Games studdering???

[numbnutz48]

I have an ATI Radeon 7000 64MB 64 MB PCI Video Card in my cabinet project. some of the games run slow and or "studder".

Is this due to the video card? Has anyone else had this issue with theirs, and if so what was done to remedy the problem?

I have mame32v103b if that helps

[Expressline99]

Might depend on the PC or the MAME version. Might need a faster machine. What are the details of the machine?

[numbnutz48]

It's a compaq presario. it's a few years old, but i have installed 512MB of memory. it's reunning a pentium 3 processor i believe and it has that Radeon 7000 video card

[Alpha17X]

Could you tell us which games? Perhaps list a few?

If it's things like Soul Calibre and Killer Instinct II, while you can get them running in good form, they need a lot more juice than the usual games. Of course from time to time it's more of a settings issue.

[Kman-Sweden]

Some games studder on my 2,6Ghz P4 with 1,5 GB RAM and a 256MB DDR3 Nvidia 6800 card..
Hell, some games still studder on my 2,8 Ghz Quad Core with 4Gb RAM and 512 MB ATI card. Not as much as on the P4, but stil.... 

[u_rebelscum]

... it's reunning a pentium 3 processor

A slow CPU;  mame is very CPU dependent.  This is the cause, unless it's a game-refresh-rate-not-matching-your-LCD's stutter.  Which is why we're asking what games you're playing.

and it has that Radeon 7000 video card

Video cards don't matter as much as CPUs for mame.  Sure the video card is directX 7, and mame can use directX 9, but not for emulating the games.  If you don't use the overlay/underlay/bezel stuff, I think your card is fine. 


So for us to be of more help, what games are running slow and what games are stuttering (if they're different)?

[RayB]

It's spelled "stutter".

[isucamper]

It's spelled "stutter".

Yeah.  Studdering is what I do when I walk down the street. 

[numbnutz48]

The couple games that i've noticed it on are

Sheffleshot
WWF Wrestlemania
World Class Bowling
Ring Rage
Primal Rage
Michael Jacksons Moonwalker
Cyberbots
Bubble Bobble 2 & 3

There may be a couple more, but i haven't gone through the entire list. In fact, i think Donkey Kong even did it too?

If i just have the plain games screen on for MAME i can fly through the list of games, however when i run my frontend (Maximus) it's super slow!

[CrazyKongFan]

In fact, i think Donkey Kong even did it too?

Part of the problem with DK was when they went from using a few samples to emulating all the sound hardware...several versions afterwards, even my new laptop (from last summer) couldn't emulate it at 100%, and it does most games without any problem.

[u_rebelscum]

All these games need "decent" CPU power, and I doubt your P3 has enough.  If you go to Mame Benchmarks and look at the P3 benchmarks, very few games run "green".  (Note that none of your games have been benchmarked, and the data is pretty old).

Some of the games you listed should run with a 1.5+ Ghz CPU, but others need a top end.CPU.  Also, ring rage is "imperfect" emulation.

[kjbalto]

I ran into the same problem a couple of weeks ago and was asking the same question to everybody. People weren't sure and I never got a definite answer.  I had stuttering with NFL Blitz, where it was unplayable actually.  Also I believe Gauntlet Legends does the same. Anyway, to answer your question, no it's not the roms, or mame that is causing this. It's that your pc can't keep up.  How do I know this for sure?  I was using a P4 with 2 gigs of ram.  I got stuttering on these games.  I swapped it with another machine I had, with dual core processors and a gig of ram and now the games that stutter all play fine. 

[DillonFoulds]

I used to play on an athlon xp 2800+ (upgraded a bit since), and MJ's Moonwalker ran smooth. Oddly enough though, Track and Field would get slight hiccups from time to time, in the sound, and there was some visual tearing when large graphics would scroll across the screen. Except same software setup on a p4 3.2GHz made everything fully playable (except the Gauntlets  )

[DashRendar]

I ran into the same problem a couple of weeks ago and was asking the same question to everybody. People weren't sure and I never got a definite answer.

Hmm, I must have missed this post then.  This question comes up at least once a week and there's lot of BYOAC members that know the answer to this. 

As u_rebelscum mentioned, MAME is very dependent on the CPU.  Usually when games stutter, it's because the CPU isn't fast enough to emulate the video (MAME doesn't utilize the GPU for video, it utilizes your CPU instead as I understand it).

There's a lot of useful information about this in this thread:

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