Slow running beat em ups

[sealslayer]

I'm having a few problems running some beat em up, dead or alive etc, they run very slow and choppy,  I know the emulations not 100% but is there a way to speed the game up or is it a issue with my pc Specs.
1400 AMD Athlon
512 ram
32MB Geforce MMX 2 card

[subcriminal]

Edit: *Sarcastic comment sorry*

[Fozzy The Bear]

I'm having a few problems running some beat em up, dead or alive etc, they run very slow and choppy,  I know the emulations not 100% but is there a way to speed the game up or is it a issue with my pc Specs.
1400 AMD Athlon
512 ram
32MB Geforce MMX 2 card

More than likely, it's your PC spec. In the case of these games I have trouble running some of them on my desktop PC. Which is an Athlon 1.8+ but have no trouble running them in the cabinet on a P4 @ 3.0Ghz

The problem with your Athlon 1.4 is that it actually only runs at (I think)1.0Ghz to 1.1Ghz. The term 1.4 is the equivilant processing power compared to an intel chip and not the actual speed. AMD have always had missleading names on their hardware.

To be blunt, your processor needs more poke than that, to be able to run these smoothly. You could try an earlier version of Mame as they tend to require less oomf!!

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[u_rebelscum]

The problem with your Athlon 1.4 is that it actually only runs at (I think)1.0Ghz to 1.1Ghz. The term 1.4 is the equivilant processing power compared to an intel chip and not the actual speed. AMD have always had missleading names on their hardware.

No that's not the problem: the "actual ghz" is not a good scale to use, and now (with core 2, core, penM, athlon64, & P4) is even less relevant than it was before.  Whether AMD is using good names or not is a different issue that I won't touch.

AFA mame is concerned, however, an athlon 1400+ is the near equivalent of a P4 1.4 ghz (sometimes better, sometimes worse, depending on game).  The mame32qa site used to have benchmarks showing this, but the CPUs have been updated to more current CPUs.  However, these CPUs show that "actual" ghz isn't what matters (even more so than before). 

To be blunt, your processor needs more poke than that, to be able to run these smoothly. You could try an earlier version of Mame as they tend to require less oomf!!

This is still the best solution, at least for dead of alive.  What other games are you trying to play?

[Glaine]

Besides that, DOA is a 3d game. Mame is a 2d engine. Nuff said.

[releasedtruth]

I can't say that I've had any 3d fighters or 3d games at all run well on my Athlon 2100+, P4 2.2, or P4 3.2HT. Mame and polygons, not fans of each other. If you've run Tekken/DOA/Soul Caliber smoothly, I'm all ears.

GT

[Flip_Willie]

Zinc runs 3D arcade games much faster than mame does.

[torez]

Have you tried different/newer video card?  What operating system are you using/how long.  A fresh install may do wonders.  Add to that disabling unnecessary processes.

[subcriminal]

Sorry for sarcasm Thought it was a wind up question. MAME is all about processing power to emulate and not your graphics card. Have you heard of fastmame? http://www.geoshock.com/
From the front page:

Well, took a while this time, let me explain why:
I've got an Athlon 64 @ 4000+ now, so speeding up "old" games like MK3 wasn't of much use. That's why this time I took a different approach, I tried to make "crusnusa" playable at full speed .

I have a switchable Dreamcast in my cab for running dead or alive etc. It's a cheap and easy way to run them

[torez]

MAME is all about processing power to emulate and not your graphics card.

So you are telling me that ANY video card will do?  The only way to find out about the bottlenecks in your computer is to swap easy to change components.  Sometimes just updating the driver may do wonders and I'm not just talking about 3D video.

You are forgetting that "processing power" is built in a video card also.  With a better video card (gpu) you are using less cpu cycles that you need for your processing power.  Why not just use integrated video?  Good luck using that with these newer games.

[CheffoJeffo]

MAME is all about processing power to emulate and not your graphics card.

So you are telling me that ANY video card will do?  The only way to find out about the bottlenecks in your computer is to swap easy to change components.  Sometimes just updating the driver may do wonders and I'm not just talking about 3D video.

You are forgetting that "processing power" is built in a video card also.  With a better video card (gpu) you are using less cpu cycles that you need for your processing power.  Why not just use integrated video?  Good luck using that with these newer games.

This is  a rather naive way to "find bottlenecks" and is typically employed when people don't know much abut the processing being done (which is 99.9% of the time these days, but still ...).

To understand what subcriminal was getting at, perhaps the following will help (and I am not the author of this text and am no expert in MAME):

Think of it this way, MAME cannot use your 3D card to emulate a 3D game (say Tekken for example). All 3D calculations are done in software emulation by your CPU (your Athlon, if you will) because there is too much variation with 3D cards/drivers and their associated bugs (you may hear about ATi or nVidia 'cheating' on benchmarks by taking shortcuts in their drivers, this inherrently leads to inaccuracies in something as precise as emulation.)

Hence, what MAME does do, is once your CPU emulates what is being drawn by the emulated hardware, it can send that display off to your 3D card and use its '3D features' to speed up the drawing to your screen. So, it is '3D' if you think of it in the sense that the emulated screen you are seeing is mapped to one big flat polygon the size of your screen like a texture map.

And, since you mentionned onboard video, there is a section of the post from the same author dealing with that (and agreeing with you):

But then again, if you have a really ---smurfy--- onboard graphics card (ones that share memory with your main system memory) direct3d may be much slower for you. So your best bet is to go with a middle of the road card unless you are going to be playing 3D games are are going to want the extra horse power.

Cheers.

EDIT: Caveat -- I have not used a version of MAME later than v.90 and have always focused on classics, so have never had a problem like the one experienced by the OP.

[Timoe]

Just use the emulator, Zinc.

[subcriminal]

I'm way behind with MAME romsets by the sound of it
Going off subject a bit....I'm not running the latest games as they surpassed by console capabilities, there's no originality in the more modern games and I can't see the point in using the wrong tool for the job.

[releasedtruth]

As I understand it there's some difference in running those games depending on your version of mame/mame32/fastmame as well as your rendering options. If you use D3d over Directdraw, etc. You could toy with those settings, but I agree, if Zinc supports your game of choice, by all means use that. Unfortunately there were some decent poly games that aren't on the list.

GT

[torez]

This is  a rather naive way to "find bottlenecks" and is typically employed when people don't know much abut the processing being done (which is 99.9% of the time these days, but still ...).

Do you speak from experience or have you read it somewhere?  More than 20 years of dealing with computing here and 10 helping others, so I doubt my naive approach here.

To understand what subcriminal was getting at, perhaps the following will help (and I am not the author of this text and am no expert in MAME):

Think of it this way, MAME cannot use your 3D card to emulate a 3D game (say Tekken for example). All 3D calculations are done in software emulation by your CPU (your Athlon, if you will) because there is too much variation with 3D cards/drivers and their associated bugs (you may hear about ATi or nVidia 'cheating' on benchmarks by taking shortcuts in their drivers, this inherrently leads to inaccuracies in something as precise as emulation.)

Hence, what MAME does do, is once your CPU emulates what is being drawn by the emulated hardware, it can send that display off to your 3D card and use its '3D features' to speed up the drawing to your screen. So, it is '3D' if you think of it in the sense that the emulated screen you are seeing is mapped to one big flat polygon the size of your screen like a texture map.

If you read my comment correctly, I was talking about better 2D support for Mame with a better card.

And, since you mentionned onboard video, there is a section of the post from the same author dealing with that (and agreeing with you):

But then again, if you have a really ---smurfy--- onboard graphics card (ones that share memory with your main system memory) direct3d may be much slower for you. So your best bet is to go with a middle of the road card unless you are going to be playing 3D games are are going to want the extra horse power.

Says right here:

to go with a middle of the road card.

  Do you think that 32MB Geforce MMX 2 card is that middle of the road?  It's obvious that my advice to try another card was a sound one and, for that matter, you've failed to understand my advice here.

[ahofle]

If you read my comment correctly, I was talking about better 2D support for Mame with a better card.

If a graphics card has little to no effect on improving 3D games in MAME, then why would it help 2D games?  The real work of MAME is happening in the CPU not the GPU.  My opinion is that a video card update would be the LAST thing to try when trying to get more performance out of MAME.

[torez]

If you read my comment correctly, I was talking about better 2D support for Mame with a better card.

If a graphics card has little to no effect on improving 3D games in MAME, then why would it help 2D games?  The real work of MAME is happening in the CPU not the GPU.  My opinion is that a video card update would be the LAST thing to try when trying to get more performance out of MAME.

So you are simply saying that 32MB Geforce MMX 2 card is plenty to play all these Mame games???  Well, game on then.

[ahofle]

I'm simply saying 99% of the problem is his old Athlon CPU.

[torez]

We don't know all the details about his computer.  His video card seems to be more than 5 years old.  If they were purchased as a complete box, then the clock speed is really 1.4 GHz, as AMD started the new power factor around 2002.

If the computer is more than 5 years old, it's most likely much slower than after a fresh install, therefore the recommendation.  I don't even mention adware/spyware and other factors that a fresh install will cure.  I doubt he defragmented his drive regularly as well.  My humble guess may be far fetched, but 5+ years old video card is far away from being mid range.  Trying a newer (used, if needed) video card is more than reasonable.  All it takes is 20 minutes of one's time and one can actually learn something from his/her own experience, not just by reading and applying others opinions to all the possible cases out there as a fact.

[CheffoJeffo]

This is  a rather naive way to "find bottlenecks" and is typically employed when people don't know much abut the processing being done (which is 99.9% of the time these days, but still ...).

Do you speak from experience or have you read it somewhere?  More than 20 years of dealing with computing here and 10 helping others, so I doubt my naive approach here.

Congratulations ... yes, it is from experience...

Swapping components is a blind form of finding bottlenecks -- it is more important to understand what is going on in the underlying processing in order to correctly determine the source of the problem.That was my only point with that statement, although I also doubt your naive approach.

If you read my comment correctly, I was talking about better 2D support for Mame with a better card.

I I read your comment incorrectly, then I apologize ... although it appears I was not alone.

I do think he needs more horses under the hood for what he wants,

Cheers.

[torez]

He could either find/borrow some cheap-o video card or he could get a newer computer, think the former would be more efficient first.  His video card is really old and he needs all that video ram to load all these graphics.

I remember back in 1999 I got PCI Starfighter with 8 MB video ram (16 MB was much more expensive).  It replaced my 4 MB card that only played smaller games.  In these days I used NeoRageX and I was able to play some Neo-Geo games.  PCI Starfighter added a bunch of them as playable (Metal Slug comes to mind).  Been getting the roms from Geoshock then and spanning them with Winzip onto dozens of 1.44 MB floppies (started in 1998 with Geoshock).  Even formatted them to 1.72 MB (Microsoft distributable standard) for *extra* space lol.  Finally got a zip drive, so started getting bunch of stuff on these 100 MB disks every time .  Wow, these were interesting times.

Anyway, that check for bottlenecks is not something I do all the time.  It's just a recommendation, so he can learn something from it.  As it's an AGP slot card (probably at 4X), finding/borrowing a used card should be easy.  Talking about bottlenecks, right now the hdd is the major problem for the whole system.  Myself, I would replace the hdd with a newer one that is quiter and has less chance of a failure than the old/used up one and then reinstall.  Most likely his disk is 5400 rpm with 20-30 GB and 1 MB cache anyway.  It all depends from how much money he is willing to spend to just play these few more games.  I would go with the swap first, as the system is still perfectly good for other things besides gaming and I'm sure that after doing this he will gain some fps in Mame games.

Cheers

[Glaine]

This is  a rather naive way to "find bottlenecks" and is typically employed when people don't know much abut the processing being done (which is 99.9% of the time these days, but still ...).

Do you speak from experience or have you read it somewhere?  More than 20 years of dealing with computing here and 10 helping others, so I doubt my naive approach here.

Congratulations ... yes, it is from experience...

Swapping components is a blind form of finding bottlenecks -- it is more important to understand what is going on in the underlying processing in order to correctly determine the source of the problem.That was my only point with that statement, although I also doubt your naive approach.

If you read my comment correctly, I was talking about better 2D support for Mame with a better card.

I I read your comment incorrectly, then I apologize ... although it appears I was not alone.

I do think he needs more horses under the hood for what he wants,

Cheers.

I absolute second Jeffo here.
First, I hate it when people equate time with quality experience.
Second, you are way way better off knowing the specs and what you need than buying parts cuz it will probably help.
Third, it's been said, Zinc is a made for emulating these titles in 3d using your graphics card, mame is not.

Please be glad that people are trying to help. I'm only mad here because your taking a tone.

[torez]

I absolute second Jeffo here.
First, I hate it when people equate time with quality experience.
Second, you are way way better off knowing the specs and what you need than buying parts cuz it will probably help.
Third, it's been said, Zinc is a made for emulating these titles in 3d using your graphics card, mame is not.

Please be glad that people are trying to help. I'm only mad here because your taking a tone.

What kind of approach to find a solution is saying "ooo, buy a new computer" without trying anything else first?  Not everyone has $1,000 to spend to just play couple more games.

First, I hate it when people equate time with quality experience.
...
I'm only mad here because your taking a tone.

Looks like you are taking a tone here.  FYI, I hate when people make generalizations like this.  Trying a newer/different video card (with more memory) does not mean lack of quality experience, as it's obvious his card is very old with little memory and probably with very old drivers.  Borrowing a card is certainly cheaper than buying a new computer.  There is certainly no need to have any experience to say:  "Hey, get a new Dell" to constructively solve any question/problem.

Second, you are way way better off knowing the specs and what you need than buying parts cuz it will probably help.
Third, it's been said, Zinc is a made for emulating these titles in 3d using your graphics card, mame is not.

Once again, the better video card is for the better 2D support.  Nobody is talking about 3D at this time.

[Glaine]

I absolute second Jeffo here.
First, I hate it when people equate time with quality experience.
Second, you are way way better off knowing the specs and what you need than buying parts cuz it will probably help.
Third, it's been said, Zinc is a made for emulating these titles in 3d using your graphics card, mame is not.

Please be glad that people are trying to help. I'm only mad here because your taking a tone.

What kind of approach to find a solution is saying "ooo, buy a new computer" without trying anything else first?  Not everyone has $1,000 to spend to just play couple more games.

First, I hate it when people equate time with quality experience.
...
I'm only mad here because your taking a tone.

Looks like you are taking a tone here.  FYI, I hate when people make generalizations like this.  Trying a newer/different video card (with more memory) does not mean lack of quality experience, as it's obvious his card is very old with little memory and probably with very old drivers.  Borrowing a card is certainly cheaper than buying a new computer.  There is certainly no need to have any experience to say:  "Hey, get a new Dell" to constructively solve any question/problem.

Second, you are way way better off knowing the specs and what you need than buying parts cuz it will probably help.
Third, it's been said, Zinc is a made for emulating these titles in 3d using your graphics card, mame is not.

Once again, the better video card is for the better 2D support.  Nobody is talking about 3D at this time.

No one is saying to buy a new machine, thats a bit silly.
And if you've got friends who will let you borrow their card to see if it helps, thats smart too.
I'm just saying to read up on things and not BUY hardware on whims.
Mame does not use the resources on your graphics card, 3d or otherwise - the processing is handled at the motherboard because the Mame devs want to keep the machine emulation as pure as possible and so they don't handle any of the processing on your card, 3d based or otherwise.
All a card will help in mame is display wise, like if you want to make mame display on a TV or some such.

Sorry I can't point to specific article, it's been a bit since my last reading but thats kind of always been the mame dev stance, archive and study purpose before playability. People have been complaining about the lack of card use and such for a long time and the only way that'll change is a modified build of the mame source optimized for card usage.

Good luck with things, let us know what you decide to do.

[Glaine]

Ah, rereading this stuff I see that actually quiet a few people are suggesting to buy a new PC, and I spose I can see why, cuz the CPU chip. Because how many people really just buy that when for just a bit more you can get a whole new PC?

Sorry, didn't read everyones posts. Any who, by this time you've heard enough opinions to make an informed decision. Good luck.