New computer for the cab.

[Rakae]

my current computer is just not cutting it. It plays the 3d fighter very slow.

Current specs at 1.3 gighz AMD, 786 megs or ram, AGP videocard with 512 megs of ram.


I going to do a little new egg shopping and would like to know where to put most of the money.

I was looking at
    
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5800+ Brisbane 3.0GHz Socket AM2 89W Dual-Core
MSI N9600GT 512M OC GeForce 9600 GT 512MB
2 Gigs of DDR ram.

Is this over kill or not enough?

[brpadington]

If you are wanting to play the more modern 3d games that would be a decent setup. There is no such thing as overkill with mame. i have an Amd x2 4600+ running ubuntu hardy heron x64 and it plays the vast majority of the games but would still have trouble with the famous ones like Gauntlet legends.

[retrometro]

Here are some performance (FPS) numbers with various hardware and mame versions.  Basically running mame with buffering, vsync, throttling turned off for 240 or 300 seconds so it gets a good part of the demo'd game.


Rom          C2D E6300  C2D E8500  C2D E6300  C2D E6300      % diff  Faster
               2.5 ghz    4.4 ghz    2.5 ghz    2.5 ghz   of v0.126  version for
             32bit-126  64bit-126  64bit-126  64bit-127  over v0.12  this rom
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1942          2697.46%   4751.87%   2611.04%   2707.59%         -4%   ---
a51site4        94.97%     Broken    118.01%    932.14%       -690%   0.127  <-----
airco22b        59.87%    138.03%     80.26%     77.82%          3%   ---
alpinerd        30.05%     84.27%     45.63%     45.17%          1%   ---
biofreak        Broken    142.76%     Broken     Broken         ---   ---
blitz           72.30%    166.30%     92.63%     83.68%         10%   0.126
blitz2k         69.56%    157.05%     86.22%     79.57%          8%   0.126
blitz99         66.28%    149.92%     83.82%     76.53%          9%   0.126
calspeed        Broken    215.25%     Broken    225.08%         ---   ---
carnevil       111.00%    270.10%    142.49%    141.59%          1%   ---
crusnusa       134.72%    281.54%    149.22%    142.24%          5%   ---
crusnwld       245.60%    242.90%    246.68%    244.91%          1%   ---
cybrcomm        54.00%    130.48%     74.40%     71.41%          4%   ---
cybrcycc        90.30%    209.31%    114.02%    103.44%          9%   0.126
cyvern         294.12%    810.06%    316.23%    347.24%        -10%   0.127  <-----
daytona        322.74%    217.55%    328.96%    327.29%          1%   ---
gauntdl         60.59%    132.71%     74.15%     73.42%          1%   ---
gauntleg       101.14%    157.77%    100.11%     98.54%          2%   ---
gnbarich       768.81%   3233.50%    766.85%   1648.59%       -115%   0.127  <-----
gradius4        61.87%    130.79%     74.44%     71.97%          3%   ---
harddriv       191.60%    415.63%    237.19%    231.60%          2%   ---
hyprdriv        76.06%    168.19%     94.87%     89.12%          6%   0.126
kinst2         331.82%    678.36%    384.33%    378.22%          2%   ---
mace           110.65%    253.75%    138.52%    127.21%          8%   0.126
mk4             89.31%    175.31%     96.38%     93.71%          3%   ---
offroadc       168.36%    333.61%    185.25%    181.99%          2%   ---
propcycl        43.37%    140.12%     74.61%     71.16%          5%   ---
radikalb        78.45%    168.95%     91.01%     73.73%         19%   0.126
raveracw        49.05%    114.09%     65.81%     60.67%          8%   0.126
ridgerac        61.77%    152.75%     81.37%     74.40%          9%   0.126
roadblst       534.92%   1300.38%    674.58%    680.38%         -1%   ---
rvschool       121.11%    232.96%    122.24%    124.67%         -2%   ---
sfrush          Broken    192.45%     Broken     Broken         ---   ---
sidebs2        101.54%    165.08%     91.45%     84.84%          7%   0.126
soulclbr       139.21%    241.15%    131.36%    134.15%         -2%   ---
speedup         81.30%    168.21%     91.21%     79.86%         12%   0.126
starblad        87.93%    154.76%     81.37%     82.49%         -1%   ---
stunrun        280.72%    621.32%    335.90%    333.14%          1%   ---
surfplnt        73.14%    156.40%     84.91%     73.12%         14%   0.126
tekken2        179.76%    339.65%    182.04%    181.83%          0%   ---
tekken3        106.16%    199.57%    112.28%    110.65%          1%   ---
tenthdeg        36.48%     85.22%     48.73%     46.50%          5%   ---
vfkids          75.16%    207.16%     76.01%    114.51%        -51%   0.127  <-----
wargods        199.09%    389.88%    220.23%    193.78%         12%   0.126
wg3dh          176.18%    374.09%    210.67%    185.35%         12%   0.126
wrally         775.34%   1818.01%    899.52%    911.01%         -1%   ---
xevi3dg        165.58%    364.08%    192.35%    194.21%         -1%   ---
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Turnarcades]

If 3D fighters are your thing, consider using different emus which focus on performance over accuracy. Try pSX for the Tekken games, Soul Edge and many others, or Zinc, or something ike that. I use pSX myself, which runs at full speed down at 1.6Ghz with no external graphics cards.

Still go for an upgrade, but don't go silly as many games will only improve with new MAME releases. It took ages for Killer Instinct to run acceptably....