4Ghz Core 2 Duo vs M.A.M.E. 0.120 (benchmark results)

[u_rebelscum]

So I finally got around to try and setup MAME.
But have yet to put together a PC for it.
I have some older attributes laying around what I am planning to use:
AMD X2 4800+
Nvidia 7900GT
2gig ram
250gig harddisk

For a semi-comparable rig benchmarked, check out mameUI's benchmark page.  He includes a AMD X2 5000+, but the benchs are 64bit os & mame, and no video & sound, you're system will be a little slower on the same games.

[TheManuel]

Just about anything 3D requires a CORE2DUO processor.  You're not going to be happy with ANYTHING AMD produces,  period.   If you want to play Blitz, the racers, 3d fighters, etc... you're looking at a CORE2DUO.

... and not just any Core2Duo.  For the most demanding games (Seattle driver, etc.) you need your C2D running over 3GHz so it's either one of the very expensive ones a cheaper one overclocked to those speeds.
I would say it's not worth it if you don't care for 3D games (I don't personally).

[taz-nz]

It all depends on what ROMS you want to run, MAME has a huge preformance chasm between the older 2D games and 3D/CHD games, Pentium 4s run up to the chasm full in head first, the Pentium Ds burst into flames before they even get to the edge, Celerons die on the start line of the run up, Athlon 64s leap over the edge but don't even make it to half way, Athlon X2s make to about half way before dropping like a stone. Almost any Core2duo at stock clock speed will get you to the other side of the performance chasm, but it may just be holding on to the other side with it's finger tips, an overclocked Core2duo at 4ghz on the other hand will easily clear the gap leaving only a half dozen stones to trip over in the form of ROMS still running at less that 100% playable. (Ok that enough of the metaphor)

If you want to be able to run all but a handful of the ROMs MAME you need a Core 2 Duo overclocked around 4ghz, there is no other solution currently available or likely to be available in the near future that will do this. In regards to Windows 64bit vs 32bit, an Athlon64/AthlonX2/Core2duo will benefit from running 64bit, but you only really see an ingame difference in those ROMs that only the Core 2 Duo can run.

While you can't build a Core 2 Duo system as cheap as a Athlon system, you do get a hell of a lot more preformance out of a Core 2 Duo setup, and you don't have to spend the earth to get it. Here is a quick run down on what I would use if I wanted to build a complete MAME system from scatch on a budget:

- Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 - 10x stock multiplier makes for an easy overclock to 4ghz without the need for expensive RAM.
$139.99

- Sunbeam(tuniq) Core Contact Freezer - great cooling which is a must for overclocking and without a huge price.
$34.99 (($24.99 after $10.00 Mail-In rebate)

- Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L - Stable & proven overclocking plateform at a good price.
$101.99 ($86.99 after $15.00 Mail-In rebate) or $71.26 (for open box item)

- Corsair 2x1GB DD2-800 - Stable reliable brand at a good price, at 400mhz (1600 FSB) you will still be able to run 1:1 timing and the ram will be a stock speed.
$49.99 ($19.99 after $30.00 Mail-In rebate)

Core components SUB TOTAL : $256.23 (presuming you claim all rebates and get the un-boxed motherboard)

- Western Digital WD3200AAJS HDD - 320GB, 7200rpm, 3.5", should be large enough and fast enough even to handle all the future Laser Disc games.
$57.99

- GIGABYTE Radeon HD2400-XT - 256MB happily run in Vista and should be more than enough for MAME.
$36.99 ($16.99 after $20.00 Mail-In rebate)

- COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 - stock 430watt included is good enough for most MAME user needs.
$69.99

Basic System SUB TOTAL : $401.20 (presuming again you claim all mail in rebates and get the open box motherboard)

- Lite-ON 16X DVD-ROM - lets you install OS and load system with ROM set.
$17.99

- Vista Home Basic 64bit OEM - don't need the extra as long as it's 64bit.
$89.99

Complete System TOTAL : $509.18  (Just make sure you claim all the rebates, otherwise it's a hair under $600)

[maniac e]

Well guys thanks for the info
I'll probably go with 2 systems if i read it this way, one out of my old stuff and later on getting new stuff for the second one.
Play around with the old stuff so I know what to do for the new one.

Again thanks.

[Flake]

Just for the record I am able to play Cruisin World on my system (Pentium D 2.8 GHZ, 3.25 GB Ram, 250 GB HD, NVidia 8400GS).  It doesnt run 100% but is definitely playable.  I was under the impression that my processor wouldnt come close to handling that game but suprisingly it does.  The only game that I cant play but wish I could is Tekken 3 (well besides Blitz games).  It also plays NBA Jam 100% as well.

[TheManuel]

Taz and retrometro:
How much RAM are you using in your setups (at least when you ran the benchmarks you provided in this post)?
I'm trying to get a feel for what expect with:
1GB
2GB
4GB
Particularly with Vista 64-bit.

Thanks.

[FrizzleFried]

Are E7300's hitting 4GHZ easily these days?

[FrizzleFried]

Welp,  we'll find out...cuz I just bought everything you recommended up there...

The plan is to upgrade the horizontal MAME with this computer,  then take the AMD64 3200+ currently in the MAME and use it for the dedicated driver I will be working on shortly...

[taz-nz]

Are E7300's hitting 4GHZ easily these days?

Welp,  we'll find out...cuz I just bought everything you recommended up there...

The plan is to upgrade the horizontal MAME with this computer,  then take the AMD64 3200+ currently in the MAME and use it for the dedicated driver I will be working on shortly...

Ok so 'easily' should be taken as a realive term, but yes you should with a little luck and some tweaking be able to get it stable at 4ghz (there is always a little luck involved with overclocking).

I haven't overclocked an E7300 myself as yet, but I've seen enough examples of it being done to say you shouldn't have to many issues achieving it, some of the more extreme examples are 4.1ghz with only the stock cooler, 4.4ghz with air cooling and more than a litte voltage, but there are plenty of people hitting the magic 4ghz mark without any extreme measures.

Remember a year ago about the time I started this thread, people were getting the E6750 (stock 2.66ghz) to 4ghz (most got them to 3.7-3.9ghz) but it shows that a core2duo with a stock 2.66ghz core speed like the E7300 can reach those speeds, add to that the manufacture and stepping improvement between then and now, and you'll probably have less problems hitting 4ghz than I did with my original E6850.

Anyway good luck and let us know how you get on.

[Bigtymer781]

This was in the "Whats New" text document for MAME .0128

Source Changes
--------------
Added new tool ldresample to assist in resynchronizing audio tracks in
a CHD with frames. Currently still WIP but useful if you know what
you're doing. [Aaron Giles]


Does anyone know how to use the new ldresample tool, or where I could find directions to?

[taz-nz]

This was in the "Whats New" text document for MAME .0128

Source Changes
--------------
Added new tool ldresample to assist in resynchronizing audio tracks in
a CHD with frames. Currently still WIP but useful if you know what
you're doing. [Aaron Giles]


Does anyone know how to use the new ldresample tool, or where I could find directions to?

Sorry no, I make a point of reading the 'whats new' file every week, but I'm almost a full developement cycle out of date currently on my roms and version of MAME I'm running, don't have any of the laser disc CHD's as yet, figured I'd wait until the dev team stopped playing with them, then get them.

If this is related to your problem in sfrush, I don't think this tool will help you any, I think you'll find it only relates to Laser Disc CHDs and getting the audio tracks in sync with the video frames.   

You might have more luck over at MAME Chat Forum most of dev team hang out there and somebody can probably here you out.

[Bigtymer781]

Well I actually found a way to get the sound synced in sfrush, its kind of a flukey way. Thanks for responding though, I know this isn't the place to talk about this. 

[Bigtymer781]

For anyone who cares...I recorded a video and posted it on Youtube of me playing San Francisco Rush in MAME.



Keep in mind I was running FRAPS in the background, so it might not of been running as smooth as normal, some audio stuttering here and there. I'll stop spamming this forum now. 

[FrizzleFried]

How do you control Rush?  Spinner?

[Bigtymer781]

I use a playstation 2 controller, the analog part of it for driving games, it's too sensitive for playing Rush, I need to figure out how to make it less.

[Popcorrin]

Well I actually found a way to get the sound synced in sfrush, its kind of a flukey way. Thanks for responding though, I know this isn't the place to talk about this. 

What did you have to do to get it to sync up?  Adjust the latency in the mame.ini?

[Bigtymer781]

I'm not exactly sure, during the steering wheel test at start up I keep pressing abort, and maybe about 1 out of 10 times the sound is synced. Either that or I enabled the Boot Rom Test Dip Switch, and after trying to exit it about 3 times I then disable the Boot Rom Test Dip Switch and restart the game, and magically 1 out of 10 times or less, the sound is synced.

I wish I had a better answer.

[FrizzleFried]

Alright....I have everything up and running...and my CPU overclocks to 3700mhz with a simply bump of the vcore to 1.3 and FSB to 370.  Anything after that and I lose stability.  What other settings should I be looking at to get it to 4,000mhz?    This board has a bunch of voltage settings I am not used to.  Do I need to mess with any of them?  Should I mess with any of the memory settings?   

[Bigtymer781]

What motherboard is it, what CPU is it and what memory is it?

[FrizzleFried]

Intel Core 2 Duo E7300
Sunbeam(tuniq) Core Contact Freezer
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L
Corsair 2x1GB DD2-800

[Bigtymer781]

I think that CPU has a 10x multiplier, if so set it to 10x. Make sure the memory isnt running above its stock speeds so you know its not the bottle neck, especially if its cheaper memory. Slowly raise the voltage on the cpu? Id personally google some safe voltages to try first. "E7300 overclocking" for example. Maybe download RealTemp to keep an eye on your CPU temperature.
 

[Bigtymer781]

Do you have a bios setting "DRAM Frequency" try setting it to AUTO.

[FrizzleFried]

Bah...this thing looks to top out at 3.7ghz...  the tweaking ensues.

[Bigtymer781]

Overclocking a new system is a lot of trial and error, it took me about a week to get things optimal.

[taz-nz]

Alright....I have everything up and running...and my CPU overclocks to 3700mhz with a simply bump of the vcore to 1.3 and FSB to 370.  Anything after that and I lose stability.  What other settings should I be looking at to get it to 4,000mhz?    This board has a bunch of voltage settings I am not used to.  Do I need to mess with any of them?  Should I mess with any of the memory settings?   

Your probably going to have to play with more than the basics to get 4.0ghz, but 3.7ghz @ 1.3v your still got plenty of head room CPU voltage wise, from what I've seen you'll need between 1.36-1.4v to get 4.ghz stable (1.45v is generally concidered the max save day to day voltage for a 45nm Core2Duo), you will problably want to tweek a few of the chipset voltage too.

Going straight for the kill, with CPU voltage and FSB alone almost never works, it best to take it in stages.

Start by checking you have the lastest bios for the mother board, if not download the last version and update using Q-Flash in bios.

In Bios under 'Advanced Bios Features' disable: C1E, TM2, IEST (these features can fight you when your overclocking)

Next you want to try and get to the FSB and RAM working stablely at 400mhz (1600 FSB) while keeping the CPU clock speed and core voltage basically stock. To do this you want to get the 'CPU Clock Ratio' to between 6-7x(6x +0.5 while be the closest to stock), Set the 'CPU Host Frequency' to 400mhz, I like to manual set the 'PCI-E Clock Freqency' to 100mhz, disable CIA2, set the 'System Memory Multiplier' to 2.0B, leave the 'DRAM Timing Selectable' to auto unless the memory timings don't match those on the written on the RAM, leave the CPU core voltage stock, you may want set 'DRAM OverVoltage Control' to +0.2v (Corsair RAM seem to like the extra voltage). This will get you the CPU running at about 2.6ghz with 400mhz (1600 FSB), with the ram running at stock DDR2-800, do a few stress tests it at these setting and tweak the PCI-E/FSB/MCH Overvoltage Controls as need to get it stable probably on need about +0.1v on each but you'll need to play with each and see what result you get.

Once you have the system 100% for like 2 hours at 100% load in Orthos, you can move onto the next step which is to increasing the 'CPU Clock Ratio', one step at a time so from 6x to 7x, then to 7x to 8x ...., and test the system for stablity with each step, increase the CPU voltage as needed, in theory you should get to 9x at ~1.3volts which with a 400mhz (1600FSB) will give you a 3.6Ghz clock speed,at this point you will probably want to start using the 'Fine CPU Clock Ratio' to add +0.5 to get a cpu mutliplier of 9.5, also suggest without change any other setting dropping the 'CPU HOST Frequency' to 390mhz this will under clock your RAM a little but give you a CPU clock speed of 3.7ghz (which you've aready had stable) but with a higher FSB, once you happy the system is stable at those setting you can increase 'CPU HOST Frequency' back to 400mhz which will give you 3.8ghz with 400FSB thise will probably require more CPU core voltage but with a with little luck you shouldn't have to play with anything else, once stable there the next step is change the  'CPU Clock Ratio' to 10x the 'Fine CPU Clock Ratio' to 0.0 and lower the 'CPU HOST Frequency' down to 390mhz once again, this will give 3.9ghz again your will likely need to add more CPU core voltage (don't get carried away) you may need to tweak the chipset voltage again at this point to get it stable (very likely if it fails to POST) once your happy if's stable there go for the kill, bump the 'CPU HOST Frequency' back to 400mhz add tweak CPU voltage as needed to get it stable at 4.0ghz.

Don't get silly with the CPU Core voltage you don't want to use anymore than you have to, also check what the actual CPU Core voltage is in CPUz you'll notice that the actual voltage is often lower than the voltage set in bios (this becomes more notice as you raise the clock speed of the CPU), it will also drop lower under full load, you want the Acutal CPU Core voltage to stay below 1.45v for day to day running, but I wouldn't think you'll need much more than 1.4v to get it stable. You will want to stress test the system for 1 to 2 hours each step of the way, may sound like a waste of time but it's no good increasing the overclock if it's not 100% stable at the current settings.

The newer versions of the bios have some addition tweaking options, but I'm working from the PDF version of the manual for your board, I've got a GA-X38-DQ6 which has basically the same bios, but I'd need you to confirm that feature and options are available in the 'MB Intelligent Tweaker' section of you boards bios, before can offer advice of what else might help.

[Neverending Project]

This is quite the informative thread. Does anyone have any thoughts on whether the Nehalem architecture that Intel will be manufacturing next year will provide a substantial leap over the Core 2 in MAME? My initial thoughts are that it won't be substantial, but I am not really in the know... just speculating.

Here are some of the features I have read about:
* Turbo Boost - CPU will shut down idle cores to save power - not much help for MAME here.
* Integrated graphics core in the CPU - not much help for MAME here.
* Integrated memory controller - possibly helpful?
* Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) - faster pipes for chips and system components to communicate - possibly helpful, but it seems like this would most benefit multi-core operations.
* DDR3 memory and shared L3 cache - this should help.
* Each core can execute two simultaneous software threads - this would help, but be most helpful for highly-threaded applications - hence not really MAME.

Any other opinions on all this?

[Tiger-Heli]

On Nehalem - keep in mind MAME now supports a lot of multi-threading which is one of the reasons C2D outperforms AMD on it.

Keep in mind also that eventually most of the Dev Team will likely upgrade to C2D or Nehalem, so it is in their interest to capitalize on its enhancements.

So while 0.120 might not run much better on it, 0.150 certainly could.

[u_rebelscum]

On Nehalem - keep in mind MAME now supports a lot of multi-threading which is one of the reasons C2D outperforms AMD on it.

No, not a reason: 2, 3 and 4 core AMDs don't get the same boost as C2D or C2Q.  Because the Core2 is more powerful per core.  (Just like the dual P4s don't get as must boost as dual core AMDs, because the AMD is powerful than the P4, but the difference isn't as much as between the core2 and anything below it.)

If the Nehalem is less power per core than core2, it won't help mame.  We'll need to wait and see.

Keep in mind also that eventually most of the Dev Team will likely upgrade to C2D or Nehalem, so it is in their interest to capitalize on its enhancements.

So while 0.120 might not run much better on it, 0.150 certainly could.

Agree.  It's much easier to code for what you have, than for what you don't.

[taz-nz]

This is quite the informative thread. Does anyone have any thoughts on whether the Nehalem architecture that Intel will be manufacturing next year will provide a substantial leap over the Core 2 in MAME? My initial thoughts are that it won't be substantial, but I am not really in the know... just speculating.

Any other opinions on all this?

- I would expect clock for clock a Core i7 (Nehalem) will be a little faster than a Core2duo due to improvements in basic architure of the Nehalem core.

- I don't think the intergrated three channel memory contoller will have much if any real effect on MAMEs perfomance, while this is probably the largest single improvement in the Core i7 design over the Core2duo memory bandwidth and latency doesn't seem to be that big an issue for MAME on atleast not on a Core2duo system.

- The elimitation of the FSB bottle neck with the introduction of QPI, and the large amounts of internal shared Cache memory in the Core I7 may throw up some surprises when it comes to MAME performance, the high FSB Core2duo don't really show any major signs of being bottle necked, the Core2quads on the other hand do.

- Hyper threading on the Core i7 will likely get in the way of MAME preformance with it's mostly Single Threaded design, I'm guessing disabling this feature if it is possible will aid the perfomance of MAME on the Core i7, unless Intel have made some major improvement to how it works from the P4 days.

- Clock speed will be the down fall of the Core i7, MAME is the ultimate Ghz whore, nothing gains you more preformance in MAME than upping the clock speed of your CPU, good CPU architure does matter but it's unlike that the architural improvements in the Core i7 will be able to add enough preformance to match the brute force of a heavily overclocked Core2duo. The Core i7 being a new CPU design and being a quad core will be unlikely to overclock anywhere near as well as the lastest Core2Duo E8600 E0 stepped CPUs do, the Core i7 will be limited by it's need for power and heat it will produce just like the Core2quad is when it comes to overclocking. I expect to see the Core i7 hit 4ghz, but with the Core2duo is already able to hit 5ghz+ with highend cooling, I expect the Core2duo to hold onto it's single threaded preformance crown for some time to come.

Future developement in MAME may well see it gain more performance on the Core i7 with time, but this will be limited unless MAME suddenly becomes fully multi threaded to take advantage of all four of Core i7 cores, until then the power saving features will get a workout powering down the cores left unused by MAME.
(Note: this is not a jab at the Dev Team, I understand there are very good reasons behind why MAME is largely lacking in mutli thread support)

[holtzboy]

Wow, it's great to see San Francisco RUSH running so smoothly! What kind of components does your computer have BigTymer?

[Bigtymer781]

It's an Asus P5Q3 Deluxe motherboard, 2GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600mhz memory, and the E8500 (E0 stepping) cpu. Altogether barely costing over $500. I'm reusing everything else from my old machine.

[holtzboy]

Cool thanks for the info. I don't know if you remember, but we were talking about how much Midway Arcade Treasures 3 sucked on the IGN boards a couple years ago but now that doesn't matter since Rush is MAME-able! Is Rush the Rock playable too? Did it have any new songs besides the techno-ish 'The Rock' song?

[Bigtymer781]

I sent you a personal message.

[headkaze]

Has anyone noticed these new settings in mame.ini? I never seen them before? They are off by default. I probably wouldn't mess with process priority by the multithreading option is interesting. I wonder if this will take advantage of a Quad Core?

Code: [Select]

#
# WINDOWS PERFORMANCE OPTIONS
#
priority                  0
multithreading            0
Just gave it a try and I got about a 5% increase on Blitz.

[Bigtymer781]

What Mame version are you using? Ive used MameUI and Ive seen those options before.

[taz-nz]

Has anyone noticed these new settings in mame.ini? I never seen them before? They are off by default. I probably wouldn't mess with process priority by the multithreading option is interesting. I wonder if this will take advantage of a Quad Core?

Code: [Select]

#
# WINDOWS PERFORMANCE OPTIONS
#
priority                  0
multithreading            0
Just gave it a try and I got about a 5% increase on Blitz.

My understanding is that the -mt command creates an additional thread that handles the final outputs. Any mutlicore CPU will gain something from this switch, but it depends on the CPU speed and the ROM being emulated as to how much you gain. It doesn't effect the software SLI feature of MAME used to emulate 3DFX hardware and alike, this feature work regardless of the -mt switch.

I had someone on another forum run a MAME benchmark on his Core 2 Quad Q9450 which is overclocked to 4ghz, on Vista 64bit, running MAMEUI64 it benchmarked Gradius4 at 126.75% where as my Core 2 Duo E8500 @ 4ghz gets 119.7% running the same setup, so while the gain on a quadcore it's not really worth the extra cost of the CPU.



 

[holtzboy]

So I got my new computer put together which consists of:

Gigabyte GA-P45-UD3P motherboard with F7A bios
8GB of G.Skill PC-8000 BPQ memory
Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3.78Ghz (420 * 9X) @ 55° load
Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120 CPU cooler
Corsair HX620 Power Supply
Samsung Burner
Western Digital 640AAKS main drive, Samsung Spinpoint 1TB storage drive
Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP1

To my surprise, San Francisco RUSH on my system runs fairly playable with some sound stutters here and there. After some tweaking with my wireless xbox 360 controller I can actually control it pretty good. It's too bad Rush the Rock gets stuck after you select your vehicle, that would be quite fun to play. I tried pressing the view buttons during the track/car selection to enable 'Solo' mode and disable 'Drones' but I guess they are correct when it says "You will not get this game working don't even try." I also messed with the service menu settings for too long which didn't help. I doubt there will be a fix anytime soon but until that day I guess I can keep on playing the 3 tracks on plane ol Rush!

[Bigtymer781]

What Mame version are you using to play Rush? Are you able to get the sound synced up? If you haven't already try using Mame.121 (64-bit), it's about 10% faster in Rush than other versions that I've tried. I use MameUI .121 (64-bit). Another thing is, the actual arcade had 4 channel surround sound, I wonder if their is a way to get that hooked up in Mame instead of 4 channel sound only coming through 2 speakers.

If you go to YouTube and search "Mame San Francisco Rush" you can see my Rush videos, I have tracks 1, 2 and 3 on there now.

[holtzboy]

I am using the 64-bit version of MameUI .121. Maybe that's why its so playable even though my cpu is under 4.0Ghz. The sound has never been synced up before and according to the menu in Mame, I have launched/played it 35+ times. Do you know what exactly is holding up Rush the Rock after you select your vehicle and it is flashing "Preparing Car?" I wonder how hard it would be for Aaron Giles or whoever is working on MAME to fool the game so it thinks the settings are correct or whatever so we can play it!

[Bigtymer781]

I've messed with Rush the Rock too, after you select a car the race never starts because it relies on networking even in single player mode. That's kind of weird.

But, if you want the sound to sync up in normal SF Rush try this...

What you do is start the game, go into the general MAME options by hitting tab, go to dip switches and enable the "Boot Rom Test" dip switch and exit the game. Start the game again,when the Boot Rom Tests menu appears exit it, the game will restart and the menu will appear again, exit it again, when the menu appears for the third time go back into the general MAME options and disable the "Boot Rom Test" dip switch, then exit the Boot Rom Tests menu, the game will restart and now just hit abort to skip the steering wheel tests and when the game starts the sound will be synced.