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Windows 98, XP, DOS, or Linux?
MysticalMatt517:
What operating system did you use for your cabinets and why? Is there one operating system that is easier to deal with over the others? Which one looks the best running in the cabinet? Will USB devices work with DOS? Have any of you played with Linux and XMAME? What have been your results?
I'm planning on building a cabinet soon, and consequently am looking for a direction. (I've got the book Project Arcade). I was just wondering if there is a generally preferred OS.
Lilwolf:
I use 98SE... but have no reason to now that Analog+ got dual mice on XP.
I would vote XP for any new computer (1ghz+).
Faster to boot, more stable, fast, easy.
Stay away from ME. SE isn't bad... but doesn't boot as fast (and you will get annoyed if you don't keep it on 24/7)
DOS is great...for mame... no others. And you loose a bunch of frontend options. But you will get 5-10% speed increase on many games... oh yeah... you loose hardware stretching so you better have a monitor that can handle all the resolutions.
And for Linux. It SHOULD be the BEST answer once you get it setup... FREE is always good. it IS stable (compared to MS which is 2x as stable as the last version)... BUT you need xwindows to get mame to run and that isn't as stable. The is some versions that don't require it but I hear they aren't as fast. Also you will loose many other emulators support and frontend support.
DaveJ-UK:
I don't know the first thing about *nix but I totally agree with wolf about Windows ME don't touch that piece of sloath turd with a barge pole.
If you have a very low end system <Pentium go DOS.
98SE is pretty good but I would go 2000 on a P2 or better. It's pretty much the same OS (2000 is NT 5.0 while XP is NT 5.1). However, it does have some updated graphics bits and pieces which chomps up a little more CPU time and memory. I use 2000 on a P4 2.26 with 256MB PC2100 and it runs almost everything.
And make sure you install all the updates for whatever OS you use.
Gameboy.au:
I tried Linux both with debian and Lindows, but due to my limited experience (*read "no idea what I was doing"*), I had to abandon that idea, even though I would freely admit that my PC has never run quicker.
In the end, I am running Win98SE with a Windwos 95 explorer shell. I did this using a small uitilty called 98lite from www.litepc.com
This allowed me to use Windows 98SE, but being able to uninstall IE, something that I don't need in a cab and slows down the whole system anyway. I can now leave the PC running for days without drama and having to rebot every 5 hours ;D
With MAME Wah as my front end, It's a good set up
paigeoliver:
In the past I have used windows 98 SE a lot, windows 95 once, windows 2000 once, and DOS several times.
Currently I have a dos cab and a windows 98 cab that I am going to switch over to dos.
Probably going to go DOS on all future projects except the Battlezone, which will be XP.