Got a computer I need help getting ready for MAME.

[tophatne1]

I just picked up a Dell that I want to use for MAME.

Here's the stats:

Dell Dimension 8300
Windows XP Home Ed.
P4 2.6ghz
512 Ram
NVidia GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8x

My on-board sound card doesn't seem to be detected or working so my guess is that I will need a new sound card. I have a 2.1 speaker set up I want to use. What card would you suggest I get? Do they even sell 2.1 cards anymore?

Also will I be able to run almost everything up until MK II on this computer?

Thanks guys!

[Kajoq]

That PC is pretty similar to the one in my cab.

Mine is 2.4 ghz, 1gb ram, Arcade VGA (so radeon 9800).

It runs all the 2d stuff perfectly, and some of the early 3d stuff as well.  If you run into problems with games like MK2 and other games of that era, You might try upgrading to 1gb of ram.  You might be alright with 512 though

[DaOld Man]

as for the sound not working, have you looked in BIOS to see if on board sound is disabled?

[Fozzy The Bear]

as for the sound not working, have you looked in BIOS to see if on board sound is disabled?

Either that, or there is sometimes a jumper on the board itself to disable it.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[rufio]

Also if you have just installed windows most of the time you need to install the sounddriver for integrated soundcards or else it won´t show up at all (except as unknown device).

[tophatne1]

yeah it is a fresh install of XP. I'm going to look into the sounddriver.

I know it's a fairly simple and common thing for a lot of you guys when it comes to loading bios but I've never done it before so I need to do some research.

I'm much better at cabinet building than computer stuff. 

[tophatne1]

Do you think this will work?

http://mainboard-drivers-and-utilities.free-driver-download.com/Intel/19982/Intel-Integrated-Audio-Driver-5.10.0.5034-Windows-2000-XP.html

[divemaster127]

Dell computers normally come with a all in one disk, if you sent me a pm I could prob. get you one of those dell cd's with all drivers for that computer
dm

[TheShanMan]

And check Device Manager - if the sound drivers aren't loaded you'll see a problem item in the device tree there, something like "Unknown Device" with a yellow exclamation point.

[unclet]

That would be a yellow "question mark" I believe ........ not an exclamation point

[Green Giant]

The other option is that the onboard sound is broken which happened on mine.  Pulled out a ground cable and thought I put it back where it goes, I didn't.

Fry's had a cheap $12 pci sound card.  Works great on my 2.1 speakers, and probably would be fine for 5.1.

[tophatne1]

The video card in this sucks. No matter what monitor I hook it up to everything looks fuzzy. I even change display settings etc. I can't even imagine how bad it will be when I hook it up to my TV via S video!

Can anyone recommend a good $30-$60 video card that I can get at a store or ebay?

And I'm just going to get a new sound card. I might want 5.1 after all.

[protokatie]

Can anyone recommend a good $30-$60 video card that I can get at a store or ebay?

And I'm just going to get a new sound card. I might want 5.1 after all.

As far as a MAME cab goes, any "newer" ATI or Nvidia GFX card will do. MAME uses the CPU to do all of the GFX work (except output to the screen, of course) So I am sure finding a good 30 dollar card wont be hard. You dont need all of the 3D this and that on the card for MAME... (Even if the games you run are 3D even)

As per the sound card, if this is a MAME cab, why do you need 5.1? I havent heard of many/any arcade games that take use of 5.1. Actually, I think the highest I have seen on ANY arcade game before c.2000 is just stereo... If you are going to be making a Jukebox, I could see 5.1, but in a cab, there is no point.. (If you are making a Juke, fire a PM to Uncle T, im sure he has some good advice on soundcards as he seems to be the most active Juke resident here right now...)

[tophatne1]

I just mentioned the 5.1 card because that's all that seems to be available out there. I really only need 2.1 but for some reason my on board sound just isn't there? Nothing.

Thanks for the video card info.

[tophatne1]

I think I'm going to get this card:
BFG NVIDIA GEFORCE 6600 GT OC 128MB PCIE VIDEO CARD

I know my power supply can handle it and it's more than enough for what i need.

[mybrainhurtz]

That should work good for you. Also if you want to play a few cab friendly pc games like grid wars/geometry wars, that card will handle it well. I have an old Radeon 9700 pro in my machine and it works great.

[knave]

I think I'm going to get this card:
BFG NVIDIA GEFORCE 6600 GT OC 128MB PCIE VIDEO CARD

I know my power supply can handle it and it's more than enough for what i need.

Don't get a PCIE card if the computer uses AGP.  You'll need to find an AGP model.

[mybrainhurtz]

Don't get a PCIE card if the computer uses AGP.  You'll need to find an AGP model.

Whoops! Didn't see above that you had an AGP motherboard... yeah that PCI-E won't do you any good.

[severdhed]

did you try installing the sound driver?  you can get it right from dell's website. 

go here:
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen

enter your service tag and it should bring up available drivers for that model.