Best computer configuration for 3D games (teh noob question)

[Laurent]

My very first message on this board. So far, so good...

I am planning on building an MAME cabinet mainly to enjoy old time favorites (I've spend so much money on Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct arcades in the past, it's payback time) but I would also like to run more recent 3D games. I've looked everywhere for comparasion chart for MAME (or Nebula Sega Model 2 and Zinc emulators) with different PC configuration, without success.

I know that any card that supports Direct X 9.0 will work in Windows XP, but at what framerate? MAME is well-documented, except on it's 3D emulation. They said that a 3D card isn't necessarry, but what about Dead or Alive ++ or Tekken?

I will probably buy a AMD Athlon XP 3200 on a Nvidia nforce2 motherboard, but I have no idea about video cards... Can you help?

EDIT: Bold sections aren't covert on the FAQ threads of this forum...

[lokki]

My very first message on this board. So far, so good...

I am planning on building an MAME cabinet mainly to enjoy old time favorites (I've spend so much money on Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct arcades in the past, it's payback time) but I would also like to run more recent 3D games. I've looked everywhere for comparasion chart for MAME (or Nebula Sega Model 2 and Zinc emulators) with different PC configuration, without success.

MK and most of the street fighter series will run fine on a 1.6 Ghz system

I know that any card that supports Direct X 9.0 will work in Windows XP, but at what framerate? MAME is well-documented, except on it's 3D emulation. They said that a 3D card isn't necessarry, but what about Dead or Alive ++ or Tekken?

MAME does not take advantage of video card hardware since the rendering is done on sotware by the CPU.  PSX system (tekken series, DOA, SF EX, etc) are not fully emulated in MAME (sound, and graphics aren't 100%) and these don't run full speed on any existing CPUs.
You could try Zinc for these games

[Laurent]

MAME does not take advantage of video card hardware since the rendering is done on sotware by the CPU.  PSX system (tekken series, DOA, SF EX, etc) are not fully emulated in MAME (sound, and graphics aren't 100%) and these don't run full speed on any existing CPUs.

You could try Zinc for these games

That's why I've specified that I'll be using Nebula Sega Model 2 and Zinc emulation. I won't limit myself to MAME emulation, and that's why I need more answers on alternatives since those emulators are poorly documented.

[SirPoonga]

The emus will run on pretty much anything semi modern.  Zinc has glide support!  So you know we are talking a couple years old.

[pointdablame]

If you're running a 3200+ you'll have no CPU problems running Zinc or other non-MAME emus.  As for the video card, I'm not sure if those emus are "more" video card intensive than MAME, but I'm pretty certain they aren't very video card intensive in general.  If this is strictly a MAME/Emu machine, you'd probably be fine with a Radeon 9000/9200 chipset board.  Or you could get a 9500 if you perhaps plan on playing some PC games as well?  Anything more would be overkill.... even the 9500 is probably overkill IMO

[Laurent]

A friend of mine has offered me his ATI Radeon 8500; I might start with this one if no emulators requires specific 3D cards...

[SirPoonga]

there are older emulators liek ultrahle that require a 3dfx card, but you can get some newer emu for those usually.