The NEW Build Your Own Arcade Controls
Main => Software Forum => Topic started by: ArcadeFX on April 07, 2003, 10:30:25 pm
-
I have been using win98 for the past 2 years and i am sick to death of it. Has MAME gotten any better running on XP or 2000? Running straight DOS is out of the question since I use the same box as file system and jukebox.
Cheers,
-
I'm running MAME32, and I find it to run perfect on 2000 and on XP.
-
I know it will run perfectly on each win platform but there is a big difference in performance when it comes to some of the newer games. That is what i am looking for.
-
XP is about the same as 98. Maybe a little faster for 98, but not enought to make a difference.
I would go 98 for analog+ mame support myself. But my main computer has to be XP for work.... And my cabinet is now a glorified monitor, keyboard. IE, the computer sits on the side.
-
What exactly is it about Win98 that you're unhappy with? Speed? Stability? Look and feel? Ease of modification?
I can tell you that upgrading to XP isn't going to give you a speed boost and may actually degrade performance. XP uses more RAM than 98 even when it's sitting there doing nothing. And there are a LOT more services running under XP because it's a "secure" OS unlike 9X. Even if you turn off many of the unnecessary services, the memory footprint is still larger and there are still more kernel services running in the background.
XP is rock solid compared to Win9X but if you're using this on a cabinet then this should be a moot point. There's not much cause for crashing when the only programs you run are a few emulators and a frontend.
XP has a completely different look and feel than Win9X. If you're looking at a new OS for a cabinet keep in mind that XP is more difficult to modify the startup/shutdown screens than 9X. It's not a simple file rename.
That said, i use XP in my cabinet. Mostly because i had an extra copy and because it's what i'm used to. I have been considering going back to Win98SE though, since it's easier to "hide" Windows on a cabinet when using the 9X operating systems.