computer hardware...

[radiator]

ok, again, probably be asked many times, but hey...

just need a few opinions on the hardware side for the computer...
decided on an ATI 7500 64MbDDR card (w/ tv-out), but not sure on a soundcard.  anything cheap and good (doesn't have to be Creative, what's your opinions on the different sound card manufacturers?)

as for CPU etc, I think an AthlonXP (what ever speed I can afford), with 512MbDDR, 40GB HDD, but what about a motherboard?  again, cheaper = great!

cheers guys

[radiator]

oh, whoops, posted in wrong forum, probably should be in main...

feel free to move..

[CitznFish]

I'd spring for a bigger hardrive.  Once you get mame running who knows what else you'll want to play in your cab.

[SirPoonga]

Don't go ECS or PC Chips for cheap motherboards.  Go shuttle or gigabyte (something like that).

[Minwah]

I've not had a massive amount of experience (build 2 PC's), but I found my Asus motherboard to be excellent (not to mention a piece of cake to set up), and I hear they are pretty well reviewed generally.

Remember you can always upgrade stuff like drives & cards, but the m/board you're stuck with!

[Homebrew]

I agree with Minwah, Asus boards are nice, but can be pricey depending on how new the board is and its features.  Great boards, but i wouldn't classify them as budget boards.  Epox makes great budget boards.  While not the cheapest out there, Epox does provide many good features left out by others and has decent prices.  You can get the Epox 8RDA (perfect for the Athlon XP) for $93 after shipping at Newegg.com.  While this is a bit more than most other budget boards, your still getting a quality board and growing room(this boards supports the new 333mhz FSB AMD CPU's).  When money is less of a concern, Asus boards are my favorites.  Just my 2 cents.

-Kevin

[Lilwolf]

Athlons are the way to go!  Price/performance is there.

Dont' spend so much more on the motherboard for emulation (in my opinion).  Why?  The price jumps for the processors make better speed increases.  I like the via 4-1 chipsets myself... Not the best, but good and you will get them running well.  

IE, dont' spend an extra 50 bucks on a motherboard since you can probably get another 10% speed increase on the chip.  And you wont get an extra 10% out of it.

Harddrive space is GREAT!  remember that the Daphne images are up to 2gig each.  So your talking 20gig for a full set or so (don't have a full set myself...so can't tell you).  80gig harddrives are cheap though.

But go to pricewatch.com and find the best you can get for the buck.  NOTE:  It's not always the slowest, or smallest.  It's usually whats being mass produced/sold that week.  

[Warborg]

I agree with Minwah, Asus boards are nice, but can be pricey depending on how new the board is and its features.  Great boards, but i wouldn't classify them as budget boards.  Epox makes great budget boards.  While not the cheapest out there, Epox does provide many good features left out by others and has decent prices.  You can get the Epox 8RDA (perfect for the Athlon XP) for $93 after shipping at Newegg.com.  While this is a bit more than most other budget boards, your still getting a quality board and growing room(this boards supports the new 333mhz FSB AMD CPU's).  When money is less of a concern, Asus boards are my favorites.  Just my 2 cents.

-Kevin

Yeah, I have an ASUS board in my arcade cab, with an XP 1800+...

But I have a Soyo Dragon Plus in my main PC, which also runs very nicely.

[rampy]

Athlons are the way to go!  Price/performance is there.

Dont' spend so much more on the motherboard for emulation (in my opinion).  Why?  The price jumps for the processors make better speed increases.  I like the via 4-1 chipsets myself... Not the best, but good and you will get them running well.  

IE, dont' spend an extra 50 bucks on a motherboard since you can probably get another 10% speed increase on the chip.  And you wont get an extra 10% out of it.

Harddrive space is GREAT!  remember that the Daphne images are up to 2gig each.  So your talking 20gig for a full set or so (don't have a full set myself...so can't tell you).  80gig harddrives are cheap though.

But go to pricewatch.com and find the best you can get for the buck.  NOTE:  It's not always the slowest, or smallest.  It's usually whats being mass produced/sold that week.  

Just one note re: pricewatch -> I strongly recommend visiting http://www.resellerratings.com and looking up the "cheapest" vendors on there...  at least to know what to expect or set your expectations when it comes to issues like shipping/RMA's/and bait and switch action...

*shrug*

Rampy

PS newegg has a great rating there and I've always had a good experience with newegg.com (and mwave.com as well)

PSS I love my soyo dragon in my main pc, but am using an el cheapo (soon to be installed) biostar in my cabinet... i'll report my findings soon.

[radiator]

thanks for the input guys...

any idea on soundcard? i think i'm just gonna go with a Hercules one, i don't know what it is but i've gone off creative stuff...

[neuromancer]

thanks for the input guys...

any idea on soundcard? i think i'm just gonna go with a Hercules one, i don't know what it is but i've gone off creative stuff...

The best performing sound cards for the $ are Turtle Beach. The Santa Cruz is about $70 and it blows away every Creative product ever made, as far as noise, distortion, and dynamic range go. It might be overkill for a game cab, but if you want to set up a jukebox, like so many people seem to, it could be woth it.

Bob

[Mike]

Ok I'm not a athlon or intel fanboy either way and here is my opinion with where things are at right now.

I would not go with an Athlon at this time. Here is why too.  

First the Athlon is at the end of lifecycle which means there won't be very many faster chips coming out in that format. Second mame is very processor intensive and high clock cycles mean more speed. Third you can get a celeron 2.2ghz for dirt cheap and that chip can easily be overclocked to 3ghz. Next as soon as mame begins to support hyperthreading you have the motherboard and will just need to get a new processor to take advantage of it. And the last reason which i believe is the most important, celerons run ice cold compared to an athlon and heat is an issue inside of a cabinet.

So anyways right now I think intel gives you the most bang for the buck. As far as what motherboard to go with, just make sure you get one that supports hyperthreading like the Asus P4PE.

[radiator]

true, the athlon is coming to the end of its life, but, i'd rather not go Intel - too damn expensive (and i don't like celerons, same as i don't like durons) - and i've never bought an intel, always gone for AMD

i just don't like the thought of running a celeron for something that is CPU intensive, and i can't see the justification in getting a pentium4 - which leaves me with one option, AMD...

my 1.2Ghz Athlon can run all the Mame games at a decent speed, i just need a little increase in CPU power, and i'm a cheapskate and want to build this cab spending as little as i can.

[radiator]

and i don't see how there can be a heat problem in a spacious arcade cabinet...you'd just need one intake fan (80mm/120mm) and position the mobo close by...

[u_rebelscum]

... as soon as mame begins to support hyperthreading you have the motherboard and will just need to get a new processor to take advantage of it.

Which will be as soon as mame supports SMP, ie: not in the near future.  Mame is not multithreaded, and it would take some MAJOR changes to get mame multithreaded to see a speed increase and still be as accurate in emulation as it currently is.

[rampy]

... as soon as mame begins to support hyperthreading you have the motherboard and will just need to get a new processor to take advantage of it.

Which will be as soon as mame supports SMP, ie: not in the near future.  Mame is not multithreaded, and it would take some MAJOR changes to get mame multithreaded to see a speed increase and still be as accurate in emulation as it currently is.

FWIW advancemame supports SMP (but in linux only)... that doesn't necessarily mean it's optimized or anything for it (it might be I don't know... i'm just going by whats on their sourceforge page).

But your right - probably won't see it in mame in the near near future... but that's what we all said about games with slapstick protection way back in teh day too =P

rampy

[u_rebelscum]

... probably won't see it in mame in the near near future... but that's what we all said about games with slapstick protection way back in teh day too =P

Shhhhh.  Don't you know one of the best ways to make a hacker try to do something is say "you can't do it" or "it's impossible"?

[Ted_Striker]

Well here goes.  I've pretty much broken every suggestion that people have mentioned in this thread.... and my cabinet plays great.  I went with a pc chips motherboard, a duron 700 and 128mb ram, onboard audio.  And it plays fine!  I use a 3mb hard drive for my os and a 6mb drive for roms.  I suppose a bit of background is in order to explain my position.

I'm in my 30's and basically quit playing (well quit keeping up) with arcade games around '95 when I left college.  So when I built a mame cab I was interested in the old games.  I never really saw a neo geo cab before... and missed the fighting craze...  

So with that said, mame hardware should be chosen based on the games you want to play.  Why spend the money on an (AMD or Intell) 2ghz+ processor when your favorite is game is Galaga.  And a 64MBddr video card is just plain overkill.  I'm running an old ati rage pro 8mb agp card.  runs fine.  Even the newer games... no stutters.   Now I suppose if Area 51 and the Cruisin USA games are what you live for... then buy the expensive stuff.  

Also consider your own upgrade path.  If you are building your own pc for a mame cabinet I am assuming you built your own main computer.  If you want to spend money on fast pc's, why not upgrade your main pc and then drop your old stuff into the mame cab.  Most people who have multiple pc's in the house have a pretty decent main pc.  

So the moral of the story is don't break the bank on pc hardware for mame.  You don't need to.  Consider what games you want or can't live without.  Of course multiple use cabinets (other emu's, daphne, jukebox etc) will have different hardware req's than mame.

Also check out MSI motherboards.  I have had good luck with them, they are relatively cheap but good quality.  

oh yeah and pc chips mbs are worthless (I hate mine) but it doesn't lock up and has been stable.  I had problems with it when I tried to upgrade the processor.   From what I've read on these boards, the fact that mine works fairly well is a freak of nature.