Consenus Please On OS!

[bcard74]

Just bought my cabinet today and am now getting into the REAL planning since I know the dimensions that I will be dealing with.

Next question is regarding the OS I am looking to run.  I am interested in playing just a bit of everything from Track and Field all the way up Goldeneye N64 and SF, MK etc.

I know that I am looking at 1Ghz CPU and 256k memory at least, but what OS are you guys running with games like this?  XP? ME? 98? Can't be using DOS can you?

Any help to point me in the right direction would be great.  Thanks.

[rampy]

I'm thinking Amiga... yup. Amiga would be a good fit.


If you want to play N64 games you're probably best off with a windows varient... Windoze XP is nice if you can afford the extra CPU/memory (i.e. go with a 1.7ghz or higher (including AMD's xp chips + rating) and a  wee bit more RAM.,.... that is if you have the bread to burn.

But i'm using a lowly 550mhz and am regalated to running MAME in DOS and booting to windows for zinc/KI emu's etc...  (I use windows 98 lite, but I'm very processor/memory/footprint concsious with my limited resources)

*shrug* whateve works for you... that's  just my suggestion.

rampy

[Howard_Casto]

Like he said.. whatever works... but here are a few notes based on your setup...

#1 In dos all of your resources won't be useds so you might as well stick to windows.

#2 Xp is the only version of windows that really plays daphne correctly.  

#3 For the dual mouse hacks 98se is pretty much a must as it won't work in xp or 2000.  

#4 95 is a waste of your time unless you can't get ahold of 98se.  

I hope that helps.  

[Minwah]

XP certainly seems to run a lot smoother / stable-r.

Some (MAME) games don't run as quick as on Win98 tho (on my machine at least).

I wouldn't run XP unless you've got a big Athlon XP.

[monkeysmuggler]

I know alot of you guys are pretty sold on Windows for your cabinets, but I'm going to use Linux and XFree86 for my cabinet. You've got plenty of different emulators for different systems without having to reboot, and you won't have an enourmous amount of resources in use.

It makes a nice mid-way point if you've got the experience to set it up yourself no problem.

[Random24]

I use XP in my cab.  That said, I went through and disabled all of the unneeded services and set the shell to Lazarus instead of explorer.  I have seen about a 10% performance increase since disabling the extraneous services.

[Analog-X]

I'm going to have the same dillema when I get my cab ready.

I'm considering the following.

Dual Boot or Triple Boot to   Dos / Win98SE / Windows 2000.

Dos <---- For Mame.

Win98SE / 2000 <---- for Daphne, Killer Instinct, N64, All other Console.


Why Win98SE ?
Un-Officialy this is actualy Windows 95 version E, still has Memory Leak problems but better than 95 and does not have the extra crap that comes with Windows Millenium.

Why Win 2000 ?
You wont hear me say this about any other Microsoft Product, but they actualy got it right with 2000, very Stable and Plug and Play friendly operating system.

Why not Windows XP ?
Its like comparing Windows 98 vs Windows Millenium   Extra un-needed crap bloating the OS, unfriendly with certain hardware configurations, which otherwise work great in 2000 and 98SE.

[RacerX]

#2 Xp is the only version of windows that really plays daphne correctly.  

I've other people say this, and I have no idea why.  I am running Daphne on my 98SE box with no problems whatsoever.  Am I missing something, or am I just lucky?

[Grasshopper]

I use DOS because the sound in MAME is far better even with a fast processor. It also boots up more quickly, and is more stable than any of the Windows variants.

The only reason I can think of NOT to use plain MSDOS is if you are using a card or interface that does not have a DOS driver e.g. any USB device and some sound cards.

I am also increasingly irritated by Micro$oft's attitude towards licencing etc.

Someone else mentioned that they were using Linux:

I know alot of you guys are pretty sold on Windows for your cabinets, but I'm going to use Linux and XFree86 for my cabinet. You've got plenty of different emulators for different systems without having to reboot, and you won't have an enourmous amount of resources in use.

It makes a nice mid-way point if you've got the experience to set it up yourself no problem.

This is an idea I have been toying with for some time. It would be nice to set up a bare bones Linux system with just enough drivers etc loaded to enable emulators such as MAME to be run. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I am not afraid of the command line.

[Howard_Casto]

I saw someone mention 2000.... 2000 is a horrible gaming platform, it does not utilize resources properly and games are jerkier.  Trust me, I doubt anyone else would reccomend 2000.  If you are between 2000 and xp go with xp as it's designed with media content and gaming in mind.  All of these extra services/resources hogs that everyone b*tches about can be turned off.  The true difference between xp and 2000 is that xp has enhanced drivers for superior multimedia handleing.  Trust me, this is what I did for 4 years; test oses for the university.  Also you are mis-informed... more things work in xp hardware wise then 2000.  That's also one of the main differences, although both 2000 and xp support less legacy hardware than a 9X system.  

Also 98 is the worst possible os for daphne.  I noticed someone above said it was ok but I assure you it's not.  Even the daphne developers strongly reccomend xp or linux.

As for linux it's a wonderful os and would work for a mame only setup with a very ugly fe. (I'm talking mame32 looking)  

98se with dual mice is your best bet

If you don't need dual mice support then go with xp, your machine is plenty powerful enough to where the oses won't make a significant difference, as long as you get plenty of ram.  Remember guys, the os only takes about 2% of the processor and ram is dirt cheap.  If you have a new os then resources isn't such a big deal.    

[RacerX]

Also 98 is the worst possible os for daphne.  I noticed someone above said it was ok but I assure you it's not.  Even the daphne developers strongly reccomend xp or linux.
 

I didn't say Daphne was okay in 98SE; I said:

I am running Daphne on my 98SE box with no problems whatsoever.

That's not quite the same thing.  I further went on to ask what the issues are with Daphne and 98SE.  Does it crash on most 98SE systems?  Is the gameplay flawed?  It runs perfectly on mine.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah daphne runs "ok" in 98 but not as good as in xp.  The video timing is off in 98 and it sometimes gets artifacts or studders.  Now this doesn't happen on every single system but it does on about 90% of them... at least that's what the daphne team says.  I know I personally ran it on 98 and had some of the symptoms they mentioned.  Since I put Xp on the very same system it cleared up.  I didn't mean to step on your toes.. I just wanted everyone to know that 98 isn't offically reccomended by the daphne guys and they actually discourage use of it.  

[OSCAR]

Linux story...  After having many problems with getting AdvanceMAME running properly on Redhat 7.3, I recently installed SuSE 8.0.  After running SuSE, I can see no advantage to going back to RH.  SuSE runs much faster on the old 500Mhz AMD I'm using as a test machine than RH did.  By far.

I'm as much of a pretty front end fan as anyone, and I agree that there aren't nearly as many options available for linux as Windows for front ends, but when you have AdvanceMenu for linux, why do you need anything else?

Needless to say, this approach isn't for everyone.  And you will be limited to fewer emulators/PC games.  However, if you are looking at running primarily MAME and aren't turned off by the seemingly endless configuration, then this solution is worth looking at.  I now have beautiful, accurate video on my W-G D9100, without the ugly stretching I had to use with the Windows versions of MAME.  Oh, and Sinistar is much better with the auto-centering turned on (for those that picked up on the previous thread).

Good luck on your search for an OS!




Below are a few pointers for compiling AdvanceMAME on SuSE 8.0 that I learned the hard way.  Anyone not interested in an AdvanceMAME/SuSE 8.0 setup, don't bother reading....  

-Prior to compiling
Ensure your kernel source is installed.  It's not installed by default on SuSE 8.0 (you can get it using YaST2).  Also make sure all the packages required for compiling AdvanceMAME are installed.  A complete list of required packages can be found at http://advancemame.sourceforge.net.


-svgalib compile
Changes to Makefile.cfg...
change "INCLUDEDIR = /usr/src/linux" to "INCLUDEDIR = /lib/modules/<kernel version>/build/include"
change "mandir = $(prefix)/man" to "mandir = /usr/share/man"

Run "make install" as root (actually, you should be root to do the entire installation).

Run "make demoprogs"

Type "insmod svga_helper".  Unless you depmod or add it to a boot script, you will need to do this everytime you reboot.


-AdvanceMAME compile

Download MAME source to a temp directory.  Run

[Analog-X]

I saw someone mention 2000.... 2000 is a horrible gaming platform, it does not utilize resources properly and games are jerkier.  Trust me, I doubt anyone else would reccomend 2000.  If you are between 2000 and xp go with xp as it's designed with media content and gaming in mind.  All of these extra services/resources hogs that everyone b*tches about can be turned off.  The true difference between xp and 2000 is that xp has enhanced drivers for superior multimedia handleing.  Trust me, this is what I did for 4 years; test oses for the university.  Also you are mis-informed... more things work in xp hardware wise then 2000.  That's also one of the main differences, although both 2000 and xp support less legacy hardware than a 9X system.  

Take a good Guess what I do for a living

the company I work for is a Global Company, some of the applications that we use are very Video / Audio and Multimedia intensive they would put many of the current video games to shame.   We use Windows 2000 and we find it is very stable, it utilisez Resources much better than any variations of Windows that Microsoft has ever released.

I have Windows 2000 Machins that I have not had to Re-boot for the past 18 Months, and these machines run resource hungry applications all the time.  I have yet to see a blue screen in windows 2000.   We use various hardware as from different manufacturers.

the latest is not always the greatest, I refuse to jump the bandwagon everytime microsoft decides to release an O/S.

and yes you can turn off all of those extra services/resource hogs in XP, but why should you have to worry about those.  When you can install a clean copy of 2000 and not worry about turning featurs off in XP to make it run like 2000.

[toilet]

I also use win2k. I'm a much bigger fan of it than 98. Everything runs and looks fine with a 1.1/256/ATi machine. My controls connect via USB so Linux wasn't really an option.

[Howard_Casto]

But the question is what are you guys running?  Any os will run mame or any non-hardware accelerated multimedia app fine, but try zinc or vivanonno or your favorite modern pc game.  In 2000 these apps run much slower and jerkier compared to the same os with xp on them.  And that's if the pc game will even run.  2000 has various hardware comp issues that don't always show up but are a majro pain when they do. Also many pc games have acceleration features crippled on 2000.  I know you guys don't believe me but you are going to have to trust me on this.  For "processor tests"  I would usually run the latest and greatest pc game and/or 3d emulator on these machines.  I didn't do the "normal" benchmark tests but ones specific to gaming and retrogaming.  

Now here's the thing... some of these games/emus are acceptable on 2000 in that they are very much playable and smooth, but when you see them on xp you realize how crippled the preformance was.  You've basically went from great to excellent.  

Anyway I won't beat a dead horse into the ground, I'm just saying xp is the better gaming platform.  

[RacerX]

I didn't mean to step on your toes.. I just wanted everyone to know that 98 isn't offically reccomended by the daphne guys and they actually discourage use of it.  

Yeah, you almost crushed my big toe.  

Seriously, no offense taken or meant.  It's interesting to note.  Maybe I will put XP on a second hard drive and try it out.  Perhaps I just don't notice those things since I haven't seen it run on an XP system before.

[)p(]

For what is worth...my fe seems not to like 2000 much...from what I have heard from people that have run it in 2000 and xp or win9x it was much better on those then 2000...

peter

[monkeysmuggler]

Good to see somebody else went the Linux route.

Personally, I'm more of a FreeBSD guy normally with the machines I admin, but because of the other things I want to do with this machine, Linux is the best option (hardware support wise). Probably going to install Debian.

But anyway, as far as the ugly frontend thing is concerned.. I plan on fixing that problem myself too I'm going to run xdm (so when the machine boots, it goes straight into XFree86 and a login screen), and then once you log in with the pull out keyboard/mouse under the CP, my silly FE

At this point I think I'm going to write it in python with a couple of library sets for things like this I've been looking for. I think it should be an easy project, and will really give me the ability to make my cabinet seem less like a PC and more like an arcade cabinet with a ton of games. Plus I figure it should be pretty easy to set it up to use any other emulator available for XFree86

[Howard_Casto]

I agree with linux being a good choice.  My only complaint is the lack of options in terms of the number of emulators, games, and apps out there.  When I see a 1+gig machine though, I think given the limited number of high-end emus linux can offer you are probably wasting your resources unless you go the windows route. ....Err I'm not sure that is worded right.  What I am trying to say is you have a nice fancy 1 gig pc, why not use that horsepower to play some nice 3d emus and games?  If not then you could probably get away with a wimpier system as linux is much more resource friendly.  

[monkeysmuggler]

True, but excluding a few arcade emus that do a handful of 3d games at the moment, pretty much everything else out there exists for Linux as well.

I know this is kind of off topic for here, but does MAME eventually plan on supporting 3D arcade games similar to what Zinc does now?

[Howard_Casto]

Yes... the next build of mame will have namco system 22 drivers are other namco 3d games.  Zn hardware support (capcom 3d) is doubtful as generally the person who makes a stand-alone emu offers their findings to the mame dev guys or write the mame drivers themselves.  Capcom zn is basically a glorified playstation, so a playstation emu developer would be needed.  This compliates things as the arcade emu developers and console emu developers are generally distant from each other.  There is also the problem of a renderer as mame doesn't use any 3d renderers right now.  All of mame's 3d games thus far have been rendered in software, which is more accurate but slower.  This is ok for the low-end 3d games it supports now (some old atari 3d games from the late 80's) , but could be horrible for the newer games.    

So short answer .... yes and no.

[Chris]

I am using DOS (from Windows 98) in my cabinet.  It runs what I want it to run (MAME and Stella), it boots quickly, I can just power it off rather than having to "shut down", I don't have to have a mouse (my trackball is installed upside-down so it will fit, so I can't mouse with it) and the OS doesn't eat CPU for multitasking.

The only think I miss is Daphne... I wish there was a DOS version of that!  I make do instead with the old Epicenter versions of Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, but it's just not the same...

--Chris

[Dink]

I use Windows 98SE running Mame32, Daphne .99.4 and .99.5, Zinc, Project 64, 1964, Espx, a win32 NES emulator, a win32 Atari 2600 emulator, a win32 Apple ][e emulator, win32 Doom.

I'll run it until I do the once-a-year-wether-you-need-it-or-not-format-of-bill-gates-software then I'll install the Windows XP Pro I just picked up for $39.99.

[Chris]

I'm curious... and please take this as just curiosity, 'cause I know it's gonna sound like a nasty, sarcastic, smart-ass question, but it's not....

Do you find that you actually play games on all those platforms, or is it partially a "just-because-I-can" thing?  And how do you do an Apple ][ and Commodore 64 emulator without a full keyboard?

--Chris

[Minwah]

I run Vice C64 emulator from my frontend - it runs from a commandline.  CCS64 does too if I remember correctly.  I haven't got round to trying my old Amstrad emu's from a commandline.

I see what you're saying tho Chris, I don't seem to have enough time to even play MAME.  But I do like to have certain classics for a few choice other systems  

[Dink]

Do you find that you actually play games on all those platforms, or is it partially a "just-because-I-can" thing?  And how do you do an Apple ][ and Commodore 64 emulator without a full keyboard?

Windows GUI, using the trackball and buttons mapped to mouse buttons for selecting.  Most games map nicely to the joystick and buttons.  But for the games that require you to type your name or hit J for joystick I just open the keyboard panel and slide out the keyboard under the control panel, do what I need, and slide the keyboard back in.  You haven't played Sea Dragon on the Apple ][e?

[Sasquatch!]

I'll install the Windows XP Pro I just picked up for $39.99.

Zuh??  Holy frijoles, that's a good deal.

Howard_Castro: Kooky, I've never noticed any problems with Win2K here.  Until (or unless) I do see a problem, I'm a-sticking with it.

[Chris]

You haven't played Sea Dragon on the Apple ][e?

No, I was a Commodore PET/Commodore 64 guy.  That was the only computer I ever had before a PC, and the only console I ever had was an Atari 2600 (with an Arcadia (later Starpath) Supercharger); I never even had a Game Boy or any other hand-held system. So I guess I just don't have an attachment to all those other platforms....

--Chris

[slug54]

One bennifet to using XP that I didn't hear anyone mention
is that you can use XP's Remote Desktop  Connection feature to remote control your cab from accross your home network.This may help some people admin their cabs that don't have easy access to their cab keyboards.
Also don't forget the policy setting in xp that will hide all your desktop icons.

                              Slug54

[SirPoonga]

One bennifet to using XP that I didn't hear anyone mention
is that you can use XP's Remote Desktop  Connection feature to remote control your cab from accross your home network.This may help some people admin their cabs that don't have easy access to their cab keyboards.
Also don't forget the policy setting in xp that will hide all your desktop icons.

                              Slug54

well, I don't use remote desktop and I still manage my cabinet from this computer:)  

For those without XP, use VNC then to reomote control your cabinet:)

Also, use TweakUI in 98 to get rid of desktop icons.

[bcard74]

Thanks everyone on some great responses to my question!

Here are my thoughts from reading everything:

First, I am not sure if I am going to bite the bullet and buy a newer system like a 1.5Ghz+ with 512MB etc.  If I do, then I will run XP and be done with it.  However, should I end up using a used older system like a 300 - 900 Mhz P3 or Duron, then I will probably run 98 shelled to DOS for Mame and if I need USB support then I will just run those games out of 98 itself.

Big decision on how much CPU to go with, but generally speaking I think for me it is becoming more cut and dried.  Lots of resources, go XP.  Not so much, DOS and 98 ...

Thanks again for all your help!