Processor upgrade worth it?

[sharpfork]

Hello All-

I'm one of those odd people who prefers Mac- a habbit which has extended to my Mame cab.  I'm getting sick of the lack of a Mame front end on the Mac side so I'm pondering dedicating a PC as the brain of my cab.

I cobbled together a Dell Optiplex GX1 PIII 500 with 512 megs of RAM for a work project that will be over soon.  I want to be able to play MAME games ranging from the classics to somewhere around the Street Fighter II days.  I would like to be able to add virtual pinball and Daphnie to play Dragons Lair and Space Ace.

I have had great luck with Mac CPU upgrades in the past and am wondering if it would make sense for me to to upgrade the GX1 CPU.  After doing quite a bit of research, I found a company that shoehorns a 1.4 GHz Celeron's into the GX1.

Here is one on eBay for $76 + shipping:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=14292&item=3495731527&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

more info:
- I'm not sure which version of MAME or windoze I am going to run at this point.
- the Dell has a whopping 2 megs of video RAM (not an issue for MAME from what I have read)

Questions:

- Do I really have to upgrade the speed of my CPU for me wants/needs?
- Anyone have experience with a CPU upgrade like this one?
- am I better off spending a bit more and buying a mobo that will be happy with the PC100- PC133 RAM I have kicking around?  (suggestions).
- will more powerful video (the Dell can be upgraded to 6 megs easily) let me run higher quality video in Dragon's Lair?

Thanks in advance,

Kevin

[Pieman2004]

I have a p3 500 mhz that runs mame games up to streetfighter II with no problem. I have to use windows 98 though, with mamewah. I tried the same machine with windows xp and it ran noticeably slower.
You might at least try running the games you want on what you have and then you can determine if its worth it to you to upgrade.
If you do run things on this computer test several different programs, operating systems, and configurations. You might find a setup that is perfect with your computer.

[Goz]

If I remember correctly the recommended minimum CPU for DAPHNE without sacrificing performace is an ATHLON 800. As mentioned previously the only way you will know if you want / need the upgrade is to try with the system you have.

Hope this helps,

-Goz

[DvMxDv]

When I started playing MAME on a PC years ago, I was using a Cyrix 686 200MHz with 32 Megs of RAM.  I was able to run all the then current ROMS under MAME running in Win98.  You should be able to play almost anything on that 500 PIII as long as you keep the OS very light.  XP, 2k and other M$ Windows tend to hog resources for themselves that can degrade game performance on an older machine.  You may consider DOS or even Linux if you're comfortable with the in's and out's of 'nix-based OS's.

As far as video goes, it sounds like you're using the Dell onboard video card.  If that board has an AGP port, you may want to consider looking for an old Nvidia TNT2 or Geforce with about 32MB of video RAM so that the video isn't sharing system memory which will slow your system down.  You should be able to get an older card like that for really cheap.  Check with the local PC recycler or maybe even Ebay  

Good luck!

Dave

[sharpfork]

Hello-

Thanks for the input.

I'll play around with this box (I'm on it now) and see what it can do.  I prolly will have to ebay the Mac to pick up the CPU upgrade.  If I can scrounge up a little extra $, would it be worth buying a Mobo/CPU that can use my PC 133 RAM?  Since I'm a Mac guy, I need to know what my processor limits are if I'm sticking with PC 133 RAM.

Can anyone reccomend a decent bare bones sytem that will run my RAM and an ATA harddrive and optical drives?

Thanks a ton,

Kevin

[cbmeeks]

Hey, what about hacking an Xbox?  You can get those for like $150 now and it is a pretty decent machine.

I saw on The Screen Savers where Kevin got an XBox to run MAME.

Has anyone tried that?

[pointdablame]

MAME on the xbox is not updated anywhere near as much as the PC version is.  It plays decently for the most part, but isn't quite the same IMHO.  And in my experiences, games that would play on a 750mhz PC (ballpark of the xbox CPU speed) play quicker than on the xbox.  It would probably do, but I wouldn't use it in a dedicated MAME machine... not for MAME anyway.

For your upgrade... I don't know that you'd "have" to upgrade to run what you want to run, but it won't hurt of course.  I wouldn't spend too much more than that $75 on the system though.  Going beyond that and you're better off getting a AMD board with built in video and an Athlon XP IMHO.  That would at least give you a more current system. So.... you're probably fine with what you have.  If you do upgrade, don't spend more than that $75 on the Dell, any more, and you're probably better off selling the Dell for a few bucks and building a newer system.

[Knoxximus]

Hey, what about hacking an Xbox?  You can get those for like $150 now and it is a pretty decent machine.

I saw on The Screen Savers where Kevin got an XBox to run MAME.

Has anyone tried that?

I got a MAME'd out Xbox, and lemme tell you, for the most part, it's tight.  Of course, the Box is limited by 64MB, so don't expect to run King Of Fighters or anything that is HUGE, but if you wanna play some arcade Gaunlet or TMNT on the couch (XBox built in 4-Player capability really shines right here ) with the homers you can't beat it.  Mine also got all the Emus (SNES, NES, Genesis, etc.), and those run flawlessly.  Plus, the Box, as with any console, is made for TV, so output is a non-issue.

Conclusion:  Great for get togethers being able sit comfortably for hours.....it has it's time and place.  Besides, having an Xbox on 'roids will make you the envy of ALL your consloe owning buddies (as if your arcade cab wasn't doing enough   )!

[Laurent]

We are very much alike; I also am a Mac user but planning on building a custom cabinet using a PC. I will go for an AMD Athlon 3200+ since it's cheaper than the usual high end Pentium. I am hoping to run games that aren't available on Mac (different emulators, like KIAME, Zinc and Nebula Sega Model 2).

[sharpfork]

Hello All-

I'm leaning toward selling the Dell and the G4 I have in the cabinet now and building a PC.

Anyone know of a good source for bare bones systems that can use my PC 133 Memory and IDE drives?  Or does it make sense to just pitch in for a system that takes DDR and but some RAM?

Laurent-  Why such a powerful box?  a 3200+ is heavy duty.

Thanks again everyone.

You guys Rock!

Kevin

[Laurent]

Laurent-  Why such a powerful box?  a 3200+ is heavy duty.

Because I plan on playing a lot of processor-hungry games...

[Knoxximus]

Hello All-

I'm leaning toward selling the Dell and the G4 I have in the cabinet now and building a PC.

Anyone know of a good source for bare bones systems that can use my PC 133 Memory and IDE drives?  Or does it make sense to just pitch in for a system that takes DDR and but some RAM?

Laurent-  Why such a powerful box?  a 3200+ is heavy duty.

Thanks again everyone.

You guys Rock!

Kevin

How much would you hock the G4 for?  I'm in the market for a Mac for musical applications (i.e. Pro Tools).

[foomench]

Anyone know of a good source for bare bones systems that can use my PC 133 Memory and IDE drives?  Or does it make sense to just pitch in for a system that takes DDR and but some RAM?

If it were me, I'd suck it up and buy new memory. www.pricewatch.com gives $24 - PC2700 DDR 256MB and $57 for 512MB. Your requirements will depend on OS. I use pricewatch (and pricegrabber, and a few others) a lot when putting together a PC. Another good source is bensbargains.net that will point out all the specials at CompUSA, OfficeMax, etc.

If you want to stick with your PC133 and think about future options, there were a number of motherboards a year or two ago that could handle both standard SDRAM and DDR (but not at the same time).

Your IDE drives should work with just about any PC motherboard. A number of boards now support S(erial)ATA, but even these still have the standard interface.

-foomench
(Builder of more computers than I care to admit.)

[pointdablame]

As was said, you won't have any trouble carrying over your IDE drives, not yet anyway.  SATA is still gaining popularity, so you're fine in that regard.

If I were you, I'd ditch the ram and buy some DDR, but thats just me.

For parts, I like newegg.com and zipzoomfly.com

[radner]

Hey,
When I upgrade anything, I always, hands down go through newegg.com They usually have the lowest prices I can find, and their shipping is great. Its the only place I know of where I can build myself a computer that would retail for 3000 for around 700 bucks. Check them out if your serious about getting great parts from the internet's best pc parts retailer. Oh and by the way, I dont work for them incase you think I'm getting paid to say this.