Mortal Kombat 1-3 & MAME Requirements

[Frigo]

Ok, so this is a bit of beating a dead horse, but there's really no other forum that I'd trust enough to get an honest answer from, so here goes...

Over the weekend I put together a small HTPC built inside of a NES case and it's running GameEx as it's front end. I originally wanted to have console only emulation on the system, but as I got into my work, I eventually added handhelds and several arcade emulators, as well. On the arcade front, the CPS I,II, and III emulators are fine, and most of what's in MAME works fine, too. My issue, of course, is getting MK 1-3 to run correctly. I know the documented issues with MK II, so I went into the project expecting less than perfect emulation on that one, but MK 1 & 3 (and ultimate) are also really slow. I figure it might have to do with the mini-ITX mobo that I have (which runs an Adam 1.3 GHz Dual core or something close to that clock speed), and 2 GB of RAM. So I tried it on my more beefy desktop - still the same issue. Granted the CPU isn't a powerhouse, but it's still a 2.3 GHz dual core that should meet most of my needs. The other point of failure might be the MAME romset - I'm running 0.136 and there's some glitchy issues running The Simpsons and TMNT that haven't been an issue in the past, so I might try an earlier version and see if that fixes things. In any event, is there anyone out there running MAME (I'd like to stick to the original MAME if I could) that has MK 1-3 running at a playable speed? If so, what are your specs? Thanks!

[Malenko]

MKII ran just peachy on my lowly P4 2.4 with 1Gb of RAM, not that it matters but was running a nvidia geforce6800 PCI card on that box
Ive since upgraded the MAME CPU to a dual core based intel system ( but now I think the old P4 is going back into the MAME cab and the dual core is going into my VirtualPinball cab.)

[Frigo]

That's so strange, I seem to remember it playing fine on my older systems, too. I really wonder if it's the ROMset/MAME version that's at fault... It's no big deal if it won't play on my NESputer, but when I get around to building my cab this summer, I want to make sure things are perfect, and that I get the right parts.

[Malenko]

as dumb as this may sound, and it may defeat your purpose, but have you tried a SNES emulator with the SNES roms? I know its not arcade perfect, but its pretty good

[HaRuMaN]

Just go back to an earlier MAME and romset...

[Frigo]

LOL, yeah, that's kinda been my whole attitude throughout this whole ordeal, that "meh, there's always the SNES/32x version" to fall back on," as they're in the same emulator and getting to them is real easy. I just really like the way the graphics of 1 and 2 look on the arcade version, and if I could choose between the consoles or the arcade versions, I'd always go with the arcades on those. We'll see how things work out -I'm using a 360 controller for my frontend/emulators, so we'll see how the consoles map the keys for those specific games. With MAME, I was able to map out what commands I wanted to specific buttons (another reason to get MAME working).

HarumaN, any suggestions?

[HaRuMaN]

If I recall correctly, I have MK1-3 working great on my P4 laptop with 512 M of RAM.  I think my MAME version is around .68 or so (maybe up to .78).  I can check later when I get home from work.

[Frigo]

I'd really appreciate it. Take your time, though, I don't really have the time to test it out until later this week, anyway.


EDIT: Fixed it. 0.78 worked fine. I have that version running my MK ROMs and 0.135 running everything else. Thanks.