Emulation speeds?

[wonkalow]

I received a free gutted cabinet yesterday, and since the minute I seen pictures my mind has been racing of what it will end in. This is my first of probably many posts and questions. Ive been reading non stop since yesterday morning every detail I can, trying to figure out how everything works and am extremly excited about finishing a great mame system.

One thing so far though I havnt heard anything about is the speed games run at. I know some platforms/emulators have a hard time running SNES games at their original speeds which makes some fighting/action games too slow and laggy to play right. I was just wondering if every game from atari to say Dreamcast ( I havnt even checked if theres an emulator for that yet but thats probably highest I would go if there was) will run at their full and correct speed?

[BobA]

With MAME there are always games that will not  run at full speed or even playable speed.  Many  3D and CHD games fall into this area.  With the emulators there is alot more concentration on making the games playable since there is only one emulation and not hundreds.  Every emulator has different requirements to run the games well but I think you will be happy with alot of them if you can devote a moderately recent computer to them.   Many emulators are better then others that emulate the same thing so you will have to read a bit more to find the prefered ones.  There are even single emulators that play games from MAME with alot more efficiency if you want to use a less powerful computer.  One that comes to mind for vertical games is vantage.  There is also a neogeo emulator and others.   

Dreamcast emulation seems to be popular as are dreamcast consoles.  Almost any console of the last generation and before is emulated somewhere.

Welcome to the forum

Edit:  Forgot to say that you might want to start with the Wiki to read up on emulators for various consoles.

[wonkalow]

Ill check the wiki next, thanks for the advice. Currently though im tired and gotta get some sleep. Ive been reading about everything involved in building my own cabinet all day non stop with the exception of a quick trip to a big local arcade for "Research" 


But first thing in the morning im back to reading, I have about 30 tabs open atm with the wiki first on the list

[danny_galaga]

welcome to the forums and its good to see such enthusiasm. avoid the 'everything else' and 'politics n religion' forums 

[wonkalow]

Ok, I got sidetracked and sent out of town for a couple weeks and finnally got things back to normal and am going to start on this once again.
Im still narrowing the list (as I dont know of all of these are possible, or if I can even still roms or all of the details of them yet) to ...
Atari 2600
Atari Lynx
Sega genesis
NES
SNES
Neogeo
Sega Master System
Turbo graphics 16
Dreamcast
and
Mame

assuming I stick with all of the above (and anything else anyone happens to mention from now to completion)... would the vast majority of the games, and even more of the popular games run at a fairly correct speed? I unfortunately have no way to see one of these in action, so im very concerned it wont run correctly or run very many games at a normal speed and ill waste hundreds of dollars on something that feels like a rip off of an arcade machine 

I understand different emulators will run different games at different speeds, but how wide of a range is there ? should I be expecting only 5-10 games to not run correctly? or 100's?

[vidmouse]

More like 1000's not 100's.   

I believe all the systems you listed can be emulated.
One you left off the list that I would highly recommend
is Visual Pinball -- simulates real pinball tables.

We'd be able to help you better if we knew a little more
about what you're planning:

1)  Do you have a picture of the gutted cab you want to convert?
2)  What computer (specs) are you thinking of using -- (or can afford,
      if you are starting from scratch)?
3)  What kind of controls do you want to have (ie. primarily for
      fighting games, shooter games, trackball games...?)

[severdhed]

be aware also that if you have a pc ready to go, you can try the emulators on it before you ever start building the cabinet.  that way you will know what to expect.  one thing i have found is that while it seems like a good idea to have dozens of emulators and thousands of games on your cabinet, you end up not playing any of them for more than a few minutes because you are constantly wanting to try a new one.  i had 5 or 6 emulators on my cabinet when i first built it, but it was just too much.  too many games to go through, too many controls to work out.  it ended up being overwhelming for anyone who tried to play it.   they walked up to the frankenpanel i had, they had no idea how to work anything, and i spent most of my time explaining how to do things, how to switch emulators and stupid crap like that.  now, i have mame, with about 50 games.  less controls, less admin buttons, cleaner front end, and a selection of really good games.  now when someone walks up to it, they can figure it out with very little effort...and the games actually get played this way.

my wife is a big pacman fan, but she couldnt figure out how to work the cabinet before...now it is easy for her.

when i first started out, i wanted a cabinet that could do it all, but over time i have found that a cabinet that does a few things really well is better.

but i'm sure that wont be the case for everyone.

good luck with your project.  please keeps us updated, and post lots of pics

[wonkalow]

Ok, I've cut the list back some to something more practical.
Atari 2600
Sega genesis
NES
SNES
Dreamcast
Mame

Here's a pic of my cabinet..

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/4410/dscn0109nh5dp3.jpg
Sorry it's a little small, hopefully big enough to see. I know its a fairly odd shape, but I like it and think it'll work out ok.

For the computer, I was thinking something fairly simple but new parts nothing out of date or extremly slow, the cheapest new computer I can build if that makes any sense.  I've been worried about speeds and realism so much that I havnt had much chance yet to see what pc specs I needed. I kinda assumed (which I see now is wrong) that anything fairly new has to be able to run them fine as the systems that ran these games originally are 10-20 years old, so something new should have no problems.

I'm not planning on anything special for the controls, just buttons, 2 joysticks (2 player cabinet) and maybe upgrading with 2 LED guns. No trackballs, or spinners or anything like that.

Where I live, TONS of people come over, so if this works out right it'll get alot of use and tons of games will get use. I dont mind having to setup all the controls for each emulator, im not scared of the hard work, im just really worried about speeds/realism, to me that will kill the whole thing. Mainly id like to see the classics, and most of the fighting games work good.

I might give that a shot. Building the PC first and trying them out, but I tried running a couple MAME games off my main PC (time crisis I believe it was) and it was so unbearably slow.. I didnt tweak the emulator or anything though

[Paul Olson]

I agree with severedhed, try to keep it simple or you will spend much more time messing with and explaining the setup than you ever will playing the games. There are a lot of games that don't work right, and I guarantee that your guests will be able to find every one of them  . There are probably thousands of games that work perfect and can be set up correctly. Choose a limited number of these to be available to your friends. Too much choice can be overwhelming.

Have fun!

[telengard]

I agree with severedhed, try to keep it simple or you will spend much more time messing with and explaining the setup than you ever will playing the games. There are a lot of games that don't work right, and I guarantee that your guests will be able to find every one of them  . There are probably thousands of games that work perfect and can be set up correctly. Choose a limited number of these to be available to your friends. Too much choice can be overwhelming.

Have fun!

I agree with everyone also.  I'd personally start with MAME (tons of games right there) mostly because it will be the easiest to get setup in the cabinet.  Other emulators are do-able but may need more fiddling with.  I have a set top box that runs about 14 different system emulators in it and some of them were quite a pain getting to work with just a gamepad from the couch.  I run all of the ones you mentioned except for the Dreamcast.

A word about the more recent mame releases.  Something not too long ago was re-written/re-done and performance for some of the oldies has dropped so if you like the classics be sure to put a beefy computer in there.  Going back to a previous rev is also an option.

~telengard

[turbo6]

Another great emulator to have would be Daphne... If you like Laser Disc games such as Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, etc... Doesn't take a super PC to run them either. Just a thought...