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How much of a difference does a better graphics card make?
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Jop:
I've been offered a geForce 4400 by a friend and I'm wondering if it'll make much of a difference to my setup below or would I be better finding more RAM to stick in there?

P4 1.7ghz
384mb RAM
geForce 2mx
MAME32 0.106

I'm only really interested in the 2d games and most run good, however, there are a few where I'd like to see some improvement.
leapinlew:
I'd say you need more memory - especially if your system is running XP and isn't thinned down.
2600:
I think a processor upgrade would do better then RAM.  The Williamette P4's, 2.0GHz and lower, are practically useless. 
I'd rather run a P3 then those.  The only problem is you may not be able to do a processor upgrade.
Jop:

--- Quote ---I'd say you need more memory - especially if your system is running XP and isn't thinned down.
--- End quote ---

Yeah, I know, but I need old SD RAM and no-one I know seems to have any knocking around anymore.

Even I can remember uttering the words "no-one will ever need this old crap again" whilst chucking about 2million gigabytes of the stuff in the bin!


--- Quote ---I think a processor upgrade would do better then RAM.  The Williamette P4's, 2.0GHz and lower, are practically useless.
--- End quote ---

I can't agree with you more but I'm existing in the land of 'freebies from my mates' and this is the best I was offered ;)
Fozzy The Bear:
Graphics cards will make little difference to performance in Mame 2D Games and as that is what you say you want to run, that system is fine. However.......

1) Drop Windows XP and install windows98SE. XP is a System Hog and not ideal for that machine. 98SE will be faster on that machine.

2) As you only want to run 2D classics.... Drop back to a version of Mame around 0.87 or so and get a rom set to match it. Drop Mame32 and install the command line version, and install a front end.

3) Incease that Memory to around 512Megs   (Ebay for memory modules, or find some junk PC's being chucked out and scavinge the SDRam) I quite often pick stuff up from the local junk tip... Where they tend to haul anything like that out and stick it on one side to sell off for a bit of beer money. I've had a complete Mac system with monitor printer and a box of software, in the past for £5 plugged it in and the whole lot worked. I've had 4 PC's of various specs, two of which worked first time, and two which I just stripped for parts for about £2 each. People throw out perfectly good technology when they get bored with it.

4) A 1.7Ghz P4 is perfectly good enough... I run one of my machines with a 1.5Ghz P4 and it's more than fast enough to run almost anything except CHD games.

5) If you're using on board sound, dich it,  it's chewing up system memory. Fit a cheap 16Bit Soundblaster card instead. This can have a massive effect on performance.

It just needs a bit of effort to get something good working....Hope that helps.....

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
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