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Scrap PC- will this work for MAME?
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Tiger-Heli:
Good advice here so far.  I just have a couple of things to add . . .

--- Quote from: paigeoliver on November 30, 2004, 11:53:57 pm ---Mame supports roughly 4000 games. Of which about 30 or 40 require a faster computer than you have. Leavin 3960 which don't require a faster computer.

--- End quote ---
And of the 30 or 40 that require a faster computer, about 3/4 of those will be unplayable on a P4 3.5 Ghz (when one comes out).  So you would really only pick up about 10 games.

Regarding emulation in general, you should be fine with your current set-up for MAME, NES, and SNES.  For N64, you will be able to play some of the games, but most will NOT play well with that setup.  However, emulators are free, so I would try playing the games and tweaking the settings and see how they work for you.  Also, it's fairly hard to play most N64 stuff on a MAME cab.  The games are looking for a D-Pad, thumb trigger, analog stick, six action buttons and 2 shoulder buttons in a defined color and arrangement.  The best bet is front USB ports and an Adaptoid.  Otherwise, look hard at how much customization is required.

If you want N64 emulation, I would look at using Project64 and upgrading the system, rather than trying to find a VooDoo 3 card on E-bay.

MAME Analog plus is not significantly processor heavy, but if you find it slowing down games, you can always use regular MAME for 90% of the games and Analog plus only for the games that need it.

Finally, somewhere you mentioned a 2.4 G AMD with 128M Ram and XP - Bad decision.  The lack of Memory will bottleneck that system.  You would probably get better performance from a 1.8 Ghz processor and 256-512M RAM.  Win98SE runs well with 256 M of Ram, okay with 512M, and tends to get worse with more than 512M.  WinXP really only runs well with 512M of RAM and anything beyond this is gravy.
paigeoliver:
Another tip (I am just going to assume you are using mamewah) is to have several mame installs. Mame .55, Mame. 65, mame. 75, mame .85, etc. I believe you can literally put them all in the same folder as long as you give the exes different names. Set up all your versions in your front end, that way you can switch from one to another. As there is always SOMETHING terribly broken in every version of mame.

Now the fun part (which I may do) is setting up multi-version roms, but I will leave that topic for another post.
eyal8r:
Hmmm- decisions decisions.  If you guys are telling me that my little 800MHz system here will do just fine for my setup, then I'll go for it. I can always upgrade the MB and CPU more later if it sucks. I have to run Analog+ since I have 2 TBs and 2 spinners. As for the N64 emulation, well, I might just try it on the games I want and see how it goes. I kinda think it'd be fun to play some Mike Tyson on a cab, ya know? Zelda, well, after all this, I think it'd be better played laying in a bean bag or something, and not standing up in a cab. LOL...

I can't thank you guys enough for all your help! Now I just gotta find somewhere to order the DVDs/CDs...  lol...
Thanks
D
mahuti:
I'm not gonna read the whole thread, but I'll just add by saying that I've never purchased a PC for a MAME box. ALL of them were free hand me downs. I used a 200, then 233 mhz (which ran only simple games) and have been running a 500 mhz for a year, and it plays many, many games, including fighting games perfectly well. Can't speak for n64, but I bet an 800 will do fine.
Lilwolf:
When dealing with a slow computer... Look at mame versions that where out when the processor came out.  Really makes a difference for some.

Get a frontend that handles more then one version of mame.   So you can use analog+ mame when needed... but plain jane mame for all others.

Look at all other emulators when needed.  CPS2 emulation in mame might not be 60fps... but I bet you will get it in final burn / all the others.  Same with some neogeo games.  This can also be hidden with a good frontend.

But remember... emulation was out and very active when 450s where an ubersystem.  I bought my celery 300/oc450 to get a bunch of games running at 60fps (upgraded my 233 that worked on many) 
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