Running mame and other emulators from network

[Hyperfan]

I run a home server and am thinking of putting all the emulators and roms on the server drives then just running them from the network share on each pc to save me having to have mutiple copies of roms.

Does anyone do this? any noticable drop in performace when running bigger chd games?

[bkenobi]

You will have a delay in starting the game while the rom is transferred into memory on the local machine.  This delay depends on the size of the rom and the speed of the network and hardware being used.  If you can deal with that perhaps minimal lag, you should be fine.

[Hyperfan]

Do the chd games keep accessing the chd file? i guess they do?

[DashRendar]

Out of curiosity, how many PCs will be running MAME?  Are you setting up an arcade where you would need multiple machines running, and would they be running at the same time?

[Hyperfan]

only a couple of machines on at a time.

I just want the data central then its all backed up automatically on my home server.

[Turnarcades]

I would place doubt in running any type of game over a network due to the constant read/write cycles of emulators and PC games. Even by modern standards, it's just not as good as having it stored locally. By all means update over your network, but I personally wouldn't run them over the network. Until 'cloud computing' arrives properly and forces network protocol to be improved along with efficient remote access, I'd stick with the 'it's all wired in one place' solution.

[bkenobi]

If the emulators are stored remotely, then you would definitely have more issues.  I was assuming the roms were networked and the emulators would be local.

[Deadly]

If the emulators are stored remotely, then you would definitely have more issues.  I was assuming the roms were networked and the emulators would be local.

HIGHLY ill advised if you are planning on any heavy hitters such as Dreamcast, PS1, PS2 (others) or any MAME games that use a CHD. Storage is dirt cheap these days. If you're worried about updates then script it to push the updates to your clients which will also serve as a backup in case your server went down.
Any of the small stuff (for example) like SNES, Atari, MAME non CHD stuff would work fine over a NIC

Unless you are planning on fiber .. I would assume you're not.

[Hyperfan]

No just gigabyte ethernet.

I guess then i can have a master emulator folder on the server with all the roms sets ect. then as you say get some big drives on each client and now and again get a script to copy the master set to make sure clients upto date.

1.5 tb drives are dirt cheap as you sy.

[Deadly]

Download this:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9D467A69-57FF-4AE7-96EE-B18C4790CFFD&displaylang=en
You'll want to use robocopy.exe
Here's a script I wrote to use at work. Copy and paste in a text file calling it (for example mame.bat)
You can set this as a scheduled task on the CLIENT side so the ONLY thing you ever have to worry about is updating your server.
This will copy only data that changes to a newer file date. It will also PURGE items that no longer exist on the source.
Minor changes needed to match what ever directories you create.

====== Start Copying below==============
REM This script to be used to PULL files from server to client
REM This maps a drive letter to use
net use K: \\COMPUTERNAME-OR-IP\C$ PASSWORDHERE /USER:COMPUTERNAME-OR-IP\USERNAME /YES

K:

cd\PATH-TO-FILES

REM Tell the path to robocopy.exe. Then the mapped network path. Then where you want the files backed up to locally and finishing with a log file.

C:\Robocopy\robocopy.exe "K:\PATH-TO-FILES" *.* C:\MAME /R:0 /copyall /mir /ETA >> C:\log_files\backup.txt

C:

net use K: /DELETE /YES

exit
======Stop copying at the word EXIT====
 
I've added a couple extra steps due to past issues. This should ensure you see none

[Hyperfan]

Thats fantastic mate thanks very much.

[drventure]

I've run Mame off a network drive for quite some time now and the only delay I've noticed is in Mala flipping between games (it goes to get the video for each game and that can slow things down).

I don't have any CHD based games, but everything else doesn't seem to have any speed issues whatsoever.

I am running gigabit ethernet, though and mirror/striped raid on my server so that definitely helps.

[u_rebelscum]

Gigabit network will be fine for most roms: mame unzips them and stores it in memory, and gigabit is almost as fast as cheap local drives.

Normal CHDs, I wouldn't recommended doing them over network.  Mame does not store the whole CHD in memory, so it has to access it throughout the game.  The exception is the CP3 systems: the CHD is saved to nvram at installation, and the nvram is accessed instead of the CHD after that.  So some CHD games will run okay over the network.

LD-CHDs OTOH, can tax a local 7200 RPM drive and with constantly access; a network drive probably can't handle it.  Other normal CHD are also constant access, and they too might run into speed issues.

So you can do like Deadly & robocopy, or keep the rom sets on the net and the (less often changing) CHDs local.  

(I like the robocopy way; I didn't think of it before Deadly montioned it, but I've used robocopy for things like this and it worked great.)