Video Card for Cocktail?

[Player 3]

I'm trying to build a cocktail cabinet, and am in need of a video card. With this first, the rest of the parts for a PC comes around this, and in turn, the cabinet itself, for size reasons.

Doing some research, enabling cocktail video mode in MAME and rotating it for a larger view of horizontal games forces unbelievable slowness on a laptop with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 (256MB). This brings up an important question in picking the right video card. Would I need a card with a faster chipset, more video RAM, or both equally? Any game is very slow in cocktail video mode, running along with HLSL effects. Without HLSL is fine, but preferred with.

Looking around the Micro Center shops, I have encountered a (probably) cheap video card. http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0308101 (e-GeForce 6200 256MB DDR2 PCI). The fact it's PCI means I wouldn't have to get new parts to begin with, as I do have an old desktop with PCI cards (and 512MB of RAM).

Miscellaneous info: The monitor is planned to be 4:3, at 1024x768, using LCD technology.

Reiterating the question, would I need a card with a faster chipset, more video RAM, or both equally?

[lilshawn]

mobile versions of desktop cards are often grossly underpowered. likely you will find the mobile version is 300 or more mhz slower than the same model desktop version.

"mobile" videocards in laptops are the worst...netbooks even worse still... often just cpu cycles stolen from the main processor. not good at all.

even though it's a cocktail table you should still have room to screw a desktop motherboard in there and get a decent setup going for only a few hundred bucks. motherboards with built in video should be avoided like the plauge and go straight to a card setup...no need to go super crazy $1000 video card.

edit: 1024x768 is probably too high resolution.... no need to be that high anyways, 99% mame games are 640x480 or less anyways. no sense in wasting horsepower stretching the video out to 1024x768

[05SRT4]

They have low profile video cards you can check out.

[drventure]

even though it's a cocktail table you should still have room to screw a desktop motherboard in there and get a decent setup going for only a few hundred bucks. motherboards with built in video should be avoided like the plauge and go straight to a card setup...no need to go super crazy $1000 video card.

+1 there's lots of small form factor mobo's and half height vid cards that are more than capable.

edit: 1024x768 is probably too high resolution.... no need to be that high anyways, 99% mame games are 640x480 or less anyways. no sense in wasting horsepower stretching the video out to 1024x768

Not sure I agree with this completely. If you know you won't be running any vector games, then yes, but vector games on a hi res display sure come close to the originals. I'm not sure they'd look near as good at lower res.

[Player 3]

mobile versions of desktop cards are often grossly underpowered. likely you will find the mobile version is 300 or more mhz slower than the same model desktop version.

"mobile" videocards in laptops are the worst...netbooks even worse still... often just cpu cycles stolen from the main processor. not good at all.

even though it's a cocktail table you should still have room to screw a desktop motherboard in there and get a decent setup going for only a few hundred bucks. motherboards with built in video should be avoided like the plauge and go straight to a card setup...no need to go super crazy $1000 video card.

edit: 1024x768 is probably too high resolution.... no need to be that high anyways, 99% mame games are 640x480 or less anyways. no sense in wasting horsepower stretching the video out to 1024x768

Exactly. I'm just comparing the results to my current laptop and wanting something better for it. Onboard video, yes, will be avoided like the plague. Well, that's kind of why I'm finding a video card.

1024x768 is the lowest I can find mountable LCD monitors at anywhere. From shops to eBay. Plus wouldn't a moderate-sized monitor also help with CRT emulation? Partially hence why I'm looking for a video card to begin with? I doubt I'll be playing much in the way of vector games, though. Well, maybe some.

[lilshawn]

<rant>
so, let me get this straight... you want to build a machine using an LCD screen? (with all their inherent faults(not looking to discuss it here)) but then want to waste all sorts of processing power trying to make it look like a CRT?? and then complain that the laptop you chose can't handle it???

you want CRT look, get a CRT monitor for FREE off craigslist and use that...instant CRT look.

</rant>

adding CRT "emulation" is going to require a 50-100% increase in computing power depending on how much crap you do to the video before you display it.

[Player 3]

<rant>
so, let me get this straight... you want to build a machine using an LCD screen? (with all their inherent faults(not looking to discuss it here)) but then want to waste all sorts of processing power trying to make it look like a CRT?? and then complain that the laptop you chose can't handle it???

you want CRT look, get a CRT monitor for FREE off craigslist and use that...instant CRT look.

</rant>

adding CRT "emulation" is going to require a 50-100% increase in computing power depending on how much crap you do to the video before you display it.

I understand the rant. The LCD is to reduce power consumption (barely much money saved from that, but it's something) and to reduce space in the top that could be going for other storage. Plus makes the cabinet much lighter in comparison to using a CRT in it for transport. It's more about practicality rather than absolute perfection for this.

[lilshawn]

such as the case, I would consider LCD but not bother with all the fancy filters to make it look like a CRT.

you are looking at a huge knock to your performance by artificially changing the video. throw some scan-lines on it and that's about it. don't worry about anything else. adding blur or recreating the scanline patterns, ghosting effects and colour-bleed etc etc etc... just adds up.

you might think 2 or 3% increase in processing for each thing starts to add up when you apply 15 things.

keep in mind LCD panels often have TERRIBLE viewing angles ESPECIALLY when viewed as such from a cocktail table. to be quite honest, the best advice i can give you is to go to a best buy or walmart where they have a bunch of monitors set up and actually look at them in the configuration you are going to use them in.

you mentioned a mountable panel... ANY LCD is mountable, often there is tabs and other whatnots poking out the sides of the panel that hold them to the plastic. you can choose ANY monitor you like...you aren't regaled to buying one from happ or wells at 2-3x the price just cause it has a fancy mounting bracket on it.

[Yenome]

if I'm reading right your gonna be using your laptop for this build. if that is so only a few laptops allow their video card to be upgraded. and at that you have no choice but to buy the newer card from the maker of the laptop. and you cant use a standard video card for a desktop. also far as rotating the screen set windows to display in portrait. this should cut down the horsepower needed to make mame do it.

[dudenohair]

Why not just a 60-in-1 card with the video built in?  I know it doesn't do all 300,000 mame games, but I personally think a cocktail cabinet with 60 classics is an awesome machine.   All you need is a VGA monitor and PC power supply in addition to your controls.... you don't need a PC.  If you want to go with an arcade monitor, just replace the VGA monitor.

[Player 3]

if I'm reading right your gonna be using your laptop for this build. if that is so only a few laptops allow their video card to be upgraded. and at that you have no choice but to buy the newer card from the maker of the laptop. and you cant use a standard video card for a desktop. also far as rotating the screen set windows to display in portrait. this should cut down the horsepower needed to make mame do it.

Not really, no. The cabinet's in a different, older desktop PC. Plus the viewing angle has convinced me to try a CRT monitor instead, with VGA output. A better video card is still a must, with a measly integrated chip that barely handles an operating system.

[Yenome]

oh well hell in that case i see cheap video cards on newegg all day that are more than enough to take the workload off the cpu for mame.

[MTPPC]

It's my  understanding that mame doesn't take any advantage of video acceleration so I don't see how you expect any difference in game play with a better video card. I agree with the 60 in 1 idea. Then you can use whatever video you want and have most of the classics. If you need a mame machine, I'd just use the guts and ditch the case of a used P4 off craigslist instead of fiddling around with a laptop and all the problems that go with that.

[Player 3]

It's my  understanding that mame doesn't take any advantage of video acceleration so I don't see how you expect any difference in game play with a better video card.

Coming back to the subject, yes, I understand MAME doesn't take advantage of the GPU for emulation, but what about for HLSL effects? Isn't that GPU-dependent for speed and filters?

[lilshawn]

again, all the HLSL effects are doing in MAME's case is trying to EMULATE the look of a CRT.

by using a CRT, you basically negate the need for it.

[Player 3]

again, all the HLSL effects are doing in MAME's case is trying to EMULATE the look of a CRT.

by using a CRT, you basically negate the need for it.

Yes, yes, yes, but the search for a CRT monitor isn't exactly fruitful or even optimistic. Back to the main question of the thread: Is the HLSL feature GPU-accelerated or is that also left for the CPU?

[lilshawn]

GPU. it's a minor increase to the CPU (due to some extra processing needed to get the data ready for the card, but the bulk is done by the GPU)