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Main => Software Forum => Topic started by: toasty on January 07, 2006, 12:32:38 pm

Title: mame software and roms on a removable drive
Post by: toasty on January 07, 2006, 12:32:38 pm

has anyone ever considered locating mame and the relevant roms on an external usb drive?  I've got one sitting around that would be large enough to hold everything, which would eliminate ther need to install a new hard drive in my computer, but I don't want to go that route if I'm going to see a drop in performance...

thanks for any input

Title: Re: mame software and roms on a removable drive
Post by: lcddream on January 07, 2006, 10:01:38 pm

if you use usb 2.0 i don't think there will be much of a problem.

why not just drop mame and a couple larger roms on there and give it a shot?

Title: Re: mame software and roms on a removable drive
Post by: u_rebelscum on January 09, 2006, 05:01:27 pm

Quote from: toasty on January 07, 2006, 12:32:38 pm

... but I don't want to go that route if I'm going to see a drop in performance...

You might see a game load speed slow down (only noticable one huge ROMs), and maybe slower CHD reads (but USB 2.0 probably still is faster than the old arcade harddrives).  (Mame reads all the game's ROMs to memory at game start, but reads the CHD part by part as needed.)

But as said above, you probably won't notice it if you use USB 2.0 or firewire.

Title: Re: mame software and roms on a removable drive
Post by: NIVO on January 09, 2006, 09:51:20 pm

ive done it on countless occasions, ive never noticed ay difference. they load fine, play fine. excellent way to hook up to pc to update set, and use amongst your cabinet(s)

Title: Re: mame software and roms on a removable drive
Post by: Frosty on January 09, 2006, 11:56:42 pm

I'll endorse the Mac side of things, having used a removable FireWire drive with no problems...

Title: Re: mame software and roms on a removable drive
Post by: toasty on January 10, 2006, 10:33:20 am

alright, looks like its a go, then.  thx, all.

Title: Re: mame software and roms on a removable drive
Post by: SirPoonga on January 10, 2006, 12:20:50 pm

Quote from: toasty on January 07, 2006, 12:32:38 pm

has anyone ever considered locating mame and the relevant roms on an external usb drive?

Yep (http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/cd-readme.html)

Title: Re: mame software and roms on a removable drive
Post by: Sinner on January 10, 2006, 02:22:04 pm

FYI

I have a 200GB external with all my MAME junk on it...the PC it's running off is an AMD 733MHz...USB1...I haven't really had any problems, though games like Simpson's Bowl, Killer Instinct, Virtua Fighter, Hard Drivin, etc won't run properly...I assume this is a PC problem and not a speed fromthe external problem...
With some games I do notice a little longer load times...this is due to the external drive, because if I run the same game from c: it loads quickly...

Title: Re: mame software and roms on a removable drive
Post by: amerish on January 15, 2006, 10:26:57 am

I have mine seutp on a 200 gig removable drive off of a usb.  No problems at all.

Title: Re: mame software and roms on a removable drive
Post by: markb on January 15, 2006, 03:54:28 pm

I have mame32 v0.56 running no problem on a 128mb USB stick. The hardest part about it was sifting through the roms to find my favorites and removing all the 'clone' roms to save space.
I deleted every folder except cfg, nvram & roms and now have 250+ games on there taking up less than 10mb.