My PC's limits?

[StrikeOne33]

Hey guys,
I've been thinking about building a cab ever since I heard of such a thing, and i think I'm finally ready.  I now have a new laptop, leaving me with an extra PC that i think may be a good candidate for a MAME cab.

These are the specs:
Dell Dimensions 8300
Pentium 4 CPU 2.8GHz
2.7GHz, 512 MB of RAM
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X (w/ S-Video)
74.4GB Hard Drive
Windows XP home edition SP3

I plan on using a 25" TV as a monitor.
I would like the cab to run MAME as well as nintendo, sega, atari, and N64 emulaters, and possibly PC games.

Will I Need to upgrade the PC at all?
What will my limitations be with this computer?

[drventure]

It should run most of the older MAME roms fine, but you definitely won't be doing any of the newer 3d roms.

As for PC games, that's certainly an older pc. If you stick with the older (or simpler newer) games, you should be fine, but it'll likely rule out most games in the last 3-4 years.

Course, there's not a huge pile of pc games that you'd likely want to play on a mame cab, so that helps the situation a little.

the video will likely be most of your limitation with PC games.

[StrikeOne33]

For the 3D Roms, what upgrades, if any, can i make to get them to work?

[fallacy]

Don’t worry about it. There aren’t that many anyway and the ones that are even worth even playing like Tekken, I don think they work right in MAME period.

[JustMichael]

Once you start loading stuff on to that computer you might find the hard drive a bit cramped...

[protokatie]

Might not be able to play all of the N64 games on that CPU, my dualcore 1.9 AMD Athlon64 can BARELY play N64 games, some of the simpler ones it has no problem with, but even Zelda64 it has some timing issues. As far as MAME (except 3D) and most of the other emulations the system should be fine. As far as HD is concerned, the only real space problems I would see is if you DLed CD (or similar) based games (Dragons Lair (LD) or Area51 (HD) for example). Not that an added HD is expensive, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[bkenobi]

My AthlonXP 3000+ plays all the N64 games I've tried just fine.  I'm using Project64 1.7 currently and things run nice and smooth.  I had a bit of a slowdown on some spots of some games with 1.6 (e.g., any track of Mario Kart where there is a video screen), but that is probably just a setting that needed tweaking.

Some MAME CHD games I've run are too slow to be playable (those are the 3D ones that most people don't worry about) and some slow down a bit at points (Area51 when there's a ton of stuff going on, for instance).

Overall though, you should be fine with that setup other than HDD and maybe video as others mentioned.

[RayB]

In my opinion, that video card is underpowered compared to the rest of the system. The MX 440 Geforce 4 line is crap.  We're talking about a card released around 2001, which ran barely any better than the Geforce 2 MX card I had before it. Absolutely crap! Get something a little beefier.

[StrikeOne33]

No one has mentioned the RAM, I thought that would be a weak point.
Is it just the video card and processor that are holding me back? (I don't consider the HD an issue, I'm going to beef that up a bit.)
Can you make any suggestions for the video card?

[DillonFoulds]

I've got the same CPU, with 1gb ram, and have used a similar video card.

The video card isn't really an issue, as the cpu does all the work anyways. MAME is kind of coded differently than the common computer game.

I'm playing Metal Slugs fine, anything snes-ish quality looks fine. Forget almost every CHD game, though... Gauntlet Legends/Dark Legacy is probably going to run at 1fps or slower for you.

If you're looking to play those, expect no less than an overclocked e6600(?) @ 4GHz, 2+ GB ram, BARE MINIMUM.

[push2reject]

There were several versions of the P4 Intel processor, what is the FSB?  Dells model # system isn't too clear.  If your P4 has a front side bus of 400 or 533 you'll find even with a mid-range AGP upgrade the processor will start to bottle neck.  I think you'll see a big slow down  running software newer then the last 5 years.  I wouldn't throw any cash upgrades at it unless it has an FSB of 800 or better.  I wouldn't worry about an upgrade with Mame, as stated most 2D games should run fine.  With a few exceptions (like racing) most 3D games of the late 90's and early 2000's had little gameplay and pulled in quarters based on the "3D/VR/photo-realistic" hype.

That stated I have a Core 2 Quad, 4 gigs ram, and a NV 8800 and the full 134 roms/chds,  I've done a lot of playing around with the 3D mame games and some of them are very slow on my higher end rig (ex. <50% of full speed emulation).

The only 3D Mame game I wish I could get at full speed is Ikaruga (but NullDC runs it well on my machine!)

[DillonFoulds]

@push2reject:

Which cpu specifically is it, and does it run the 3d Gauntlets?

[push2reject]

@DillonFoulds:

Its a 6700 @ 2.66, not the latest or greatest, the 3D Gauntlet games don't run well.  I have all the N64 roms on my PC and the Gauntlet games run faster then the N64 or arcade ever did and @ 1080p rendering (trust me its beautiful!).  I love the accuracy and standards the Mame coders keep, but most 3D stuff runs better in emulators which utilize the graphics card.  Mame uses your CPU almost exclusively for rendering and uses the GPU for only scaling and filtering.  A fast graphics card will do nothing for Mame.  This is especially heartbreaking when you consider the Gauntlet: Dark Legacy arcade board had a PCI connector with a stock Quantum3D Voodoo2 PC Card plugged into it.  The game was essentially a bare bones PC board with a great graphics card on it!  When you load the game up it even states its checking the 3dFX chipset.  Some of the latest generation of arcade boards that run 3D games like Street Fighter IV are in fact running Windows XP and are pretty much just high end PCs.  SF IV on my rig runs at 80 FPS at 1080p.

[bkenobi]

I saw SF Rush in the arcade when I was in school.  When I realized it was running a 3dFX card, I ran out and got one myself.  Quake was AWESOME with the advanced graphics turned on.  I'm not sure if they intended to use the arcade to sell computer hardware, but they certainly sold at least 1 unit because of it.   

[Turnarcades]

Sorry peeps, gotta pipe in again and defend lower-spec systems. I have consistently had certain 3D fighters working fine as low as 2Ghz using older builds of MAME, when the emulation core was less mature. Using the correct display and frameskip settings, I had Tekken 1 running fine as well as SF EX. Also I've had N64 and even PS1 running sweet as low as 1.6Ghz, though found 1.8Ghz is better, so sod 3D fighters in MAME as the PS1 had many of them ported over, with more characters, versus modes and more features. Oh, and the systems I'm talking about don't have massive RAM or additional graphics/sound cards either, just average on-board NVIDIA graphics. My minimum spec to run what I've mentioned would be 1.6Ghz with 256mb RAM, but I'd say it all runs just great for what is worth playing at 2.4Ghz with 1GB RAM - just optimise Windows and use a pre-0.106 build of MAME.

[StrikeOne33]

So with the right software setup, i would be fine with my current hardware?

[DillonFoulds]

I tihnk Turnarcades is trying to say, don't underestimate your hardware. Give it a go and see what you can do.

IMHO if you're looking to buy, go big or go home. If it's free, give it a shot.

[bkenobi]

Again, you should be able to run pretty much all games EXCEPT for the newer ones that used 3D hardware accelerators.

Yes, try what you have and see if it's good enough.  If not, upgrade...