Comp. Q

[crashdmj]

What do you think is the highest processor speed one should use (or could use without being a waste) to run mame, and other console emus (nin, snes, gen....not so much psone or N64), with ease. Im asking this cause I need to decide on a Motherboard Cpu combo soon.
Thank you for all replies
Derek

[2slk]

 I can't really comment on the console stuff. For MAME though, it really depends what you want to play. A good 80 - 90% of MAME stuff will run on just about any modern MoBo/processor combo. In fact, most of it will run decently off of a PIII. If you want to maximize your MAME experience and play everything you can though, plan on buying the most CPU you can afford. Even at that, some games (most likely those that use .chd support) will have to be tweaked with frame skipping, etc. to run smoothly.

[SirPoonga]

It actually depends on the games you plan on running.  For example, you can't get a proccessor fast enough to run all the mame games at 100% speed.  So you need to find out what games you have, and at what speed they run on your current computer.  Then estimate with a little extra the speed you need.

For me, my PIII 500 is great.  Though I plan on putting at least a 1Ghz in because I like playing zinc games too.

[crackbone]

Well, the two (reasonable) benchmarks for high end mame games is MK2/3 and Killer Instinct.  There's some other games with really unreasonable speed requirements (wargods and crusin' series come to mind).

That being said, I'm running an Athlon 1700 in my system along with a geforce 2 and it's more than capable of handling MK2/3/KI.  
However, if you're not looking for those games in particular, I've seen 7-800 MHz processors be able to run the rest pretty well.

Crack

[AlanS17]

My PIII @ 866 MHz w/ 128 MB RDRAM runs the MK series just fine. It's KI that I have a hard time with unles I'm using u64Emu. I haven't tried Wargods or Cruisin' games yet.

[crashdmj]

Just out of curiosity crackbone, what monitor are you using (assuming you made your own arcade cab)?
In general how would a P4 2.0 with a Geforce 3 or 4 card and a D9200 fare?
Thanks for the responses, Derek.

[Chris]

With an Athlon 800, I was good to go on most games, but came up a bit short on NBA Maximum Hangtime, Stun Runner, and 2 On 2 Open Ice Challenge.

[IIOIOOIOO]

You guys with the lower end processors, were you able to play like Super Gem Fighters and Marvel Vs Capcom and the Neo Geo games?

[crashdmj]

The reason I ask is because I work at a computer company (summer help) and get a good deal on the price (something like wholesale + 3-10%) plus the chip prices are falling so I need to make a decision in the next upcoming months.

[Tiger-Heli]

The reason I ask is because I work at a computer company (summer help) and get a good deal on the price (something like wholesale + 3-10%) plus the chip prices are falling so I need to make a decision in the next upcoming months.

I have a Pentium 200 MMX which is too slow for all but the oldest 80's games.  I have used a Duron 650 (okay for up to early 90's games) and plan to upgrade to a Duron 850 only b/c I already have one.  However, if I had to buy one, an XP 2000 - XP 2200 is roughly the same cost and should do really well in MAME.

Just my 2 cents