Dual CPU's Run games better?

[Yoodaa]

I have a chance to aquire a dual rig and was wondering because mame is CPU intensive, would dual cpus help performance? Does mame or mamewah support dual cpus? Anyone out their experimented with this? I am talking dual Pentium 3 866's. Thanks all.

[SirPoonga]

No
http://www.mame.net/mamefaq.html#m11

[AmericanDemon]

SirPoonga is correct.  I tested this w/ test rigs of AMD 1800XP and a Dual AMD 1800MP.  Systems ran nearly identical.  Mame only uses on processor.

I sincerely wish someone would find a way to take advantage of the extra horsepower though.

[Lilwolf]

Trouble is that they sync issues needed would take an extra processor.

I hope the seperate the parts that could be seperated without much problems.

processors + memory on one processor.

Video and input on another non-essentials.  

The video memory might be a sync issue.. but shouldn't be that bad since most multi-processor systems can quickly sync memory.  Plus you might get a trible buffer working on the P&M processor could fill in a specific memory location... And the only sync  would be around switching between the pages...

IE, move all non-essential parts to another processor.

but take note... you wont' get any extra games running... Bottle necks for most slow games wont be effected by this...

This is more of a future... next amd and intels will problabl be multiprocessors.

[DYNAGOD]

if your hyperthreading your as close to multiprocessing as your going to get with mame.
my 3.4ghz extreme shows as two processors and all my system info indicates that i am running a multiprocessor setup.