here's something else you can try.....

If you're running mame IN windows XP...
start up mame
tab out
hit ctrl-alt-del to bring up the Windows Task Manager
Go to processes
Right click mame.exe (mame32, whatever other flavor you use)
Set priority - HIGH (or increase it one notch at a time.)

reebboy · « **Reply #17 on:** April 12, 2004, 07:43:47 pm »

I borrowed a video card from a friend and installed it and now the games are running full speed. So I've finally narrowed down my problem. Because I just pulled the computer out of the box I have not updated any of the drivers. I'm gonna try that, If it still doesn't function at full speed after the driver updates then I'll know the onboard vid card is junk.

reebboy · « **Reply #18 on:** April 12, 2004, 08:09:01 pm »

Quote

Set priority - HIGH (or increase it one notch at a time.)

When I get back to my computer tomorrow, I'm going to try that.

I was thinking of starting a new post at the end of the week to get peoples inputs as to certain tweaks and hardware configurations that they know of to get a little better performance out of MAME. The reason why I want to do this is because I would like to run many of my games at a higher resolution and I've noticed that many start loosing the performance when I do this. Any extra bit of horsepower helps.

Negativecreep0 · « **Reply #19 on:** April 12, 2004, 09:36:49 pm »

Umm I thought emulation really had nothing to do with video card hardly more so on CPU and PC RAM. So those of us with kick ass 3.2 ghz systems and 1 gig ram running arcadevga old ass vid cards can still run all the games smooth as hell

JMDickson · « **Reply #20 on:** April 12, 2004, 10:12:38 pm »

True, but the ArcadeVGA is based on a fairly modern high performance video chip. Most Mid to Low-end compaq's use an integrated video system running off of system RAM. The ArcadeVGA also has to update a fraction of the total pixels since it usually runs at such low resolutions.

cdbrown · « **Reply #21 on:** April 12, 2004, 11:05:10 pm »

In addition to the silly compaq pre-installed programs that are mostly unnecessary, XP has alot of services set to start on bootup which can hog a significant amount of mem and processor power.

Here's some links which give XP tweaks as well as descriptions of the various services.
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/winxp.htm
http://www.deviantforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=1926
http://www.tweakhound.com/xp/xptweaks/supertweaks1.htm

You also want to make sure you have the latest drivers.

Tiger-Heli · « **Reply #22 on:** April 13, 2004, 06:58:46 am »

Quote from: Sylentwulf on April 12, 2004, 07:29:30 pm

If you've upped the ram, here's something else you can try.....

If you're running mame IN windows XP...
start up mame
tab out
hit ctrl-alt-del to bring up the Windows Task Manager
Go to processes
Right click mame.exe (mame32, whatever other flavor you use)
Set priority - HIGH (or increase it one notch at a time.)

This is also an option in your MAME.ini file
something like

high_priority 1

delta88 · « **Reply #23 on:** April 13, 2004, 01:05:32 pm »

you did say 128 mgs of ram right .. ehh. id up it too at least 256

kevin · « **Reply #24 on:** April 13, 2004, 04:24:45 pm »

Another thing with onboard video cards is shared RAM. The machine I'm on right now has onboard graphics, and rather than having dedicated video memory, it steals 32mb from your RAM. If you only have 128mb, your vid card could be eating up 25% of your RAM.

-Kevin

JustMichael · « **Reply #25 on:** April 13, 2004, 07:05:14 pm »

On big problem with cheap on-board video is guess what processor does all the graphics stuff? That's right!!! Your cpu does. Since your main cpu is doing the graphics stuff instead of a dedicated graphics processor, your cpu has less time left for other tasks.

reebboy · « **Reply #26 on:** April 13, 2004, 08:21:15 pm »

I upped the RAM to over 600MB and it did very little. It definitely speed up my computer but didn't very little to help in the MAME department. After checking some more games out I realize that a new vid card has helped out a good amount but in comparison with my friends similar computer, many games are still not up to speed.

I tried running MAME32 .74 on my friends Dell laptop running a P4 2.2G and it runs about every game I've tested at full speed with the hardware stretching on. Using the same CD on my computer a Compaq AMD 2400 2.0G with the same settings my computer is still not able to run the games at full speed even with the hardware stretching off.

On an extra note he has several programs running in the background like an anti-virus and some others where as I have nothing extra running and his computer still beating mine.

I ran all the diagnostic tests and everything checks ok. This weekend I'm going to try and update the drivers and everything else. I'm also going to try and see if I can get a clean copy of WIN XP and try to install that to see if COMPAQ version is the problem. I am also thinking of running a command version of MAME to see if that helps in any way.

If nothing works, well then my wife is going to have a nice mothers day gift. And I'll use my old computer till I find something that works.


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