Are these specs enough

[Hawk Daddy]

I may purchase this computer comes complete for $40, mouse, keyboard, and monitor, even windows.  But I want to know if it will run these games. 

Galaga
Mario Bros
Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong JR
Ms. Pac-man
Pac-Man
Dig Dug
And other games from that error.  I'd be making a really small cabinet for it, and maybe even taking windows off and putting a different os in it so that it can boot straight to MAME. Also does any body have a link to where I could download the appropriate software for it.  Like the DOS?


Pentium 233 MHZ
Floppy Drive
CD-Rom Drive
32 MB Ram (Expandable)
4.6 GB HHD

Hawk

[knave]

Well, From the tech side you could probably get those classic games to run on that machine with an older (way older) version of mame.  I think like pre-version .55.

I'm not sure on the exact version. 

But, budget wise you should be able to get a whole lot more PC for $40. Even a PIII 500 would serve you much better.

Heck for $40 I'm tempted to sell you a 450mhz.  (at work we've been surplussing PIII 600's by the pallet. Sorry they're off limits...even to me...but they'll end up for sale somewhere.)

Check your area for a computer recycling center or local shop that sells used PC's they'll have older computers for cheep.  (but faster than 200mhz)

In the end if that's all you want and you feel confidant it'll work for you go for it.

[Hawk Daddy]

Or for $20 I can get a

200 mhz Pentium mmx
2.5 gig
64 mb
Ethernet installed
windows 98 SE

Including a 17in monitor.

Would those be worth it.

[pmc]

Do some searching in this board. This gets discussed alot.

If it were me, I'd look for a little newer generation machine (PII/III maybe) so you can run more games and not worry about performance. You should still be able to get one for very, very cheap. I had problems with Galaga's speed on P1-133 and K6-2 400MHz machines before I eventually replaced the old stuff with a 2.4GHz setup.

Then again, if you like a challenge, go for it. You can run most of those games on a 486 using Vantage or similar.

-pmc

[knave]

I wouldn't reccomend anyone spending money on anything slower than a PIII 500 mhz.  But it's your money. 

My reasoning is that these older PC's will run older versions of mame. Usually to get the best results you'll want to use dos.  If you're unfamiliar with Dos and new to mame this seems a lot more work than getting a faster PC than can at least run mame under win 98. 

Now if you like learning new things and want to put in the time to learn then go for it.  I still hold to my PC recomendations though.  I wouldn't spend good money for an old PC older than what's listed above. 

With a 500 mhz PC you have your choice of OS, be it DOS, 98, 2000, or even XP.

After all that...if you are just in a hurry the $20 pc is a better deal...you'll hardly notice the 33 less mhz and the extra ram and ethernet is useful.  Plus for $20 it's almost disposable. 

I still wouldn't get it...I have just begun to clear my garage of all the old PC's I've collected. Good luck.

[Tiger-Heli]

The $20 machine is a better deal.

You can run Win98 just fine on a Pentium 200.  You can also play all those games fine with an older version of MAME.

Games with more than 16 colors (Sky Shark, 1942, Top Gunner) will bog down, but are still playable on it with high frameskip.

[TOK]

Those are both better than the machine I had when I discovered MAME back around version .37. That was one of the benchmark versions for a long time, and ran all the games you mention fine back then on my Pentium 133.

You can get by with very meager hardware for the Golden Age stuff.

[rovingmind]

i have a 350mhz that i run golden age games on just because i've had it forever, but i wouldn't go any lower than 500mhz now unless it was free. 

[vidmouse]

Seems like we keep having this discussion on older machines and MAME performance.  While we probably won't ever get a full table of comparisons (CPU speed x Memory x OS x MAME version x Frameskip x etc.) -- hey, wouldn't that be a great reference? --

Guess the best we can do is post our own personal so-and-so's.
For example:

AMD K6-2 333, 256MB RAM, Win98, 16MB vid ram, run MAME v0.57 at best
PII 300, 512 RAM, Win98, 32MB vid ram, runs MAME v0.69 at best

and I used to have an old 486-66 64MB RAM, 12MB vid ram running MAME v.37b6 I think.
(hey at that time that was latest version)

(and note, "at best" was measured without proper benchmarking
and possibly after several beers)

[shorthair]

You're forwarded to, and appointed to write, the wiki on it. Have at it.

[leapinlew]

Short answer to your question is yes.

Do you have what it takes to make Mame and a front end work on those kinds of specs?