Massive slowdown...

[councilface]

On my PC whilst playing games like strider 2 and MK. Im a newbie so please dont flame too much.

Im guessing its because of my NVDIA vanta 16mb video card.

What sort of card would I need to get my PC running the latest MAME compatible games? 

[AtomSmasher]

From my little understanding of Mame, I believe video cards have little to nothing to do with game performance, its almost entirely dependant on processor speed.

Another option is to run an older version of mame, which would help the games run faster.  The original MK ran great on an old 800mhz machine I had that ran something around mame version 0.95

[DaveMMR]

What are the rest of your computer specs?  The processor speed is usually the biggest culprit in MAME running slow.  But yeah, I would try an older version of MAME before upgrading.

[u_rebelscum]

... video cards have little to nothing to do with game performance, its almost entirely mostly dependant on processor speed.

Used to be no effect, but Mame is now using the video card, but mostly for non-emulating stuff like resizing to the PC screen's resolution and artwork. 

Your TNT2 Vanta card probably is causing some slow down if you are using mame's default settings, but we'd need more specs to be sure.  The two mame settings you might want to try changing to see if it's the video card is change the resolution to lower numbers, and use directdraw instead of direct3d.  See, umm, here and here for detailed info on this, or post your specs and you'll give you more specific help. 

[councilface]

Thanks Guys, Im running a P4 so it shouldnt really be my processor (I would have thought). I will post my other specs when I get home from work.

In other news my girlfriend is adamant on becoming a Robotron hero. I may have converted her 

[ironmichael]

Also, I would check to see if any background applications are bogging down your CPU when you experience slowdowns - things like antivirus etc.  Eliminate anything that isn't necessary if you haven't done so already.

[u_rebelscum]

Thanks Guys, Im running a P4 so it shouldnt really be my processor (I would have thought). I will post my other specs when I get home from work.

Depends on how fast your P4 is.  IIRC, a P4 @ 1.4 Ghz was about the same as a PIII @ 1 Ghz, which IIRC isn't enough for MK anymore, let alone strider2 (which needs about 2 to 4 times the proccessing power to emulate as mk).  Add to this, strider 2 is still WIP with imperfect graphics, sound, and other emulation.


Anyway, just in case your newbieness includes you not yet aware of the "emulation slowdown", the system doing the emulation needs within about an order of magnitude of 10 times better than the processing power of the system being emulated.  And since mame doesn't like taking shortcuts that change the play, it's in the higher end of the range (call it about 20-40 times generally).  Hmm, since the new official mameFAQ is down ATM, link old mameFAQ.

[SirPeale]

Reduce your game resolution to 640x480 and try again.

[councilface]

Cheers Peale and RS. I'll try the resolution thing.

My Cab is at my parents so I keep forgetting to note down my specs (too busy playing robotron  )

Donkey kong and toobin are also unplayable due to being so slow.  Could the sound card have anything to do with it?

[Malenko]

onboard usually = bad frame rates

I have a POS Dell Optiplex 210L  P4@2.4GHz had onboard vid and sound but when I upgraded the sound in my main desktop I passed on the SB Live! 24bit to MAME and then I snagged a nVidia 256MB PCI card for like $40 at compUSA and now everything looks and plays tons better, well my optilplex case doesnt look better anymore (1/2 sized case + a hole = full sized cards in the case)

[councilface]

... video cards have little to nothing to do with game performance, its almost entirely mostly dependant on processor speed.

Used to be no effect, but Mame is now using the video card, but mostly for non-emulating stuff like resizing to the PC screen's resolution and artwork. 

Your TNT2 Vanta card probably is causing some slow down if you are using mame's default settings, but we'd need more specs to be sure.  The two mame settings you might want to try changing to see if it's the video card is change the resolution to lower numbers, and use directdraw instead of direct3d.  See, umm, here and here for detailed info on this, or post your specs and you'll give you more specific help. 

Thanks guys, I changed to ddraw and now most things are tickety boo. Toobin, King of Fighters, MK, Samauri Showdown etc are all at full speed. Still having trouble with donkey Kong now that the sound isnt sampled so I may just drop down to an old rev of mame.

Thanks for your time.