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PC for an Arcade Cabinet
Mister Hat:
--- Quote from: wizkid32 on March 30, 2012, 10:33:05 pm ---If you want something really tiny (and cheap too!) you could look at a Raspberry Pi.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=117319.msg1255884#msg1255884
Not sure if it's powerful enough for your project, though I'm pretty sure there is a Linux port of MAME.
--- End quote ---
Yes, there is definitely a port of MAME on Linux. There are also emulators for each of the consoles the OP mentioned :).
rCadeGaming:
My current desktop, which I use to play with MAME, has a 2 gig AMD Athlon and a GeForce 3. This was pretty hot when I got it, BUT THAT WAS TWELVE YEARS AGO! It still plays 99% of what I want in MAME at 100% with no frameskip or anything else like that.
These are pretty much the only things it can't handle:
Asura Blade
Cruis'n USA
Gradius IV
Mr. Driller
Puyo Puyo Sun (borderline, just needs a little more power to avoid frameskip and audio issues)
Radiant Silvergun
Rival Schools
San Francisco Rush
Street Fighter III: Third Strike (same as puyo)
Strider 2
The thing is that these kinds of games (as well as a lot of games not yet working in MAME) are from the era getting toward the late 90's, when it became commonplace for console ports to be far superior to the original arcade game anyway. Soul Calibur comes to mind.
I will be putting a fast new dual-core intel into my cabinet, but it's more for the benefit of fast start-up and loading times. A solid-state hard drive is important for this too. Another thing about a solid state hard drive is that unlike traditional hard drives it won't be harmed by a subwoofer shaking the cabinet.
DEL 707:
In the end I went for the shuttle
2.9Ghz Pentium
8gb RAM
500gb HD
I know I didn't need to get those kind of specs, but it seemed silly not to upgrade some of the specs, difference between 4gb RAM and 8gb was less then £10 :o
Nothing wrong with a little future proofing, plus I can take it out and use it for other crap if I need to :P
Hopefully my speakers will arrive soon, just need to figure out how to cut and install the bezel and I might actually have a working cabinet some time over the weekend.
amheck:
Are the G Series Sandy Bridge CPU's pretty good for a MAME setup? I not only want to run MAME but Golden Tee and Tiger Woods PGA Tour online, too. I've found some Dell 620s slimtowers in the outlet with the G630 CPU for around $375 and just want to make sure this are ok for what I want.
rCadeGaming:
Supposedly the price difference on an Intel processor vs an "equivalent-speed" (in gigahertz) AMD is worth it. As to which specific Intel is best, I think it doesn't matter much, whatever is fastest. I think there's always a sweet spot in the price curve where price and decent speed intersect.
Depending on what MAME you're running, multicore CPUs don't do a whole lot. A single threaded application can only run as fast as one of the cores. It's still good to have a dual-core, as they're not expensive and other background processes can run on the other core, but beyond two there's not much benefit.
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