OS choice to make

[menace]

Currently I'm running dos 7 with advmame and arcadeos as my mame config.   Now I intend to upgrade the processor to an AMD 1700+ and want to have future light gun support.  My question is (assuming that I have a new monitor so the light guns work) what OS would give me all the support i need for USB etc while not hogging system resources.  I have heard some went winXP with Mamewah but doesn't XP hog alot of resources even when only running one app?

Any input would be appreciated since I've only dealt with DOS and arcadeos my experience with other configs is limited.

[BuZz880]

My 2 cents,

I resisted XP as long as I could because I know it has some issues when you upgrade major hardware components which you tend to do often in MAME machines.  I recently broke down and made the move to XP.

In the past 2 years I have fully configured my Cab using all of the following:

- DOS
- Win98
- Win2K
- XP

This was a progressive thing, always trying to get things a little bit tighter - particularly Daphne, PC Games like "House of The Dead 2" and my LAN which I use to keep the cab up-to-date.  I would have preferred to stay with Win2K at the time but I couldn't get Golden Tee and I think one other PC game I like to work.  

Overall I would say I am glad I had to move to XP.  It seems to have maybe slightly more overhead than W2K but much less than Win98.  Also, all the apps you may need (frontends, WINIPAC, etc) are geared towards XP,  it networks better than any OS and Mame itself seems to be using more Windows code - Direct3D, etc. which seems to have offset the performance drop you would expect as the bottom line is I see better compatibility and similar performance to what I had in DOS.  

The only thing I haven't figured out yet is why Daphne performed best under WIn98SE even though on its own website this is not even a supported OS.  

I run an Athlon 900 with 512MB or Ram.  It even has just an ISA soundcard which I thought XP would hate but it doesn't.  Though I do get some crackling on a few games.

[TalkingOctopus]

I run XP w/ a P3 733 and 512 MB of RAM along with mamewah.  It works just fine, and since your computer is even better you will have no problems running xp.

I highly recommend going the XP route  because windows 98x is just plain ugly.

[BobA]

I have gone the whole route from DOS to Win xp.  2 of my tabletops still run W98SE but only because they don't have the horsepower for XP.   I run XP on my main testing unit and it does a good job.   My recommendation for those now configuring their cabs is go XP if you have the CPU for it.   If you like tinkering and cannot stand MS go Linux but you will be more limited in what you can run.

BobA

[Smack]

Are you planning on running 2 trackballs? If so, 98SE is a decent choice. I've been runnning it on my cocktail cab forever and it works like a charm for me.

My 2 cents.

Smack

[Howard_Casto]

I would guess that it's a video card issue.  98 doesn't support video acceleration, but xp does.  So if you have hwaccel in daph turned on it should be better by default.  I know it is on this machine in xp as opposed to 9x.  

[menace]

Thanks for the feedback guys-My main concern with XP is how much runs in the background that doesn't necessarily need to be there to run a mame machine.  Thats what I'll end up doing is running XP with Mamewah--thanks!

[Minwah]

Thanks for the feedback guys-My main concern with XP is how much runs in the background that doesn't necessarily need to be there to run a mame machine.  Thats what I'll end up doing is running XP with Mamewah--thanks!

You can turn the 'pretty' themes off, and the menu animations etc., and even any unused services that run in the background...I found the 'Windows XP Services' info at www.blackviper.com to be pretty accurate/helpful.

Again, I would recommend XP with that spec PC, I won't be using '98 again except for on old hardware...

[JoeB]

Here are my system specs:

AMD 2400+ CPU
256MB DDR RAM
6.4GB Ultra DMA-2 IDE drive
ArcadeVGA card connected to WG 7000 series

Initially, I build a WindowsXP box, and really tweaked it for speed.  I've noticed it ran very stable, and fast.. but it did have a few flaws.

For once, XP took more HD space.  XP took 15-20 seconds to boot, and 5-10 seconds to shutdown.  And I got into the problem of it loosing all the icons on the task bar (known XP flaw).

I since switch to Windows 98SE running FAT32 (rather than NTFS).  I've noticed that the system is super fast at booting, and shutting down.  Yet the games play at the same speed.

The only problem with 98 is that it doesn't multitask well at all (noticed this while downloading OS patches at the same time as setting up other stuff on the machine).

So at this point, I'm not sure if I'll stick with 98, or revert back to XP.

[Minwah]

I'm surprised how quick your '98 system is at booting, but sounds good

One thing to watch is whether your '98 system slows down over time (without rebooting).  I believe '98 is commonly found to slow up (something to do with it caching stuff), whereas XP doesn't have this flaw - good if you plan using your cab for long periods...