Hard Drive RPM's an issue?

[JayTea]

Are hard drive RPMS an issue running mame32? Can I get away with a 5400 RPM IDE in comparison to a 7200 RPM IDE?  I don't think this will be a big issue, but just in case...I don't want to get the wrong thing at the Comp store.. (the 20 GB 5400 RPM is significantly cheaper than the 7200)  Thanks for the input...and pics are on the way!

[SirPoonga]

Well, for the big big games like garou it will take less time to load.  But otherwise you won't really notice the difference.

[_Iz-]

Harddrive spindle speed has absolutely no effect on mame or it's variants (ie: mame32). Usually a 7200rpm drive is faster than a 5400rpm drive but this is not always the case. Drive speed will only affect the rate at which the roms are loaded into memory. I doubt you would notice the difference between the two on a per game basis. Auditing the entire MAME rom set might be another matter...

If you are putting this drive in a MAME cabinet the lower (5400) spindle speed can be somewhat of an advantage to you. Drives with the lower spindle speed usually generate less heat and make less noise.

[SirPoonga]

Harddrive spindle speed has absolutely no effect on mame or it's variants (ie: mame32). Usually a 7200rpm drive is faster than a 5400rpm drive but this is not always the case. Drive speed will only affect the rate at which the roms are loaded into memory. I doubt you would notice the difference between the two on a per game basis. Auditing the entire MAME rom set might be another matter...

If you are putting this drive in a MAME cabinet the lower (5400) spindle speed can be somewhat of an advantage to you. Drives with the lower spindle speed usually generate less heat and make less noise.

Generally, but there are quiet 7200 rpm drive:)  slashdot is always posting ultra quiet pcs.

Also, since I already applied, you will notice a difference on the 80+meg games that are in mame.  But the majority that are 10megs or less you probably won't know the difference.

[JayTea]

Thanks for the advice!

[Bill_S]

One thing you might consider.

I jsut upgraded my cab to a 60 gig 7200 RPM drive, and the first thing I noticed was how much faster the cab boots up now.
If you leave your cabinet on all the time this may not be as big of an issue for you, though.

[NIVO]

I know your discussing hard drive speed here, but honestly I do believe either choice of 5400 or 7200 would be fine. You would gain more to load games quicker by adding memory(no substitute for it), for example, the larger games will load quicker with 256mb ram than with 128mb. Your options will largely vary based upon how YOU personally want your setup to be. Game On.