PC specs.. what's "good enough"?

[Brad Lee]

I'm looking at getting a new mobo/cpu combo for my cabinet and wondering what is a reasonably good setup that'll have minimal problems running games

I've always been a pentium guy but I see that I can find athlon xp2100 mobo/cpu for ~130$. These are about 1.8mhz, right? If I add 256 or 512 of ram, what games will have problems running?

My current P3/750 runs most of the classic games perfectly- these are the most important. Bubble Bobble runs 100%, but BB2 runs real choppy, will the above board be enough to run this generation of games?

Anyway, just curious what people are running, and on their setups, what they have problems with

[DeathMonk]

Most games (with the exception of cruisin' usa, etc.) will run flawlessly on a 2100+..  In fact, I ran all my games on my sisters 1800+ the other day and all ran flawlessly.

[Brad Lee]

Thats kinda what I figured.. I was pricing P4's at about the same speed(1.8-2gig) and theres a steep difference right at that point

[Jakobud]

Well, keep in mind that not all games will run flawlessly though.  Now that Aaron Giles is beginning to impliment support for games with Harddrive images, like Killer Instinct, and Area51, these games will not be able to run full speed until we have 3500+ MHz to work with.

jakobud

[Silverwind]

I'm currently working on my cab project.. (mostly planning still) and the PC is the last thing I am going to add.. (just will use a P3-450 till then)

hopefully they will have faster CPU's for less by the time i'm done

It will be several months as I have to save up for one anyway..  of course as they come out with newer MAME versions.. the req's will increase..

From what i've heard.. the two biggest factors for fast MAME.. is a fast CPU and lots of RAM.

[DeathMonk]

Well, keep in mind that not all games will run flawlessly though.  Now that Aaron Giles is beginning to impliment support for games with Harddrive images, like Killer Instinct, and Area51, these games will not be able to run full speed until we have 3500+ MHz to work with.

jakobud

Killer Instinct 1 and 2 ran perfect on the 1800+..  (not mame, single game emu's)..

[Mike]

If you have problems running bubble bobble 2 it might not just be the processor. Because I can run that on a P3 600 with no problem. I'm guessing you might only have like 128mb of ram or less and that is your problem.