What PC?

[whatzcrackn]

What is needed to run all emulators at full speed?  I what MAME, ZINC, DC, PSX, PSX2(?) and what ever else I can play at full speed.  Is there a preferred video card.  I will just be using a CRT or LCD not an arcade monitor.  Thx!!

[Katana Man]

Some emulators struggle with speed problems even with a fast machine. There is a lot of translation being performed.  So if you want a good PC for all emulators, you want to buy yourself a very fast one. It is my understanding that 64 bit OS, multiple CPU's, and multiple core CPU's will not be helpful.  I think you want raw CPU Ghz power. (I could be wrong on the mulitple core CPU's.)  Someone feel free to chime in.

I would also think that pretty much all of the last few years video cards would be sufficient for any emulation.  Especially if you aren't planning on running higher resolutions. But some of today's latest PC games can really take advantage of the new video cards. You can't go wrong with the NVIDIA Geforce line of cards.

[Apollo]

Do you mean you want to run all 'games' at full speed? If so you are on an impossible mission.

[solderguy1]

I'm struggling with this issue myself.  Don't want to spend big money on a new computer, one problem is they all come with Vista now and I want XP.  Plus paying extra for unneeded 64bit hardware and dual-cores seems silly.

There was a Dell Optiplex GX280 (2.8mhz P4, 8 USB jacks, XP pro, small case) on ebay for $205 including shipping that looked nice, but I've seen threads that people have trouble getting ArcadeVGA to work on them. 

Decisions descisions....

[LPZ]

Whatever happend to playing the classics on a 486?

....sheesh......

LPZ

[TOK]

Whatever happend to playing the classics on a 486?

....sheesh......

LPZ

Everyone seems to want to run the latest version of MAME, even as cool things like hiscore.dat are stripped, the added games are junk and the older ones are slowed to a crawl.

I'm using .99 (not even that old) on a Pentium 3 and it runs stuff like Metal Slug at correct speed (slowdown in same spots at originals). Its amazing that you jump a few revisions and you need a 2ghz P4 to run Asteroids correctly.

[Red]

Can you use the latest MAME ROM set .118 on the older versions of MAME?

I have an older computer that I'd like to set up MAME on, but I only have the latest .118 MAME ROM set. 

If not, is there any place to get an older MAME ROM set?

Thanks.

Red

[Katana Man]

Mame isn't usually the problem, it's some of the other EMU's that require the horsepower.

[Apollo]

I'm still using mame .86 if anyone can give me a good reason to upgrade feel free.

[DaveMMR]

Your best bet would be to check the FAQs and/or Readme files of the emulators you want to use and see what they recommend.  Obviously, you want better than the requirements of the most demanding emulator.

[vidmouse]

Can you use the latest MAME ROM set .118 on the older versions of MAME?

I have an older computer that I'd like to set up MAME on, but I only have the latest .118 MAME ROM set. 

If not, is there any place to get an older MAME ROM set?

Thanks.

Red

Depends on how far back you want to go,
and what roms specfically you need to work.
But since you have a 118 set, it's probably
easy enough to convert back using CLRMAMEpro
and old dat files (and I have found that this isn't
100%, but it gets you close enough).

I was able to convert back to MAME 0.53
this way in order to run on my PII 300 Mhz.
Worked great.  Have since upgraded and
am currently using .106 mostly.  Haven't noticed
any drawback on older stuff including asteroids
and am using a 1.8 Ghz P4, 512MB ram.

Games that I can now enjoy that I didn't before?
Just a couple that come to mind
(in roughly some order going up from .53 to .106)

Dungeon Magic (at full speed)
Rampage World Tour
Virtua Fighter
Raiden Fighters Jet
The Crystal of Kings
Avengers in Galactic Storm

[Red]

Awesome.  Thanks vidmouse.

Just curious though, are there sites that have the older MAME ROM sets like they do the older MAME versions?  I looked, but all I could find was the older MAME versions themselves not the ROM sets. 

Red

[TOK]

I'm still using mame .86 if anyone can give me a good reason to upgrade feel free.

Robotron speed was fixed in .99.
This was major for me, since it was one of the reasons I built the cab.

[taz-nz]

I'm no expert when it comes to emulators, but I've been running one version or another of M.A.M.E. for about the last 10 years, and any number of old school computer system emulators, and the one thing you need to know about all emulators is, is that they are all GHz whores. Most Emulators like M.A.M.E. are single threaded and thus gain little to nothing from Dual/Quad Core Processors, but in saying that the Intel Core 2 Duo looks to be the current CPU king for M.A.M.E. .

So my suggestion would be:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 (3Ghz 9x333fsb)
Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme
(your choose of good quality 120mm fan)
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 motherboard
Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4 memory (2x DDR2-800 1GB Dimms)
Western Digital SATA Hard Drive (size or your choosing)
Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H graphics card (Ati Radeon 2600 XT)
(a good brand name 450+ watt Power Supply Zalman/Enermax/etc)

If it's going in a Cab install TinyXP Beast Edition on it, remove MSN,Firefox,ThunderBird and disable themes, otherwise just use WinXP, also only install the driver component of the ATI graphics drivers, don't bother with Catalyst Control Center.

Once you have all that assembled and tested, you should be able to overclock the CPU to 3.6Ghz (9x400fsb) easy.

If you want to go for more extreme get a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 or (DQ6) and Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5D G (2x DD2-1066 1GB Dimms) and aim for 4ghz (8x500fsb).

That should run just about anything you can throw at it, but there are a couple of games in M.A.M.E. that may still bring it to it's knees. You'll need to check the graphics card requirements of the Non - M.A.M.E. emulators some of them take advantage of the GPU and a faster card may be a good idea.

This is probably at the extreme end of the PC hardware scale when it comes to running emulators, but it's not really that extreme by PC gaming standards.

[tophatne1]

I know this is about MAME but what is the minimum you want for running Daphne as well? I haven't tried Daphne on anything yet but I would like to know since I have an old computer in mind.

[Apollo]

I'm still using mame .86 if anyone can give me a good reason to upgrade feel free.

Robotron speed was fixed in .99.
This was major for me, since it was one of the reasons I built the cab.

I'm using the robotron .99 rom file with mame .86

[doctorhifi]

I had a 1.3Ghz PC with 1g RAM running mame .99 and it was too slow for my tastes.  An example was Golden Tee Classic.  The framerate was mostly ok but the audio stuttered.
Daphne games worked just fine, no issues at all.
I moved to a 2.8Ghz dell and noticed a nice improvement, no framerate or audio problems with the games I play.  Plus it boots about twice as fast.

[Gutshot]

So my suggestion would be:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 (3Ghz 9x333fsb)
Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme
(your choose of good quality 120mm fan)
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 motherboard
Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4 memory (2x DDR2-800 1GB Dimms)
Western Digital SATA Hard Drive (size or your choosing)
Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H graphics card (Ati Radeon 2600 XT)
(a good brand name 450+ watt Power Supply Zalman/Enermax/etc)

Dual core seems a bit overkill at this point, everything i have read says single core at fastest clock speed is best with a good bit of memory.

I think im gonna use an old 2.4ghz P4 I have sitting around which right now is overclocked to 2.8 with 2 gigs of ram. I might even upgrade the processor to a 3ghz prescott and overclock that

[whatzcrackn]

Okay, I have a 2.2 P4 and a 3.2P4.  Orginally I was going to use the 3.2 for my simulator but I am quickly finding that is not enough.  So I was thinking of using that for my emulator machine....... it has 1 gig of memory.  A standard 300 ati something (shared memory)  I want to be able to play games that cane be played at full speed at full speed.  Someone made the comment...'impossible mission'  and it really is not.  Yes there are some games that are jjust running off period.  Obviously I am not talking about them.  I am talking the games you can play and when you play them you there is no lag based on your system.  It seems everyone has different set-ups and I would just like to know what is working and what is not before I spend chips!!

Thx for the input thus far 

[TOK]

I'm still using mame .86 if anyone can give me a good reason to upgrade feel free.

Robotron speed was fixed in .99.
This was major for me, since it was one of the reasons I built the cab.

I'm using the robotron .99 rom file with mame .86

Did you notice any difference? The Williams video blitter was not properly emulated in .86, which caused the game to run too fast. I was under the impression that the change was in MAME itself, and had nothing to do with the ROM.

[solderguy1]

Dual core seems a bit overkill at this point, everything i have read says single core at fastest clock speed is best with a good bit of memory.

Hmm, I was reading the Mameworld forums this morning and someone posted that XP would run background processes in the other core.

[Kangum]

my 1.8 ghz ran most of the 106 mame romset without issues. the only problem roms were the ridiculious chd roms that wouldnt run on a 9 ghz machine anyway.

this is not the case though since i started using visual pinball. even with ludicrous amounts of memory some tables lag at 1.8 ghz.

it depends what you wanna run. as was stressed before you wont be able to run everything even with top rate machine released yesterday.

[Apollo]

I'm still using mame .86 if anyone can give me a good reason to upgrade feel free.

Robotron speed was fixed in .99.
This was major for me, since it was one of the reasons I built the cab.

I'm using the robotron .99 rom file with mame .86

Did you notice any difference? The Williams video blitter was not properly emulated in .86, which caused the game to run too fast. I was under the impression that the change was in MAME itself, and had nothing to do with the ROM.

Hard to say, I think it's still fast. Hmmm maybe i should upgrade to .99.

[taz-nz]

whatzcrackn if you already have the P4 3.2 go with it, It will run most things in mame, you may want to get a cheap graphics card though Radeon 9600 pro of something like that.

I'm sorry but I'm going to high jack your thread, but hopefully you and everyone else here will find this info useful. I'm on holiday just kicking around the house because I can and as I work in IT sales I have access to no less than nine PC in the house, so to put the performance debate to rest I spent the better part of 8 hours today benchmarking a group of performance hungry M.A.M.E. Roms.

All system were benched with the same copy of M.A.M.E. 0.118u4 & matching ROMs. all roms were decompressed.

I used the following command line in a batch file:
mame.exe -noautoframeskip -frameskip 0 -seconds_to_run 240 -nothrottle -nosleep -video ddraw -skip_gameinfo -effect none -nowaitvsync -noreadconfig %1 (where %1 is the name of the ROMSET)
I used 240 second instead of the normal 100 for the duration as the start up test screens tended to distort the results, the larger test time countered this effect and gives truer results in my mind.

PC one:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 (2.13ghz stock)  from here on in referred to as "C2D"
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 Motherboard
2x Corsair 1gb DDR2-800 Dimms
Geforce 8800 GTS 320mb graphics card
Windows XP Pro standard install.

PC two:
Intel Pentium 4 socket-478 C-Series (3.0ghz stock) from here on in referred to as "P4C"
ASUS P4P800-SE motherboard
2x Corsair 256mb DDR-400 Dimms
2x Corsair 512mb DDR-500 Dimms (when pc overclocked)
Radeon X800 XT 256mb graphics card
TinyXP stripped to the bone.

PC three:
AMD Athlon64 X2 4200+ 939 (2.2Ghz stock) from here on in referred to as "AX2"
Gigabyte K8N-SLI  motherboard
2x Corsair 512mb DDR-500 Dimms
Geforce 8800 GTS 640mb grahpics card
Windows XP Pro (optimized)

I selected a group of ROMs with low benchmarking results from Mame Benchmarks and tried to get a good spread of game types.

Results:

BLITZ (57hz)

C2D (2.13ghz)   56.70%,    32.32fps
C2D (3.20ghz)   84.53%,    48.18fps
C2D (3.60ghz)   94.44%,    53.84fps
P4C (3.00ghz)   37.23%,    21.22fps
P4C (3.50ghz)   43.44%,    24.76fps
AX2 (2.20ghz)    45.28%,    25.81fps

(get a Core 2 Duo to 3.8Ghz and your home free on this one)

CARNEVIL (57hz)

C2D (2.13ghz)   134.05%,   76.41fps
C2D (3.20ghz)   197.96%,   112.84fps
C2D (3.60ghz)   222.20%,   126.654fps
P4C (3.00ghz)   85.16%,     48.54fps
P4C (3.50ghz)   100.33%,   57.19fps
AX2 (2.20ghz)    93.27%,    55.44fps

CALSPEED (57hz)

C2D (2.13ghz)   39.47%,    22.50fps
C2D (3.20ghz)   63.97%,    36.47fps
C2D (3.60ghz)   65.30%,    37.60fps
P4C (3.00ghz)   26.23%,    12.10fps
P4C (3.50ghz)   29.84%,    17.01fps
AX2 (2.20ghz)   31.90%,    21.60fps

(looks playable but the number don't back it up not sure why)

CRUSNUSA (57.35hz)

C2D (2.13ghz)   121.17%,    69.49fps
C2D (3.20ghz)   183.57%,    105.28fps
C2D (3.60ghz)   205.83%,    118.04fps
P4C (3.00ghz)   85.32%,      48.93fps
P4C (3.50ghz)   99.59%,      57.10fps
AX2 (2.20ghz)    83.48%,     47.88fps

GAUNTLEG (57hz)

C2D (2.13ghz)   34.65%,     19.75fps
C2D (3.20ghz)   32.50%,     18.53fps
C2D (3.60ghz)   36.47%,     20.79fps
P4C (3.00ghz)   26.56%,     15.14fps
P4C (3.50ghz)   BSOD (quick and dirty overclocking doesn't always play ball)
AX2 (2.20ghz)    29.34%,     16.72fps

(The Gauntleg doesn't really scale, I would expect this to change and there to be a jump in performance in a future version of M.A.M.E. )

MACE: (57hz)

C2D (2.13ghz)   63.01%,    35.92fps
C2D (3.20ghz)   90.04%,    51.32fps
C2D (3.60ghz)   100.53%,   57.30fps
P4C (3.00ghz)   40.70%,    23.20fps
P4C (3.50ghz)   45.07%,    26.049fps
AX2 (2.20ghz)    49.53%,    28.23fps

PROPCYCL (60hz)

C2D (2.13ghz)    37.01%,   22.21fps
C2D (3.20ghz)    55.14%,   33.08fps
C2D (3.60ghz)    61.95%,   37.17fps
P4C (3.00ghz)    24.51%,   14.71fps
P4C (3.50ghz)    27.68%,   16.61fps
AX2 (2.20ghz)    28.79%,    17.27fps

(Propcycl pauses on the first couple of balloons and I think this hurts it's score, it looks playable a 3.6ghz on the Core 2 Duo)

XEVI3DG (60hz)

C2D (2.13ghz)   156.25%,   93.75fps
C2D (3.20ghz)   233.98%,   140.39fps
C2D (3.60ghz)   262.49%,   157.49fps
P4C (3.00ghz)   115.28%,    69.17fps
P4C (3.50ghz)   133.48%,    80.09fps
AX2 (2.20ghz)    90.17%,    54.10fps

(XEVI3DG seam to like the P4 better than the AthlonX2, go figure)

If you look at the numbers carefully you will note the performance goes up at the same rate as clock speed, the P4 at 3.5ghz is 1.2x its original speed, and it's scores are 1.2x those of the process at stock speed, the same is true of the Core 2 Duo it's scores at 3.2ghz are 1.5x those of stock and at 3.6ghz 1.69 times those of stock.

Useing this as a guide you would need a Pentium 4 at 4.5ghz to match the scores of a Core 2 Duo at 2.13ghz. So you don't need 9ghz CPU to run CHD games you just need the right processor, which currently is an overclocked Core 2 Duo. (oh and before anyone asks a socket 775 prescott P4 is no better, it fact a 2.8ghz P4c at 3.5ghz 1000fsb will beat the hell out of a 3.6ghz Prescott at 800fsb even with DDR2.)

So if your shopping for the ultimate M.A.M.E. rig, get a Core 2 Duo E6850 overclock it to 4ghz and game away, I just so happens to be waiting on the last part for my 4ghz C2D setup to come, so I'll probably post score for it in about two weeks.

Anyway, if anyone has any questions about all this hit me with it.

[whatzcrackn]

Thx for taking the thread hostage! 

I am learning a lot!! 

[xmenxmen]

I found it quite crazy to make those kind of recommendation for a few games that don't really play well yet.  And once you take those 2 to 5 games all the list, there's really no games that will need more than a Penium 4 3g, dual core or single. 

I too have a system similar to this and fully overclock, but do I even thing about using it for mame, NOT.  It's a system I use for pc games, video encoding and heavy photoshop.

Not trying to dismiss anything here, but these type of recommend is just way too much.

[ddaniels]

Someone posted earlier about Dell's having a problem with the arcadevga.  I'm using a Dell Optiplex Gx270 and the AGP version of the arcadevga with no problems whatsoever.

[solderguy1]

Someone posted earlier about Dell's having a problem with the arcadevga.  I'm using a Dell Optiplex Gx270 and the AGP version of the arcadevga with no problems whatsoever.

Thanks for the info,  this thread really has me torn now.  Part of me want to spend about $350 for an ebay P4 3.0 Gx270 plus an ArcadeVGA2, which should a real easy turnkey solution (eight USB ports!).

The other part wants to spend much more cash for a future-proof overclocked gaming PC type setup, just for the experience and satisfaction of building it.

[mlalena]

Taz,
Thanks for a great post. I've been shopping PC prices to make a decision, and was wondering what to go with. This is a great help.

I was debating if the CPU difference of a P4 3.0 GHz to 3.6 GHz  was worth the price vs. getting a newer Core 2 processor with the faster FSB and faster RAM and more L1/L2 cache.

I figured that since all graphics processing was on the CPU, that bus and RAM speed was more important than an extra .6 GHz, and this proves it. I've also heard that the Core 2 processors are easier to overclock.

$183 for a Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66GHz 1333FSB which Toms Hardware pushed past 4GHz.

Now its time to research what can be easily overclocked without without all the complicated water cooling.

[u_rebelscum]

Dual core seems a bit overkill at this point, everything i have read says single core at fastest clock speed is best with a good bit of memory.

Dual core does not make mame slower, so there is no speed reason of going single core instead of dual.  The only reason is money. 
Add that it's NOT clock speed, but total speed that matters (see below). 
The best speed per core and per GHz is the core 2, whether it's dual, quad or solo.  And since quad costs $$$ more, and solo is only for OEM laptops, it leaves the duo if you want the fastest CPU for mame.

my 1.8 ghz ran most of the 106 mame romset without issues. the only problem roms were the ridiculious chd roms that wouldnt run on a 9 ghz machine anyway.

They weren't slow because they had CHDs; see propcycle speed benchmark by taz-nz.  It's just that most CHD games had more advanced hardware than most non-chd games.

...I spent the better part of 8 hours today benchmarking a group of performance hungry M.A.M.E. Roms....

Thanks taz-nz!  Another way to look at the info is to calculate FPS / GHz.  If the slow down is only due to the CPU, overclocking won't change the FPS/GHz.  If it was the PC video or sound card or something else, overclocking will have significantly lower FPS/GHz values.

	Blitz	Carnevil	Calspeed	Crusnusa	Gauntlet	Mace	Propcycl	Xevi3dg
C2D (2.13ghz)	15.174	35.873	10.563	32.624	9.272	16.864	10.427	44.014
C2D (3.20ghz)	15.056	35.263	11.397	32.900	5.791	16.038	10.338	43.872
C2D (3.60ghz)	14.956	35.182	10.444	32.789	5.775	15.917	10.325	43.747
P4C (3.00ghz)	7.073	16.180	4.033	16.310	5.047	7.733	4.903	23.057
P4C (3.50ghz)	7.074	16.340	4.860	16.314		7.443	4.746	22.883
AX2 (2.20ghz)	11.732	25.200	9.818	21.764	7.600	12.832	7.850	24.591

As you can see, the C2D has about twice the FPS/GHz than P4 (Gauntlet the expection for the overclock speeds).  And it's NOT because it's dual core.  (taz-nz, do you have a qual core to compare to, to show this? )  The AMD chip has a highe FPS/GHz than the P4 by about 50%, but not nearly as high as the C2D, and not as constant as C2D vs P4.

But as you and others said:

it depends what you wanna run. as was stressed before you wont be able to run everything even with top rate machine released yesterday.

Truth that.

[taz-nz]

Thx for taking the thread hostage! 

I am learning a lot!! 

I get paid to know this stuff in my job, I'm just trying to pass a little knowledge to others, glad you find it useful.

I found it quite crazy to make those kind of recommendation for a few games that don't really play well yet.  And once you take those 2 to 5 games all the list, there's really no games that will need more than a Penium 4 3g, dual core or single. 

I too have a system similar to this and fully overclock, but do I even thing about using it for mame, NOT.  It's a system I use for pc games, video encoding and heavy photoshop.

Not trying to dismiss anything here, but these type of recommend is just way too much.

I realise that for a lot of people an overclocked Core 2 Duo is extreme and I'm not saying everyone has to run out and buy this kind of setup now, I'm trying to show people where the future of M.A.M.E. PCs are going.

A lot of people, myself included run mame on their day to day system, so having a high spec PC will only benefit them in day to day computing.

We're talking about less than $400usd for CPU, Motherboard, RAM, and heatsink to safely hit 3.6ghz with a Core 2 Duo, the budget for the parts I need to build a two player desktop  M.A.M.E. controller comes to more., so it's all relative.

Thanks for the info,  this thread really has me torn now.  Part of me want to spend about $350 for an ebay P4 3.0 Gx270 plus an ArcadeVGA2, which should a real easy turnkey solution (eight USB ports!).

The other part wants to spend much more cash for a future-proof overclocked gaming PC type setup, just for the experience and satisfaction of building it.

It all comes down to your budget, if your looking at getting a ArcadeVGA2 I'm guessing this is going in a Cab, now if you know this is going to get some real use, then it may be worth the stretch to go the Core 2 Duo route, otherwise it may be a bit much for a dedicated M.A.M.E. system.

Taz,

I was debating if the CPU difference of a P4 3.0 GHz to 3.6 GHz  was worth the price vs. getting a newer Core 2 processor with the faster FSB and faster RAM and more L1/L2 cache.

Basically the P4 has been dead in the water since the release of the Athlon64 socket 939, the Prescott with all it's extra cache was a Band-Aid fix for the fact that the P4 way being choked by the bottle neck of it's 800fsb & insanely high Multipliers, the Pentium D (dual core) were an even more crazy Band-Aid fix to fight the release of the Athlon64 X2, how Intel managed to sell so many is beyond me. With the Core 2 Duo Intel got there act together in a big way.

I've also heard that the Core 2 processors are easier to overclock.

$183 for a Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66GHz 1333FSB which Toms Hardware pushed past 4GHz.

Now its time to research what can be easily overclocked without without all the complicated water cooling.

The Core 2 Duo is extremely overclockable, all the overclocks for the M.A.M.E. benchmarks were don't with the stock Heatsink fan, and a desk fan for help at 3.6ghz. but you need the make sure you get the right hardware to make it work, Power Supply is a big one doesn't need to be more that 450w for a basic setup, just need to be good. The E6750 normal overclock to the 3.6 - 3.8ghz range with ease on air cooling, water is really needed beyond this 3.8ghz it seams, The E6850 are generally better binned and overclock to the 3.8-4.2 range on air, 4ghz being the max the average guy is likely to ever see on air. (not everyone will get the same results with the same setup when it comes to overclocking)

The "Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme" plus a good 120mm fan is the best easy to find air cooler on the market currently, and you can always slap a 120x120x38mm fan on there if you really want to move some air and don't mind the noise.

I may build a Cab mid next year budget allowing, with a Phase change Cooled Core 2 Duo @ 4.5-5.0ghz but that's a whole other story.

The best speed per core and per GHz is the core 2, whether it's dual, quad or solo.  And since quad costs $$$ more, and solo is only for OEM laptops, it leaves the duo if you want the fastest CPU for mame.

Now if only Intel would make a 45nm 2mb Cache Core 2 solo @5ghz with a 1333fsb and then we would be really rocking, but it's not going to happen.

They weren't slow because they had CHDs; see propcycle speed benchmark by taz-nz.  It's just that most CHD games had more advanced hardware than most non-chd games.

 Most of the really slow to emulate game in mame currently are games that ran in the Arcade on 3DFX hardware, and have 2 or more GPUs and CPUs to emulate.

As you can see, the C2D has about twice the FPS/GHz than P4 (Gauntlet the expection for the overclock speeds).  And it's NOT because it's dual core.  (taz-nz, do you have a qual core to compare to, to show this? )  The AMD chip has a highe FPS/GHz than the P4 by about 50%, but not nearly as high as the C2D, and not as constant as C2D vs P4.

Sorry no Quad Core at hand, I did build a couple at work for review purposes before I when on holiday, if they haven't been return and stripped when I get back I see If I can get some numbers off the 3.6ghz overclocked Q6600. But they will probably be no better, possible worse than the Core 2 Duo figures, only one of Cores in the Core 2 Duo is really being used by M.A.M.E. the other is sitting at like 2% running system tasks in the back ground, I would expect the Quad core to be the same, just with the 3 spare Cores playing hot potato with the system tasks. I also have a couple of the unleased AMD Opteron 2340 quad core sitting in the top draw of my desk at work, that the boss wants me to build a display machine around, they could give some interesting number with all their new core tweaks.

But as you and others said:

it depends what you wanna run. as was stressed before you wont be able to run everything even with top rate machine released yesterday.

Truth that.

Yep there is always going to be something that need more CPU power, the only problem is with the trend towards multi-core CPUs there are game that will never be playable on M.A.M.E. while it's still single threaded.

[Zeppo]

Ok, here's a different type of question:

What game takes the most power to run?

At work we are about to free up a big server temporarily.
Boss told me I could put mame on it for a bit and check it out before we wipe it for something else.