Dual core processors and MAME

[ferrarimanf355]

Pretty self-explanitory topic. Now that Intel released their Pentium D dual core processor line (more info here), I'm wondering how it could affect performance in MAME- in particular, recent 3D games like Mace The Dark Age, Tenth Degree, the San Francisco Rush titles, Sega Model 1/2/3 titles and games running off of PSX-based hardware.

So, what do you think? Discuss. 

[JoyMonkey]

Haze commented in his recent interview (take a look over at Retroblast), that new multi-core processor systems will cause nothing but headaches for the Mame devs. I don't think they'll go near them until multi-core PC's are more common-place (I'd say a couple of years time).

[sirwoogie]

Dual core is very similar in concept to SMP, which is something MAME won't support right now (it will only run on one). Unless this machine is for other purposes, save the money and just get a faster single-core/uni processor.

[ferrarimanf355]

Dual core is very similar in concept to SMP, which is something MAME won't support right now (it will only run on one). Unless this machine is for other purposes, save the money and just get a faster single-core/uni processor.

Um, stupid question, but what's SMP? 

[JoyMonkey]

SMP:
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SMP.html

 (1) Short for Symmetric Multiprocessing, a computer architecture that provides fast performance by making multiple CPUs available to complete individual processes simultaneously (multiprocessing). Unlike asymmetrical processing, any idle processor can be assigned any task, and additional CPUs can be added to improve performance and handle increased loads. A variety of specialized operating systems and hardware arrangements are available to support SMP. Specific applications can benefit from SMP if the code allows multithreading.

Basically, dual processor machines.

[ferrarimanf355]

It's pretty fustrating that there are lots of emerging technologies that MAME can't take advantage of. This sucks. 
(That's not really a fault of the developers: it must be one of the realities of emulation.)

[b3atmania]

It's worth noting that only the DOS and Windows versions of MAME run as a single thread.

However, XMAME (a port of MAME to use X-Windows for *BSD, Linux, etc.) is multi-threaded: one thread for the emulator and one thread to copy the rendered screen to the framebuffer. XMAME will therefore benefit from multiple CPUs or multi-core CPUs already. So much for Windows being better for MAME 

Come to think of it, Windows MAME does benefit somewhat from multiple CPUs. In a single CPU system Windows programs compete for CPU-time. For example, a virusscanner running in the background competes for CPU-time with the MAME program. Now, on a multi CPU system one CPU can run MAME and the other CPU can run the virusscanner and system daemons. This way MAME will not need to share CPU-time with other programs.

[SirPoonga]

However, XMAME (a port of MAME to use X-Windows for *BSD, Linux, etc.) is multi-threaded: one thread for the emulator and one thread to copy the rendered screen to the framebuffer. XMAME will therefore benefit from multiple CPUs or multi-core CPUs already. So much for Windows being better for MAME 

Yeah, but it isn't a big difference.