Pentium III 1Ghz, 384MB RAM, WindowsXP -> MAME 0.86?

[melarky]

I'm finishing up my cocktail cabinet, it's got the following:

Pentium III 1Ghz
384MB RAM
WindowsXP

I am going to ultimately install MALA on it as a frontend, but I'm not sure what version of mame would be best.  I know there are a ton of "What version of mame for my computer" threads out there, and I did try searching for this, but I couldn't find anything.

I'm thinking MAME 0.86 will be good with this setup.  There was no scientific methodology to picking that mame version, just sounded like a good number that is pretty old (should play better on my older processor) yet new enough to play some of the newer games as well.  Am I totally wrong on this?  If anyone has something to add, I would love to hear it.

We just got the cocktail pretty much put together last night (it has a newer version of mame on it right now that we just threw on it to test it, I think it's version 0.106, it actually does suprisingly well with most games, can run Metal Slug 1 fine, Street Fighter II fine, but the Super Street Fighter II World Champion...it had a bit of slow down and the sound was starting to repeat.  Mortal Kombat 1 was also too much for it, really slow and sound was horrible).

Once we get the computer all set up, all that is left to do is get the top glass (been shopping around locally, thinK I finally found the place I'm going to go with).  Once I am finished I'll update the project announcements thread I started a long time ago (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=62485 - this project has taken longer than I expected, but it's turning out better than I expected too).

[Nightmare03]

My mini arcade only has a 650mhz P3 cpu, 256mb ram and a radeon 7000 card, running mame version 0.69 i can play metal slug 1 & 2 fine, street fighter alpha 3 fine, marvel vs capcom also working fine.

Try that version out and see if you like the results (i think you will)

Good luck.

[vidmouse]

On my PII 300Mhz I ended up using MAME 0.53 (most), 0.61 (some), and 0.69 (sparingly).
0.53 works the fastest but there are a few games I can get to run adequately on .61 and .69
that don't appear under .53... also .53 can't handle MAME artwork yet so I map over a path to .53 roms using the .61 version and artwork.  MAMEWah helped me control all this and switch between them easy.

[RayB]

On a 1 ghz, you might have to go a little farther back, to .78 or thereabouts.

[TOK]

I'm using .84/Win2000 on a P3/933, but it's running pretty much all classics. About the newest stuff I run is some of the early 90's shooters like Raiden, and they are fine. Your setup sounds like it'd be OK.

Do a search for Black Vipers XP tweak guide. There are a lot of Services you can disable on XP that are not necessary for a cab and will speed your boot and run speed considerably.

[Kangum]

i have a real old machine i use to test stuff with. its a p2 300 mhz. with a version of tiny xp on it i could barely run bubble bobble. with windows 98 se it ran pretty much most games i tried.

my own experiences has been even with "lite" versions of xp windows 98 was using way less resources and allowed more games to be played.

lastly it seemed like memory played a much bigger part of what could be played rather then actual mhz.  if there is less then a gig then win98 allowes way more games.

[gonzo90017]

I have a 400mhz It has 256mb of ram it runs very well with 128 but Neogeo games load faster with 256. I'm  running an Nlited version of XP I made myself. It has just about everything stripped out more than the so called tinyxp version. I can run just about every game at full speed with no frameskip. You just need to know what emus to use.

CPS1 and CPS2 =Nebula
Winkawaks= Neogeo
Modeler= System 32
Raine=             Everything
Mame37b16=  that's left