Should I upgrade with a cpu or ram to play mame???

[rollerball]

Hey there...Ok just a quick question...bit of a noob one but Im running mame on a P3 600 with 65mb of ram....was thinking of upgarding to an amd duron 1.2 or getting a pentium around 1.2......But was thinking if I would be better just getting more ram for the cpu Ive got now...how much better would mame run if I had 256mb of ram in my machine???Or should I just go the new cpu and bit more ram.....any help would be nice...thanks in advance....paul

[nobbo]

for the most part mame relies on pure cpu power, because of the way the games are emulated. As far as I know mame does not use your video card power to do the graphical work, so hence your cpu is used to churn out the graphics as well as everything else in the games. Also it depends on what games you want to really play well. If you are only interested in playing the likes of pacman and space invaders, your system shouldn't have any probs, but if you're keen on the likes of metal slug etc, you'll probably want more power

In saying that though it wouldn't hurt to have a bit more than 64MB RAM 

[destructor]

About graphics cards. I have old graphic card S3Trio64V+ 4MBRAM and second Radeon 9200. On old S3 I have about 50% speed on some games, where on Radeon 9200 I have 100% speed. Then, if you have archaic g.c. you should upgrade it too.

[rollerball]

thanks guys....Ive got a tnt 2 gfx card...seems to do the job...so If I was to go to a 1.2ghz machine with 256mb of ram would games like metal slug be ok??

[davieboynj]

thanks guys....Ive got a tnt 2 gfx card...seems to do the job...so If I was to go to a 1.2ghz machine with 256mb of ram would games like metal slug be ok??

MS will definitely play full speed on a 1.2 GHz PC...

[destructor]

Should. I check Metal Slug 5 on Celeron 1GHz (but it's very weak Celeron on weak notebook) a while ago and I have problems with this game, speed is about 43 frames.
On Intel 1,2 should be OK.

[rollerball]

thanks guys....anyway would I get much of a boost from putting more ram in the p3 600??or not really worth putting more ram in it until I get a faster cpu then??

[ahofle]

You most likely won't get a boost in MAME from a ram upgrade (you may be able to load larger rom sets with more RAM though).  As others have said, the only thing that really improves your MAME performance is a better CPU.

[gonzo90017]

I have 400mhz celeron with 128mb ram and everything runs full speed even the metal slug games. If you insist on using mame use Fastmame instead. It should run close to or full speed on your setup.You should at least add 64mb more. I wouldn't use mame for NeoGeo games use winkawaks, Neorage or NeorageX. You MIGHT also have a problem with capcom games. If they don't run full speed use Raine. If you plan to play Metal Slug 5 or some of the newer kof's you should have at least 192mb just because of the rom sizes.

[destructor]

I have 400mhz celeron with 128mb ram and everything runs full speed even the metal slug games.

We talk about MAME. Do you have full speed on MAME (for example version 105) in Metal Slug 5?

[Tiger-Heli]

I have 400mhz celeron with 128mb ram and everything runs full speed even the metal slug games.

We talk about MAME. Do you have full speed on MAME (for example version 105) in Metal Slug 5?

If you are wanting to run MAME 105, plan on at least a 1.2 Ghz processor, more would be better.

If you are talking about a P3 600 or Celeron 400, then use an older MAME or the alternative emulators as previously posted.

Your choice on which way to go.  It really isn't that hard a concept to grasp.

[Negativecreep0]

also its good to note that some games like a metal slug have slowdown on the real arcade machines at time. This was carried over to the mame emulation just like in the arcade, so no matter what your speed there will be slow down, this is just the way the neo geo bios handles the rom

[divemaster127]

I would at least have 256 meg of ram, memory is so cheap & i would get the fastest processor i could
thanks
dm

[Lilwolf]

for the prices these days, you might consider looking around (ebay ect) for a super cheap faster computer.  You can get a MUCH better computer for less then 30 bucks these days...  Your talking ancient there.

But as it comes... look for a mame version that was made around when your computer was 'current'.  You loose a lot of games but mame was optimized for your system.  v.36 is much faster then v.37 because of the color depth internal to mame changed.  And around .57 or .56 or so there was another system wide slowdown. 

But I wouldn't upgrade anything on that computer... NO money should go into it.  You might find someone who has memory to fit it... but I wouldn't spend more then 1 or 2 bucks for extra ram... heck, they should give it to you if you know them.

So optimize EVERYTHING for your computer... DOS will help a bit.  And optimized mame builds (fastmame) will help...  But don't expect much on that system.

[krick]

BEWARE!

Memory for older computers can be VERY expensive for larger sized modules.  In addition, you have the whole low-density vs high-density compatability thing to worry about.

I wouldn't bother putting money into any system that isn't using at least a socket 478 on the Intel side, or a socket 754 on the AMD side.

Anything older is just not cost effective to upgrade.

[deadkenndys1105]

My mame computer is nearly the same thing and I have the same amount of ram.  I can run most of the classics but dont plan on any fighters.  I am slowly upgrading tho.

[Tiger-Heli]

BEWARE!

Memory for older computers can be VERY expensive for larger sized modules.  In addition, you have the whole low-density vs high-density compatability thing to worry about.

If you can even get it.  I had a P200, which I think I eventually upgraded to 128M ram, but according to the manual, the most I could put on the board was 256M.

Check the specs on the board first, so you know what your options are.