A suitable PC?

[NMR]

Hey there ^_^

I've been meaning to put together a MAME cabinet for a while, but no matter how much I look around the net, I can't seem to find any advice on what kind of PC to actualy wire into a cabinet..

Of course, the plan right now is to build together a PC from whatever cheap components I can find, but since my own desktop PC (Pentium II 233, 32MB RAM) won't run anything in DOS MAME without considerable slowdown, I have no idea what kind of computer WILL run all games perfectly.

Does anyone have any advice for what kind of hardware I should be looking for?

Cheers,
-NMR

[delta88]

a 233??? with 32 ram...heck give it a while but that should play metal slug...for sure itlll play games like the simpsons..I have battle shark running on a 166mhz with 16megs o' ram...

[hyiu]

I have a P 866 MHz with 128 Ram and ati rage fury pro video card, its running exactly the same as my new computer AMD 1.7GHz, 256 Ram and GeForce4 video card.... (no delays on both..... I'm running Windows 2000 Server on the 866Mhz and running Windows Me - both using Mame32....)

my cousin told me you should be able to get a whole computer going (around 800MHz) aroound $300-400...
I guess if you have your own HD, .... it might be a little less....

hope it helps...

[Lilwolf]

If your running dos and only older games a 233 will do fine.  Great for a cocktail table..

but if you have to buy hardward.  Athlon 1.8ghz with 512 mg memory is only a few hundred.  Not worth cheating yourself out of some cool games

[Daniel Smith]

I just started ordering parts to build my cabinet, and ordered an AMD XP1700+, 256MB DDR Barebone system with case for less than $300.

I threw in a harddrive, CD-rom, and an ati rage fury video card, and I've been playing games all weekend.  My main system for working on is a PII 800Mhz, 128Mb ram, and a geforce 2 video card.  It ran all the games fine, with no degradation in play.  

I can't wait to get the controllers in.  Playing games on the keyboard is getting very uncomfortable.  Major hand and finger cramps.

Daniel

[Patrick]

I am running a PII 300 with 384 megs on WIN98 and it is pretty cool. I do notice some sound wierdness on some of the big games like Street Figther 3 Alpha. Is this because the machine is slow or what?

I don't want to sound like a jerk but what games would I be cheating my self out of if I do not go with a faster PC?

[BASSOFeeSH]

It's been my experience that anything over 256MB of RAM in Win98 starts to degrade performance.  Or at the very least no longer improves it.

[Carsten Carlos]

I am running a PII 300 with 384 megs on WIN98 and it is pretty cool.

Well, I have a PIII-800/512MB that runs all perfectly (WinXP & W98), but bought a cheap PII-350/256MB (W98) for MAME.
Maybe there is something wrong (although don't know what), but it's not very smoothly when playing Puzzle Bobble 2/4 with two players. Maybe you could try out if it runs smoothly on yours? I thought a P2-350 would last for a while, for I just can't find a reason to upgrade my other PC. As soon as I find it and a P4 isn't that expensive anymore I'll get the P3 in my MAME-cabinet.