SDLMame (Linux): Vector games look bad

[jukingeo]

Hello all,

I was wondering if someone may give me some assistance in regards to SDLMame.   This version of Mame is meant to run under Linux and I am attempting to set up a Linux/SDLMame box.

I managed to get SDLMame to run and I am using WahCade as a front end (Linux version of MameWah).

The trouble I am having is getting vector games to display properly.   As compared to the Windows version of Mame (Mame32), vector games look terrible.

I was told in another forum to check out the vector settings such as the beam size and flicker, but I really don't know what I am setting here and just arbitrarily changing setting just makes things worse.

Basically the overall vector games look very dim and the colors are bland.  They are also very unclear.  The game runs very choppy and slow and sometimes the audio even stutters/distorts.

Raster games on the other hand look fantastic, no problem at all.

I am wondering if anyone else has run into this problem when using SDLMame.

And before anyone asks, Yes, I been to the SDLMame message board and that is horrible as well.  You have 95 pages of information and NO search engine!  Not really helpful if you ask me.

I was thinking about going with XMame, but I heard it is harder to set up and it is no longer supported.  I DO like how fast I was able to get SDLMame running, the only problem I had was finding out where certain directories were.  The documentation, like the message board, is very poor.  But I eventually found out where everything supposed to go and I got it running.  The only thing now is taking care of the vector games as they look terrible.

Thanx,

Geo

[u_rebelscum]

I haven't used SDLmame yet, but AFAIK, SDLmame is very much like official vanilla mame.

A few questions: what resolution are you trying to run the vector game?  What version of mameUI (mame32 has changed its name to mameUI a while ago) are you comparing to?  Have you tried the same version number mameUI or mame (both windows versions) as the SDLmame you're using?  Does SDLmame come with a docs folder (directory) with config.txt?  (It will have more info than I post here; if not included check here.)  Could post your mame.ini file?  What is your computer setup? (vector emulation can be harder than raster emu and require more CPU power.)

The -antialias option is on/off (1 or 0), and the default is on.  Less jaggies, but can be more blurry.

The -beam option is how wide the beam is, bugger is wider.  Bigger might help with brightness.

OTher options to look at: -gamma and -brightness.  I'm not sure how much of the windows options have been ported over to SDL, but there might be a -prescale and full_screen_brightness & full_screen_gamma or equivalent in SDLmame.

And last but not least, you can try changing SDLmame's resolution.  Bigger is sharper but harder to emu and fainter without adjusting beam width; smaller is brighter and easier to emulate, but blurrier.

[jukingeo]

I haven't used SDLmame yet, but AFAIK, SDLmame is very much like official vanilla mame.

A few questions: what resolution are you trying to run the vector game?

1024 by 768  (on my old Windows 98 box It was 800 by 600).

What version of mameUI (mame32 has changed its name to mameUI a while ago) are you comparing to?

I have a much older version of Mame set up on my office computer which is nearly identical to my home machine (less powerful actually).   The 1024x768 resolution is the same on both machines.  The version is Mame058b.  For Windows 98, I found this to be an excellent version of Mame.  My office computer is XP though.

Now for the comparison?

Star Wars is BEE-YOU-TEE-FULL running in this version. Vectors are crisp and bright.  No stuttering audio either.  The sound is also perfect.

  Have you tried the same version number mameUI or mame (both windows versions) as the SDLmame you're using?

No I have not tried that, but I DID find a Mame (for Windows) version MAME 123 that corresponded to the SDLMame0123 that I am running in Linux.  I have downloaded it, but didn't set it up to compare it.

  Does SDLmame come with a docs folder (directory) with config.txt?

Probably, but I downloaded/installed SDLMame from the Ubuntu Repository.  The trouble is that it installed it in MANY different directories.   It took me a long time just to find the paths to the executable and the roms!  So if there is documentation, I still don't know where that would be located.  JFYI, I only have been using Linux for 6 months now...so I am not ready for advanced stuff yet.

 

(It will have more info than I post here; if not included check here.)  Could post your mame.ini file?  What is your computer setup? (vector emulation can be harder than raster emu and require more CPU power.)

Yes that would sound correct, but then how come the older version of Mame plays vector games flawlessly?  You would figure it to be the other way around.

The -antialias option is on/off (1 or 0), and the default is on.  Less jaggies, but can be more blurry.

The -beam option is how wide the beam is, bugger is wider.  Bigger might help with brightness.

Someone (in the Ubuntu Forum) did mention these two options to me and I did play with them extensively.   I found that by setting the antialias to 2 and the beam to 2.5, I get an improvement in both brightness and sharpness.  Yet, it doesn't compare anything to the MAME058 version I have here at work.

OTher options to look at: -gamma and -brightness.  I'm not sure how much of the windows options have been ported over to SDL, but there might be a -prescale and full_screen_brightness & full_screen_gamma or equivalent in SDLmame.

There were only three options under the Vectors section of the Mame.ini file for SDLMame:

antialias 
beam
flicker

The flicker setting just makes things worse, so I left it at "0".

And last but not least, you can try changing SDLmame's resolution.  Bigger is sharper but harder to emu and fainter without adjusting beam width; smaller is brighter and easier to emulate, but blurrier.

Actually it is the other way around.  If I made the beam bigger, it got brighter, but it also got blurrier.  Smaller make the beam sharper, but dimmer.   Setting the antialias up enhances the brightness, but also adds some bluriness into the picture. 

As for the resolution, I did read something about this before...but again it is something that doesn't make sense because the older version of Mame works fine on my office machine.

For the most part the two machines are near identical Dell machines, but my home machine has a slight edge.  It has better sound card, better video card, twice the board ram, twice the video ram.

So that is why I jumped to the conclusion that it is the version or SDLMame itself.

I will go home and try out MAME version 123 on my home computer under Windows XP and see what the results are.   If I have the same problem then it is the later versions of Mame causing the problem, if I don't have the problem, then it has to be SDLMame.

We will see.

I will report back later on.

Thanx,
Geo

[jukingeo]

A few questions: what resolution are you trying to run the vector game?  What version of mameUI (mame32 has changed its name to mameUI a while ago) are you comparing to?  Have you tried the same version number mameUI or mame (both windows versions) as the SDLmame you're using?  Does SDLmame come with a docs folder (directory) with config.txt?  (It will have more info than I post here; if not included check here.)  Could post your mame.ini file?  What is your computer setup? (vector emulation can be harder than raster emu and require more CPU power.)

The -antialias option is on/off (1 or 0), and the default is on.  Less jaggies, but can be more blurry.

The -beam option is how wide the beam is, bugger is wider.  Bigger might help with brightness.

Ok, I am back.   Tonight I ran some more tests.

This time I did everything on my main machine.

I have loaded both Mame058 and Mame123 on my Windows XP partition I used the SAME romsets and tried Star Wars, Rip Off, Gravitar, and Tempest


Constants:

All screen resolutions are the same 1024x768
The SAME roms are used in all tests
Windows XP versions are run from command line
SDLMame version is run through WahCade front end.

Comparisons from worst to best:

1) SDLMame under Ubuntu Linux:

antialias                2
beam                     2.5
flicker                   0

These settings fixed the colors and brightness, but it is still a bit blurry.  Gravitar fairs the worst, Rip-Off is better, Star-Wars is OK, and Tempest looks pretty good.  Audio is choppy and stutters a bit, especially with Star Wars and Gravitar.

2) MameUI version 123 (same version number as SDLMame) under Windows XP

antialias                 1

beam                      1.7

flicker                   0

I had to play with these settings here too.  All games are MUCH clearer with this version with around the same brightness level as SDLMame.   Audio is better with Gravitar, Tempest is a little distorted.   Star Wars is pretty good except near the end of each level when you blow up the Death Star, then the audio gets choppy again.

3) Mame32 version 058 (an older version I had laying around from 4 years ago) under WinXP

PERFECT!!!   I didn't have to make ANY adjustments.  Colors are vivid and the brightest of all the version.  The lines are CRISP!   NO audio problems.

So what is your take on this?  I find it odd that the older version of Mame gives me the best vector game performance.

Geo

[u_rebelscum]

Well, a lot has occurred in the 6 years between 0.58 & 0.123 (and almost another year till now, Feb to Dec).

Mame used to use directDraw to draw video; the default changed to direct3D in 0.107.  (SDLmame, of course, uses SDL api instead of directX.)  I'm not sure if 0.58 could do d3d; if it did, see if d3d looks more like the current looks, and if ddraw on 0.123 mameUI looks sharper.

Discrete sounds were added.  Major slow for games that have it.

Video and sound timing were closer linked (0.118?).  Much more sound problems, especially for LCD montiors and games that run at different frequencies than 60 Hz.  (However, people are saying 0.128u4 fixed many of the sound sinc problems.)

Target computer has increased.   On the emu side, this includes forcing 16/32 bit color palette, removing some speed up hacks priously needed, and other more accurate emulation (such as mentioned earlier).  On the hardware side, mame uses stuff like directX 9.0 capable video cards, pentium 4 and more powerful cpus, and (for laserdisk games) 7200 RPM and faster diskdrives.


Anyway, different games are effected differently between versions, and vector games are very different than raster.  I while back I benchmarked a few games, including 3 vector game, and there was a period where all three dropped considerably, while rasters didn't.  Umm, check this thread and look at the vector and tempest graphes.   (I really should rerun & update the graphes up to more current versions, sigh.)

Some side note:

1) SDLMame under Ubuntu Linux:

antialias                2

In mame, this is a core option (ie: designed so it doesn't need to be changed between builds/ports).  The valid numbers are 0 (zero, for off, and any positive number for on.  As you saw, putting a 2 is no different than a 1 for mameUI.  I wonder what SDLmame did to this option so a two is different than a one?

[jukingeo]

Well, a lot has occurred in the 6 years between 0.58 & 0.123 (and almost another year till now, Feb to Dec).

Mame used to use directDraw to draw video; the default changed to direct3D in 0.107.  (SDLmame, of course, uses SDL api instead of directX.)  I'm not sure if 0.58 could do d3d; if it did, see if d3d looks more like the current looks, and if ddraw on 0.123 mameUI looks sharper.

How/where would I change that?

Discrete sounds were added.  Major slow for games that have it.

Video and sound timing were closer linked (0.118?).  Much more sound problems, especially for LCD montiors and games that run at different frequencies than 60 Hz.  (However, people are saying 0.128u4 fixed many of the sound sinc problems.)

Target computer has increased.   On the emu side, this includes forcing 16/32 bit color palette, removing some speed up hacks priously needed, and other more accurate emulation (such as mentioned earlier).  On the hardware side, mame uses stuff like directX 9.0 capable video cards, pentium 4 and more powerful cpus, and (for laserdisk games) 7200 RPM and faster diskdrives.


Anyway, different games are effected differently between versions, and vector games are very different than raster.  I while back I benchmarked a few games, including 3 vector game, and there was a period where all three dropped considerably, while rasters didn't.  Umm, check this thread and look at the vector and tempest graphes.   (I really should rerun & update the graphes up to more current versions, sigh.)

I took a quick peek at the site, but didn't do too much reading yet.  However, I did note that one fellow mentioned that any version of Mame over 0.102 causes slowdowns (and probably audio stuttering increases too).

1) SDLMame under Ubuntu Linux:

antialias                2

In mame, this is a core option (ie: designed so it doesn't need to be changed between builds/ports).  The valid numbers are 0 (zero, for off, and any positive number for on.  As you saw, putting a 2 is no different than a 1 for mameUI.  I wonder what SDLmame did to this option so a two is different than a one?

Usually anything higher than two has no effect.

One thing is for sure the older version, Mame 0.58 looks WAY better than the newer versions.

But please do let me know if you have other ideas.  I was thinking about going with an older version of SDLMame, but I don't know how far back they go.  From the other thread you had me link to, it sounds as if I should use version 0.102.  However, I am not sure that SDLMame existed back that far.

Have a good evening!

Geo

[u_rebelscum]

Mame used to use directDraw to draw video; the default changed to direct3D in 0.107.  (SDLmame, of course, uses SDL api instead of directX.)  I'm not sure if 0.58 could do d3d; if it did, see if d3d looks more like the current looks, and if ddraw on 0.123 mameUI looks sharper.

How/where would I change that?

I can't remember OTTOMH for 0.58; it should say in the docs folder that comes with mame.  If it could, it should be in the default games option, display tab.  I think mame had two option, ddraw and d3d (or names close to that).  You'd enable the d3d one and disable the ddraw one.  For 0.123, I think it's the same as current, which is in the display tab, under "video mode"; switch to directdraw.

[jukingeo]

I can't remember OTTOMH for 0.58; it should say in the docs folder that comes with mame.  If it could, it should be in the default games option, display tab.  I think mame had two option, ddraw and d3d (or names close to that).  You'd enable the d3d one and disable the ddraw one.  For 0.123, I think it's the same as current, which is in the display tab, under "video mode"; switch to directdraw.

I have been trying out a new front end the past couple days.  I decided to give MALA a whirl.  The problem is that version 0.58 doesn't work with MALA's rom list generator.  They are saying you need version .84 or later.

So I have been messing around with other versions of Mame today.  Doing some reading I found out that Mame had a considerable size increase and slowdown post version .102.  So I downloaded that version to test it and for some reason it isn't working!  So I went to version .100 and that is working fine with MALA.

Of course the first thing I tested were my vector games.  Like with version 0.58, the rendering is CRISP and VIVID.  There is no slowdown of the audio either.

Would you know off the top what version SDLMame started with?  I have a funny feeling that perhaps I should try an older version.

I was thinking about dropping SDLMame and give XMame a whirl in Linux.  I was initially going to go with XMame, but when I saw that it requires quite a bit to install it, I held off on it.  Everyone said that SDLMame is much easier to set up.  In that case it is true, it was easy to set it up.  Setting up WahCade with it was harder!!

At any rate, even doing comparison in Windows, the later versions of Mame DO have a reduction in the quality of vector rendering.  It isn't as noticeable or as bad as SDLMame, but I DO see the difference.

Well, I am open to more suggestions as to what I should do.  Some of my favorite games are vector games.  There are not many I like, just about a dozen or so, but the ones I do like I play often:

1) Battle Zone
2) Asteroids
3) Asteroids Deluxe
4) Star Wars
5) Gravitar
6) Red Baron
7) Star Castle
Rip-Off
9) Tempest

I am sure I am leaving one or two out.

As of now with the adjustments I made in SDLMame, I CAN play the games, but they are no where near the sound or visual quality of the Windows and/or older versions.

Thanx,

Geo

[u_rebelscum]

IIRC, SDLmame is a side product of the major video overhaul mame had in the 0.106 series, and that 0.107 was the first.  However, the last I can download from he SDLmame site is 0.111.

Sounds like you don't like the 0.106-0.107 video overhaul.  You might want to look into advancemame also, as it stopped at 106.  But it's a serious pain to setup, though, and designed for raster at the original resolutions, so might not be your cup of tea.

[jukingeo]

Sounds like you don't like the 0.106-0.107 video overhaul.  You might want to look into advancemame also, as it stopped at 106.  But it's a serious pain to setup, though, and designed for raster at the original resolutions, so might not be your cup of tea.

Absolutely not.   Supposedly I did some reading on Mame updates and loading speeds.  It seems that both video and audio performance slowed down drastically with versions of mame over .102.   So you need a bigger machine with newer versions.   Most of these slow downs were because of those video updates.   Now I couldn't get version .102 to run on my system.   So I just arbitrarily picked version .100 and that looks and sounds fine to me.   Granted version .58 still runs (loads) much faster, but it is pretty old and I probably will save it for slower machines.   But the vector video quality on version .100 is still superb.  It is beautiful, just as crisp and vivid as version .58.    I didn't have to go into Mame.ini and alter ANY settings.   However, just for the heck of it I did look in the file and found that there are some MORE settings in the older version for vectors.  Here take a look.  These are my version .100 settings:

### Mame CORE vector game options ###
antialias               1
translucency            1
beam                    1.000000
flicker                 0.000000
intensity               1.500000

On the newer versions 'intensity' and 'translucency" are missing.

So I don't call the post version 0.107 an improvement at all (at lease for vector games).  They take up more power, cause the sound to skip, and for what?  THEY LOOK WORSE!

As for AdvanceMame/Menu, yes I have heard of it.   It was very popular at one point and I did try to do an install (with Windows 98 at the time),  but I spent hours and hours on it and never could get it to run properly.   At that point in time ArcadeOS was no longer being supported and that was mostly a DOS front end.   So I wanted a good front end to work with Windows.  AdvanceMame was my first pick, but when that didn't work out, I just stuck it out with Mame32 until I heard about MameWah.   I been using that up until 4 years ago when I dropped out of the Mame scene for a while.

Over 6 months ago I started with Linux and that sort of rekindled my interest in seeing how Mame ran in it.

Overall it looks like with SDLMame I am out of luck with vector games.

However, I do have a couple avenues left and I am wondering if you may have some suggestions or advice:

1) Try Xmame.  It is older and no longer supported.  The only reason why I have not tried it as of yet is because I heard it is somewhat "painful" to set it up and get it going.  So is that a rumor or fact?

2) Use Wine.   Wine is a Windows "layer" that creates a link between Linux and Windows programs.  They are saying it is not an emulator but it does take up it's share of juice in Linux.   So I am thinking that IF Mame works with Wine in Linux that I could choose a fast distribution such as Puppy Linux AND also an older version of Mame and hopefully I would get better performance than I am getting now.

But that still remains to be seen.

Geo

[u_rebelscum]

Supposedly I did some reading on Mame updates and loading speeds.  It seems that both video and audio performance slowed down drastically with versions of mame over .102.

The Big Drop was after 0.106.  There were other drops between other versions, but the 0.106 to 0.107 was the biggest drop in that area.  Check my six graphs at this thread, and aaron's graph on pacman.  I didn't see much of a change between 0.101 to 0.104.


If you're so vector oriented, have you tried the AAE emulator?  It needs a strong video card and is windows only, AFAIK.

As you mentioned, Wine might be another option, but I think it would be better with 0.106 and earlier, too, and I haven't tried it & mame.

[jukingeo]

The Big Drop was after 0.106.  There were other drops between other versions, but the 0.106 to 0.107 was the biggest drop in that area.  Check my six graphs at this thread, and aaron's graph on pacman.  I didn't see much of a change between 0.101 to 0.104.


If you're so vector oriented, have you tried the AAE emulator?  It needs a strong video card and is windows only, AFAIK.

As you mentioned, Wine might be another option, but I think it would be better with 0.106 and earlier, too, and I haven't tried it & mame.

Hello,

Oh!  Funny!  That post was one of the things I read earlier.   Didn't know you created it until I just looked back there.

Wow!  Where to begin.  Lots of stuff here.

Strong video card?  I have an ATI 9600XT 256meg ram.  I can run RCT3 with that (in Windows).  As you may or may not know, this is notoriously known as a hard game to run.  Sure there are much faster video cards out there, but this is the best I can do on my machine without updating the power supply.

I did some early testing in MAME (manually), I started with the then latest version .79, but I didn't like it because it seemed pretty slow.  I ended up going backwards and I ended up with version .58.  Now I see why.   Apparently around version .60 there is a tremendous drop off in performance (vectors).   After that it comes up and levels off for a while.  For some reason it peaks at .106 and .107 and then really bottoms out.

Version .111 of which you mentioned is when SDLMame came out is within that bottom out section.

So overall it looks like when it comes to Windows versions of Mame (Mame32, Mame UI), my choices for versions .58 and .100 were very good.

I can't tell you how GLAD I am that the Mame site continues to post all versions of Mame.
Your charts do prove that it is sometimes better to use an older version.   I am still going to keep version .58 and will use that on lower powered systems.   I am also going to attempt to use this with Wine in Linux.   I will be darned if I actually get "better" performance going this route than with SDLMame.   It should be fairly easy to do.  All I have to do is put version .58 into my fictitious "C" drive in the Wine directory and set WahCade to it.   If it doesn't work right in Ubuntu I can try it out in Puppy, although I don't know how good Puppy's controller support is.

But as of now I don't care for SDLMame's performance.

Getting slightly off topic, I noticed something else last night with SDLMame, and I am wondering if you might be able to assist given that you have that graph making tool.

Ok, when I play Sega games such as Outrun, Hang-On, Space Harrier, and Afterburner, the audio skips badly.  However,  video on screen looks fine with very little choppiness.   Other games from this era (circa 1987), I don't have any problems with.   So I went into my list and tested some games from 1994 (non-Sega) and they didn't have a problem with the audio.  I can go as far as 1998 on some of the more simpler games.   But I can't run something really heavy in graphics such as Landing Gear.  Now this is understandable though.   But what I don't get is why I am having audio problems on a non-vector 1987 game that really isn't that graphically intensive.

I am going to try and compare the Sega games myself within Windows under version .100.   If I don't have the audio problem then that is another issue with SDLMame.

I will say that I didn't have the problem with Sega games using older roms with Mame 0.58.

Any ideas?

Thanx,

Geo

[Arbee]

A couple of things.

First off, SDLMAME is properly discussed at the official SDLMAME forum, which is at http://www.bannister.org/forums/.

Secondly, SDLMAME is intended to be used with hardware accelerated OpenGL.  You do not say what your -video mode is and if you have properly configured Linux for 3D acceleration.

Thirdly, SDLMAME uses OpenGL line primitives to draw the vectors (this isn't quite equivalent to what Windows MAME does in D3D but it's very close).  All of the switches translate directly into GL state settings, and that's why the ranges don't match baseline (they do if you use -video soft).  This has the side effect that the speed and quality of the rendering depends on both your specific graphics card and the driver version you're using.

You will also get poor performance in raster games in SDLMAME if you are not using OpenGL to do the stretching to your final screen resolution - one way to test this is to run SDLMAME in a window with a troublesome game and shrink the window as far as possible with the whole game still being visible.  If it runs 100% speed that way then your OpenGL is not hardware accelerated or is not fast enough.  (In recent versions of SDLMAME you can use the extra cores on multi-core CPUs to help speed up the stretching as well).

And that all said, I agree with URS: if you care that much about vectors you should be running AAE on Windows.  No version of MAME comes close.

[Arbee]

PS: if you bench any SDLMAME against a pre-0.106 baseline version of course it's going to lose.  Bench it against the same version to get any kind of meaningful data.

And late 80s Sega sprite scalers are among the most CPU-intensive games to emulate in MAME, including some 3D ones.  If everyone here didn't patch out the intro screens you could read why for yourselves

[jukingeo]

A couple of things.

First off, SDLMAME is properly discussed at the official SDLMAME forum, which is at http://www.bannister.org/forums/.

That forum is a pain to navigate around as it doesn't even have a search engine (or at least I have not found one yet)!

Secondly, SDLMAME is intended to be used with hardware accelerated OpenGL.  You do not say what your -video mode is and if you have properly configured Linux for 3D acceleration.

Yes, I do have the 3D acceleration enabled. 

Thirdly, SDLMAME uses OpenGL line primitives to draw the vectors (this isn't quite equivalent to what Windows MAME does in D3D but it's very close).  All of the switches translate directly into GL state settings, and that's why the ranges don't match baseline (they do if you use -video soft).  This has the side effect that the speed and quality of the rendering depends on both your specific graphics card and the driver version you're using.

I have also noticed that the later versions of Mame don't look that great in Windows either.  They do look better than SDLMame, that is for sure, but when I compare a newer version of Mame (such as 0.123) with an older version (such as 0.100) the vector renderings are much much better with the older version.

You will also get poor performance in raster games in SDLMAME if you are not using OpenGL to do the stretching to your final screen resolution - one way to test this is to run SDLMAME in a window with a troublesome game and shrink the window as far as possible with the whole game still being visible.  If it runs 100% speed that way then your OpenGL is not hardware accelerated or is not fast enough.  (In recent versions of SDLMAME you can use the extra cores on multi-core CPUs to help speed up the stretching as well).

Ok, I will try that out.  But for the most part I really do not have a problem with raster games.   They do look/run fine in SDLMame.  One noted exception are the Sega games.  I been having trouble with those with stuttering audio.  I could try that test out on them.

And that all said, I agree with URS: if you care that much about vectors you should be running AAE on Windows.  No version of MAME comes close.

Well, I don't have too many vector games, mostly the popular classics of which I maybe play a dozen or so of them.  However, of those few games many are all time favorites:

Starwars, Lunar Lander, Asteroids, Asteroids DLX, Rip Off, Star Castle, and more recently Tempest (as a kid I didn't like this game, but I like it now).

I play these games A LOT!

For the MOST part I am fine with an older version of Mame.  However, if AAE is easy to set up, I might check it out.

EDIT:

I just came back from the AAE thread (here) and the website. 

The pictures I have seen there are gorgeous.   

I don't think my video card will be able to handle this emulator.  Most of what I been reading recommends a newer model PCI-E card.  I have an AGP,  ATI 9600XT.  Ironically I did just update to this card not too long ago because I originally had an Nvidia 5200FX.   The 9600XT was the only card I could use that had twice the speed of the 5200FX, yet I didn't have to update my power supply.

More than likely AAE will probably have to wait for a dedicated machine (or until the time comes where I can afford to buy a new computer).

While AAE IS better than any Mame version I have seen to date, some of the older versions of Mame do get pretty close.  No cigar, but they look decent.  I was just a bit put back that with the newer versions of Mame that the rendering looks WORSE than with the older versions (you would think it would be the other way around).

But AAE sure does top everything I seen to date.   I wonder if this emulator can do Vectrex games as well .

For now, though,  I think I am going to stick with using an older version of Mame, as it appears that I am going to need some serious 'power' to pull off AAE.

Thanx,

Geo

[Ummon]

I think you missed that someone, if I recall correctly, has used a 9600 successfully. Regardless, it's takes a few minutes to find out. Also, what display are you using?

[jukingeo]

I think you missed that someone, if I recall correctly, has used a 9600 successfully. Regardless, it's takes a few minutes to find out. Also, what display are you using?

I believe it was a 9800 which is a significantly more powerful card than mine.  I am just using a standard 17" CRT display.  I have it set at 1024 by 768 resolution, but it can go up to 1600 with 85k refresh.

Geo

[u_rebelscum]

Alright, so I ran benchmarks over the weekend (from thurs to sun, actually) for five sega games, from mame 0.63 to 0.128 (main releases only, DL from mamedev, unoptimized version), with a few different mame settings, on my laptop computer, repeated three times per version/setting/game combination.  Quick graphs for the two settings that sum everything up are below.

Questions answered before anyone asks:
Why start with 0.63?  Mame versions before that need a keypress to start.  I'm not going to press a key every minute or two, hundreds of times, and am not going to setup an app to do so for me.

Why run everything three times?  To find and remove irregular or invalid runs.

Why with so many different settings?  To see/show how changing settings can change the results.  To see/show how mame's default settings have changed over the versions.

Why post only two settings?  The not shown settings' trends are very much like the "1024" setting trend.  (yup, ran twice as many benchmarks as I needed if all I wanted to show was trends.)

What are the setting I ran?  Quick overview: ~2 minutes (-str 120 or -ftr 7200), no auto frameskip, unthrottled, full screen, video & sound, rompath to the same folder.  The "1024" also forced 1024x768 res, directdraw, hwstretch, no rdtsc, no artwork at all.  The "defaults" left mame to its defaults except the a fore mentioned settings (but had no artwork to show).

Why do two games start at zero for a while before getting real info?  The romsets changed, and I had the newest romsets, and no I am not going to rerun them.

What is my laptop hardware & software?  pentium M @ 1.86 GHz, 1 Gig ram, 120 Gig HD @ 5400 rpm, intel 915GM onboard video card, plugged into AC, with full speed settings.  WinXP sp3 home edition, with AV and a bunch of laptop background apps running.  The benches run through a batch file, and the numbers are what mame outputs on exiting mame.

Why a laptop?  It's my fastest intel CPU computer, and I could leave it running benchmarks for a couple days.  My faster computer ATM is older, louder, AMD (so benches differently on some games then the more common intel CPUs), and something's wrong with the power, or the HDs, or cooling so it freezes sometimes, and I use it more frequently.

Did you test the sound quality?  Nope, just the speed/fps.  Choppy sound can be many different issues than emu speed.  For example, none of these games run at 60 Hz exactly (these five run @ 59.637405 or 60.054389, depending on game).

[u_rebelscum]

So, can anything be said about the above results?  Not really, or maybe anything can be said if you pick and choose the game, versions, and settings to compare.  (Something about "lies, lies, and statistics.")

Anyway, Arbee touched on most stuff.  I'll just add ATI openGL driver for consumer cards, linux or windows, has been hit and miss in quality and speed IIRC.

[jukingeo]

So, can anything be said about the above results?  Not really, or maybe anything can be said if you pick and choose the game, versions, and settings to compare.  (Something about "lies, lies, and statistics.")

Yes, it does say a lot.  For one, it seems that the older versions of mame run much faster.  It is funny how there is a power drop off at around .90 and then a brief peak at .119.  It is also prompting me to want to try an older version of Mame under Wine and see how that compares to SDLMame.

Anyway, Arbee touched on most stuff.  I'll just add ATI openGL driver for consumer cards, linux or windows, has been hit and miss in quality and speed IIRC.

I mostly bought the ATI card over an Nvidia card because it was the most powerful one I could get without needing to upgrade my power supply.  I have a 4 year old machine that has a 250watt supply and an AGP buss, so naturally my machine isn't going to compete with a newer machine.  I just wanted a quick video "boost" over the Nvidia 5200FX I had in the machine.  (The ATI 9600XT actually runs twice as fast, has twice the memory and uses slightly LESS power than the Nvidia 5200).

I know that ATI drivers in Linux aren't as good as the Nvidia drivers and I have run into some snags in Linux already.   But overall, I do not really play modern games within Linux.  Mostly I play older emulations of consoles and for the most part that is fine using the Linux emulation programs.  So far SDLMame is where I hit this one little snag.  Most (older) games play absolutely fine with SDLMame.

The concern came about because I was thinking about the plausibility of running a Mame box under Linux using an older machine.  I seriously doubt that is going to happen.  I think for older machines I am going to stick with Windows 98SE for Mame.  But who knows, before I pass judgment I will have to see how the older versions of Mame run under Wine with Linux.  I may get better (or maybe worse) performance.

We will see.  I almost have Mame set up in Wine, I just have to iron out a few things first.

Anyway, thank you for running the tests...they are helpful to me.

Geo