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PC Hardware recommendations?
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Chris2:
Thanks for the help. Just one small correction, Strife, is that XP recognizes a maximum of 4GB of RAM. Still, thanks for your help.

*blasts off*
Chris2:
Out of curiosity, though, why only single core? I could easily go dual core.
Silver:

--- Quote from: Chris2 on February 20, 2008, 06:52:53 am ---Thanks for the help. Just one small correction, Strife, is that XP recognizes a maximum of 4GB of RAM. Still, thanks for your help.

--- End quote ---

In theory. In practice, XP will only report and use 3.25GB of RAM, even if you have 4GB of ram installed. There is nothing in mame that will use more than 2GB RAM, I believe (unless you are running lots of other programs at the same time!).



I can not agree with the CPU recommendation either. Recent versions of mame are now (slightly) faster with a dual-core processor, not to mention the OS running smoother with 2 cores.

Also, Core 2's completely outperform P IV's clock-for-clock in every possible way, and draw vastly less power. And are quite cheap.

Buy a Core 2 Duo, get 2GB of Ram. It will absolutely eat all but the most demanding mame games. Not much to be gained getting a quadcore at the moment, so save your pennies.
zvar:

--- Quote from: Silver on February 20, 2008, 07:52:19 am ---In theory. In practice, XP will only report and use 3.25GB of RAM, even if you have 4GB of ram installed. There is nothing in mame that will use more than 2GB RAM, I believe (unless you are running lots of other programs at the same time!).

--- End quote ---

Well, it's not XP that's doing that though.  A limit to 32bit computers is the 4GB limit of memory.  What happens is the motherboard and BIOS need a bit of the memory address space for stuff like the memory controller, the IDE controller, North bridge, south bridge, etc.
It doesn't use the memory to control any of that, but it does need that memory space.

The more bells and whistles there are, the less memory that is avail.  On my server-class motherboard, with no one-board satas, no sound, etc I got 3.75 GB in a 32bit OS (Server 2003 specifically, but even XP Home will report and use the same.)

Also since you are getting a new system, you might want to look at the post for the mame32 bit vs. mame64 bit performance and choose an OS accordingly.

Steven
u_rebelscum:

--- Quote from: Silver on February 20, 2008, 07:52:19 am ---Also, Core 2's completely outperform P IV's clock-for-clock in every possible way, and draw vastly less power. And are quite cheap.

--- End quote ---

Yup, a Core 2 Duo @ 2 Ghz is about the same as a P4 dual core @ 4 Ghz for most games in mame.  Go C2D if you want some of the high end (blitz, gauntlet legends) to be playable.  (be sure to check the link in last post)
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