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Is a 486 (100mhz) with 32mb of RAM enough for VectorMame?
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Matthew Fisher:
In two words, very doubtful.  I am running vmame on a 700mHz Thunderbird with (I think) 512 mb ram and it slows down a bit in SW and ESB when things get busy on the screen.  I have heard of others having problems with even faster processors.  The long and short of it is that my 700mHz box is still not quite enough.  

On the other hand, my box has no problem running all the vector games on a raster monitor (except for Top Gunner, but that's a different issue), but driving the ZVG through the parallel port seems to take up a lot of cycles.  My worst slowdown is when the death star explodes in SW (LOTS of vectors) and yet mame says I'm still getting pretty much 30 fps.  So, mame is not slowing down but the combination of mame and the ZVG is bogging things down a bit, as far as I can tell.  

I am going to move up to a 1.6mHz AMD box I have sitting around when I finally get the awful taste of installing a PCI soundcard in the first one out of my mouth...  
JoyMonkey:

--- Quote from: Matthew Fisher on February 02, 2006, 10:45:07 am ---In two words, very doubtful.  I am running vmame on a 700mHz Thunderbird with (I think) 512 mb ram and it slows down a bit in SW and ESB when things get busy on the screen...

--- End quote ---

This could be because you've got too much memory for a DOS system. Most versions of DOS don't know what to do with more than 64mb of physical memory and will actually have an adverse effect on performance if you've got more. Newer versions of DOS can utilize up to 128mb, but anything over that and you're giving your systems bus a headache.
Matthew Fisher:
Hmmm...  I was aware of this ram problem but I could swear I found a DPMI version that allows use of the extra ram.

*Brief google pause* 

Here it is:

http://clio.rice.edu/djgpp/csdpmi6t.zip

Version 5 tops out at 512mb, but I guess the ram limit for this is 2gb, although I am nowhere near that...
JoyMonkey:
Well I stand corrected! Nice find.
missioncontrol:
Doesn't hurt to give it a try.... if it doesn't you spent a few hours trying....



--- Quote from: Fozzy The Bear on February 02, 2006, 10:07:40 am ---Good Grief!! Ancient Archialogical Artifacts!!

Nope! Sorry..... Especially with the current version of MAME... You don't stand a chance of running much at all with that relic.


--- End quote ---

hey Fozzy The Bear some people here see mame as a way to give a new life to an old PC.
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