minimum requirements for PC

[n88n]

Hello all,

I am sure this has been covered but my searching did not really yield any solid responses.

I have recently found, bought and fixed a Centipede arcade machine and I love it.  I have always wanted a street fighter and MK machine as well.  I thought it would be a great idea to build my own MAME machine.

What are the specs for a PC that I need to get to run smoothly?  As stated above I am real interested in fighting games and I imagine that is pretty hard on a PC.

what do you think?

thanks!

Nate

[shardian]

A P4 pc will run all of your fighting games no problem. Even my budget 1.3ghc celeron home pc can run 90% of them. It does have problems with UMK3 with a little lag and sound tearing.

[gonzo90017]

For Capcom or SNK fighters you really don't need much. I'm using a 400mhz pc with a stripped down version of XP I created using Nlite http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=59373.0  and they all run full speed with no frameskip. I just use Nebula for Capcom and Winkawaks for NeoGeo. Mortal Kombat is another story I think you need something like 1ghz.

[n88n]

thanks for the fast responses guys!

I have an older machine that I use for testing programming projects.  The processor is like 1.4, not sure what gen of intel it is.  There is about .9 gig of RAM.  The video card sucks as it is the built in hardwired mother board one.  I think all the slots are normal PCI and not PCI express.

Does that sound like it will cut it?  Do i need a better video card? 

Again my most important games would be old school Street fighter and MK's along with the classic games like pacman, Q-bert and all that oldschool crap.

am I in good shape with that PC?

Nate

[ahofle]

Not to sound rude, but why don't you just try playing the games on it and see for yourself?

[n88n]

hehe.  that is not rude.

Not sure I guess.  I was daydreaming at work and a mame machine is something I daydream about so I thought i would ask about a PC that I am about to retire.

Maybe your answer is the right one.  I have never tried to set all that stuff up so I am sure that would take me quite a while to find all the software and what not.

[shardian]

hehe.  that is not rude.

Not sure I guess.  I was daydreaming at work and a mame machine is something I daydream about so I thought i would ask about a PC that I am about to retire.

Maybe your answer is the right one.  I have never tried to set all that stuff up so I am sure that would take me quite a while to find all the software and what not.

All you need to test that machine out is a copy of mame32. No setup necessary - just plug in roms and play.

[n88n]

thanks!  I downloaded mame32 and SF rom to give it a whirl.  My work PC is real fast so I will have to test at home.  Good to see it is nice and easy.

So is this the emulator that most people run on their mame machines?  The you guys use some sort of front end to pretty it up and automate mame32?

[shardian]

thanks!  I downloaded mame32 and SF rom to give it a whirl.  My work PC is real fast so I will have to test at home.  Good to see it is nice and easy.

So is this the emulator that most people run on their mame machines?  The you guys use some sort of front end to pretty it up and automate mame32?

If you are using a front end, it is better to use the command line mame. I have had some rom compatibility issues with mame 32.

[n88n]

thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions.

I will give mame32 a try on my home PC to see how it behaves.

So most people run a command line mame behind a front end?  So the front end simply looks slick and "shells" out the command lines to start the particular games?  Seems pretty easy.  I bet I could build a local Flash application as a front end to shell the command lines.

Neat.