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just upgraded my main pc, should i upgrade my arcade cabinet?
severdhed:
hey guys, it's been long overdue, but i upgraded my PC today...it isn't top of the line, but it is better than what i had, and was pretty cost effective. i'm now running:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000
4GB DDR2 800 ram
500gb SATA2 hard drive
Radeon HD3450 (it was only $15 after rebates, i don't do pc games..it is fine for everythign i do)
Vista Ultimate x64
this is running really well, and the extra memory support of the 64bit OS is awesome. (i'm thinking of throwing in another 4gb of ram just because i can)
anyway, this frees up the components that were in this PC:
Pentium 4 3.0ghz w/ hyperthreading
2gb DDR 400 ram
four 80gb SATA hard drives
Radeon 9600xt video (agp)
right now, my arcade cabinet has:
AMD Athlon XP 2500+
1gb ddr400 ram
40gb IDE hard drive
GeForce 4 MX 440 video (agp)
xp pro
my question is, is it worth upgrading the cabinet with this pentium 4 system? most of the games i try run pretty well right now, with the exception of 3d fighters and most chd games. the p4 system currently has 32bit vista installed, but i would install xp if it were going in my cabinet...should i bother doing this? i know it is not a huge performance increase, but double the ram, a little faster on the cpu, and faster hard drive access might make it run even better...what do you guys think?
:edit, i changed the specs on the new drive from 250gb to 500gb
JinxedSoul:
If you want to run the new Hyper-Spin Front end then yes :P
waveryder:
WOW. That is so spooky. I'm facing the same decision myself, with almost the same specs. Except I got a spare nvidia6600gt to put in. I've been going back and forth trying to decide if its worth the effort of getting the comp outta the cab and replacing. I haven't found anything that makes it worth doing though. All my mame stuff plays well as does my psx and zinc. I'll probably continue to back and forth till the 3ghz is to slow to do anything :dizzy:
TOK:
No, you should build another MAME cabinet. :cheers:
Turnarcades:
I doubt the performance gains will be significant enough. I've tested many supposedly high-demand games on both 1.6Ghz P4's right up to my 3.2Ghz main PC and many dual core variants with graphics cards and nothing much changes. I think many of the performance issues are actually due to emulation techniques (accuracy over performance in MAME), so I wouldn't bother. How new do you really need to go, and for the sake of a few games...?
I'd put it to better use and build another cabinet with a different aim. Try your hand at a dedicated driving cab, a Bar-Top, or a Cocktail. With that power anyway you could build a more advanced panel and maybe have a machine emulate newer console games, with some analog controls etc.