Acer Aspire Revo

[Austin_yeahbaby]

Hi, my first post

I've just purchased an Acer Aspire Revo R3600 Desktop PC, Atom 230 1.6GHz, 160GB HDD, 1 GB RAM, HDMI, nVidia GeForce 9400 ION, WIFI, Linux

I'm about to embark on building a counter top system and this seemd like a a good system.

I plan to wipe the linux install and go to Windows XP.

Has anyone got any views on using these systems as a mame system?

Thanks

[spystyle]

I'm sure it will work fine

I, personally, would use XP, MAME 97 (approx), and no CHD files.

Also no LEDs or blinking lights ...

That's just me

Make it fun!
Craig

[Austin_yeahbaby]

Thanks Craig,

just one question, why would you skip the LED lights?

[bkenobi]

LED's are hokey looking and very expensive IMO.  If you like them, go for it.   

[Ginsu Victim]

why would you skip the LED lights?

I grew up in arcades, not casinos.

[spystyle]

Thanks Craig,

just one question, why would you skip the LED lights?

Oops, I missed this one.

For me personally, I really like to keep the arcade machine free from distractions.

And like "Ginsu Victim" I didn't grow up in a casino either

I also dislike CHD files, they are such a pain in the hard drive. Over 100 GB for the new CHD set and who knows if any of the games get a decent frame-rate on a regular old P4...  I guess I should find out

Have fun!
Craig

[bkenobi]

Some CHD games seem to play fine on my Athlon XP 3200+, but not many.  Also, I found that there are a bazillion rhythm style games in the set (rock star, guitar guru, drum master, clap happy,  ) that I will NEVER play especially with the CP I built.  If you have a fast machine it might be worth it, but I stripped my set WAY down from the full 100GB (primarily for Area51) and am happy with it.

[spystyle]

I bet a quad-core with RAID could play a lot of those

[bkenobi]

RAID won't make much of a difference, but there's a thread here discussing 4GHz+ machines.  I think that gets you most of the games up and running at full speed, but not all.

[spystyle]

In my experience RAID makes a rig noticeably faster. The only way to be sure is to benchmark before RAID and again after.

[J.Max]

In my experience RAID makes a rig noticeably faster. The only way to be sure is to benchmark before RAID and again after.

RAID may make a computer generally faster, but it won't make any difference on MAME because disc access is not a bottleneck.  Even on games where data is streamed from the HD (like Cube Quest) most normal hard drives are fast enough to accommodate them.  Loading times might be improved but the games won't run any faster - MAME is entirely CPU dependent.

[spystyle]

Ah, interesting

[bkenobi]

In my experience RAID makes a rig noticeably faster. The only way to be sure is to benchmark before RAID and again after.

RAID may make a computer generally faster, but it won't make any difference on MAME because disc access is not a bottleneck.  Even on games where data is streamed from the HD (like Cube Quest) most normal hard drives are fast enough to accommodate them.  Loading times might be improved but the games won't run any faster - MAME is entirely CPU dependent.

What he said.   

[spystyle]

Thanks, I learn something new every day

Unfortunately I forget at least three things a day