MAME Questions. What's really needed to run MAME to it's full potential?

[LegendaryGamer]

Hello again fellow gamers. I am almost done with my joystick project which I had originally planned for my Xbox 360 but I decided I would use it for PC gaming and MAME. It's been a while since I played MAME and I would like to know what's a good version of MAME where you have the most features like turbo,video clips etc? I have a AMD Athlon X 2 Dual Core PC with 3gb DDR memory,Windows Vista and everything else is integrated. This Pc is fast enough for older games for sure. I'm wondering about CHDs games like Killer Instinct 1& 2 etc. What is needed to run MAME at it's full potential? More memory,Video memory,processor, or all above? I need some suggestions. Thanks.

LegendaryGamer

Joystick = U360
Encoder card = IPAC VE

[Ummon]

< hears an intoning: search......search......search>

[mytymaus007]

for full potentional you need an unlimited bank roll probably spend 15 G's maybe thats not enough 

[BASS!]

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=72776.0

[u_rebelscum]

For mame, the CPU is king.  The stronger & faster the CPU, the better.

Without your athlon x2 hertz I can't be sure, but you hould be fine with KI.  A cheap directX 9.0 or higher video card might help your system, but you don't need anything special ($50 will do it).

FWIW, Mame prefers intel's "Core^tm" brand CPUs (Core 2^tm, Core i5, & Core i7) hertz for hetrz, but at least you don't have a P4 (which is slower than atlon hz vs hz except for psx games for some reason).  I'd think the phenon II should do okay with mame (closer to the Core^tm hz for hz), but haven't seen benchmarks on it.