What hardware is best suited for Taito Type X2 games?

[twistedsymphony]

I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this question but....

I have a Killer Instinct 2 Arcade cabinet that I restored and I'm thinking of putting in a switcher so I can switch between the legit arcade PCB and a MAME box with a bunch of fighters...

The most intensive games I'd like to run are Taito X2 games like SFIV, KOFXIII and BlazBlue. I know the original Type X2 hardware in it's beefiest form was just Intel Core 2 Duo with a GeForce 7900GS graphics card but looking at the PC release of SFIV the recommended system specs are substantially higher.

I tried running these games on my i3 laptop which just has crappy on-board graphics and they ran but were unplayable because of how slow they were (Type X games were able to play perfectly fine)... I'll be using an old 15K arcade monitor so it's not like it will need to process these games in HD but I do want them to run smoothly all the way through.

So basically before I start dropping money I was wondering what the lowest budget Intel CPU and Nvidia graphics card (I prefer Intel and Nvidia) people recommend for worry free playback of Type X2 games.

[BadMouth]

I tried running these games on my i3 laptop which just has crappy on-board graphics and they ran but were unplayable because of how slow they were (Type X games were able to play perfectly fine)

So are you asking about the Taito Type X games or the Steam/PC versions of them?
The Taito Type X games are less demanding, but as far as I know the 2 player version of SSFIV hasn't surfaced.

If you want fighters, don't skimp on the processor or video card or you'll miss out on the ones running on Demul.
(Guilty Gear, Dead or Alive Millenium, KOF Maximum Impact)

IMO:
For the processor, 3.2Ghz or faster
For the Nvidia GPU, 800, 80 series or higher (i.e. 8800 for old generation, 480, 680, 780 for current generation)
You might get away with a 60 series of the newer generation. 

I'm getting by with budget setup of outdated parts - 3.4Ghz Athlon X3 & 9800GT.
I have to run Dead or Alive Millenium in Makaron emulator because it doesn't run full speed in Demul for me.
The modern PC games run at 1280x720 with most quality settings in the middle. 
(SSFIVAE, SFxTekken, Mortal Kombat Komplete, Injustice)

Keep in mind that you'll need DirectX11 for the newest versions of Demul and Some of the PC games, so that rules out using Windows XP.

[twistedsymphony]

I tried running these games on my i3 laptop which just has crappy on-board graphics and they ran but were unplayable because of how slow they were (Type X games were able to play perfectly fine)

So are you asking about the Taito Type X games or the Steam/PC versions of them?
The Taito Type X games are less demanding, but as far as I know the 2 player version of SSFIV hasn't surfaced.

If you want fighters, don't skimp on the processor or video card or you'll miss out on the ones running on Demul.
(Guilty Gear, Dead or Alive Millenium, KOF Maximum Impact)

IMO:
For the processor, 3.2Ghz or faster
For the Nvidia GPU, 800, 80 series or higher (i.e. 8800 for old generation, 480, 680, 780 for current generation)
You might get away with a 60 series of the newer generation. 

I'm getting by with budget setup of outdated parts - 3.4Ghz Athlon X3 & 9800GT.
I have to run Dead or Alive Millenium in Makaron emulator because it doesn't run full speed in Demul for me.
The modern PC games run at 1280x720 with most quality settings in the middle. 
(SSFIVAE, SFxTekken, Mortal Kombat Komplete, Injustice)

Keep in mind that you'll need DirectX11 for the newest versions of Demul and Some of the PC games, so that rules out using Windows XP.

Yeah I'm talking about actual X2 games running through the Arcade PC Loader. I didn't realize there were different releases for single player and 2 player SFIV... there are two versions available "Street Fighter IV" and "Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition".

I didn't even consider demul, that's going to need more horsepower than TTX2 so it makes for a better target build. Thanks for the advice!

[BadMouth]

Unless there's been a new version released, the Taito Type X versions of SSFIV and SSFIVAE that have been cracked are the Japanese networked 1 player per machine version.  You can play 2 players, but your opponent is on a different machine connected over a network.  Networking still works on the cracked version, but you need 2 machines. 

You'd think this would be some service menu setting instead of a different version of the game, but everything I've seen says that's not the case.

[SegaOutrun]

yes, there is a 2p version. I have it. It actually plays better than the PC version for me. Less setup and less controller issues.

All Taito x game play fine on my phenom x4 945 and 550ti card. If you are paid member of the hyperspin forum, you can get most of the stuff you need from the FTP (gigapigs folder) or you can search around for the fixes. You definably want to stick to the new files as they are easier to use then the stuff floating around from over a year ago.

also to build off of badmouth's comments, if you are fighter kind of guy, dont forget about all the cool fighter on the dreamcast.

[twistedsymphony]

yes, there is a 2p version. I have it. It actually plays better than the PC version for me. Less setup and less controller issues.

All Taito x game play fine on my phenom x4 945 and 550ti card. If you are paid member of the hyperspin forum, you can get most of the stuff you need from the FTP (gigapigs folder) or you can search around for the fixes. You definably want to stick to the new files as they are easier to use then the stuff floating around from over a year ago.

also to build off of badmouth's comments, if you are fighter kind of guy, dont forget about all the cool fighter on the dreamcast.

I'm using Arcade PC Loader v1.4 and the files I'm using was from something posted just last December, though it could have been a re-post of something older. I am a full paid member of the hyperspin forum so I'll definitely check that out and see how it stacks up against what I've got. Thanks!

I'm also a huge Fighting game fan and a huge Dreamcast fan I still have a few of the consoles kicking around and play them on the regular.

With that said I think most of the fighters on the Dreamcast I'd rather have the Arcade version of the game... just for the more authentic arcade feel.


Kind of off-topic but what's the newest arcade versions of Soul Calibur and Tekken that are playable? I'm assuming that since Tekken 6 arcade was based on PS3 hardware it's not even close to being emulated.

[BadMouth]

For most people, the Dreamcast version of Soul Calibur on NullDC and Tekken Tag in MAME is as good as it gets.
There's also SFxTekken for PC.

If you build a bleeding edge PC with a  flagship processor and a flagship video card, you can play newer ones on PCSX2 emulator.
I've read the 2D games aren't anywhere near as demanding, but I've never tried any of them on my systems.

Just search Youtube for PCSX2 and the name of the series you're interested in.
You'll see videos of how they run and what specs are being used.

[twistedsymphony]

...
If you build a bleeding edge PC with a  flagship processor and a flagship video card, you can play newer ones on PCSX2 emulator.
I've read the 2D games aren't anywhere near as demanding, but I've never tried any of them on my systems.

Just search Youtube for PCSX2 and the name of the series you're interested in.
You'll see videos of how they run and what specs are being used.

There are a number of videos from late 2012 running Tekken 5, and Soul Calibur III on PCSX2 in 1080P and 60FPS with the following specs:

Windows 7 SP1 x64
Intel Corei5 2500k @ 4,3 GHz
EVGA GeForce 9800GTX+ 512MB
Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 RAM 1600Mhz, 9-9-9-24

PCSX2 configuration:

PCSX2 0.9.9 SVN rev 5037 (get SVN revisions at http://pcsx2.net/download/development... )
GSdx v0.1.16 (SSE4) SVN rev 5133 (DX10 Hardware, Texture Filtering first state)
Skipdraw 2
Internal Resolution: 1080x1920 (Native is 640x448)
SPU2-X v2.0.0 SVN rev 4945
Lilypad v0.10.0 SVN rev 4929
USBnull,FWnull,DEV9null
Recommended speed hacks on, MTVU on
Automatic Game Fixes on

Those 9800s go for about $40 these days which isn't bad... I'd probably go with something a little newer like a GTX 480 which seems to go around $100 used and blows away the 9800.

hmm... this has given me a lot to think about. I might have to hold off on this project while I do more research and reconsider my goals.

[SegaOutrun]

I'm using Arcade PC Loader v1.4 and the files I'm using was from something posted just last December, though it could have been a re-post of something older. I am a full paid member of the hyperspin forum so I'll definitely check that out and see how it stacks up against what I've got. Thanks!

I'm also a huge Fighting game fan and a huge Dreamcast fan I still have a few of the consoles kicking around and play them on the regular.

With that said I think most of the fighters on the Dreamcast I'd rather have the Arcade version of the game... just for the more authentic arcade feel.


Kind of off-topic but what's the newest arcade versions of Soul Calibur and Tekken that are playable? I'm assuming that since Tekken 6 arcade was based on PS3 hardware it's not even close to being emulated.

personally I prefer the new individual standalone loader than the the one size fit all arcadepc loader. There is a thread dedicated to getting taito x in hyperlaunch that you should look at. I would start around page 80+ to see the new stuff.

dreamcast has the benefit of 1080p upscaling. Tekken 6 is playable on the psp emulator, Tekken 5 and Soul Calibur III is playable on the ps2 emulator, mame can play tekken tag.

SfxTekken is awesome too. Im not home otherwise, I would list some other games I have. I went on a fighting game bender one weekend and added almost all the ones I could find.

[twistedsymphony]

dreamcast has the benefit of 1080p upscaling. ...

That's completely moot for my uses as this will be running on an arcade monitor @ 240P   

[njgsx96]

I ended up going with an HP 6200 slim desktop that is running an i5 3.0 and had the onboard Intel graphics.  It played all of my emulators up to the Dreamcast/PS1 just fine, although I played mostly MAME.  Came across the Taito Type X games and I was smitten!  SSF IV AE was the tipping point, man did it lag bad.  Since I was using a half-height desktop, I needed a half height card but like you wanted to not break the bank and so I ended up getting an NVidia 430 1GB video card for a ridiculous price and while the reviews were lukewarm, and let me tell you...  that little card plays everything!  All Taito games run perfect on it, NAOMI, Sega Model 2 and 3, and emulation up to the Dreamcast/PS2 runs great.  I have since expanded to cabinet friendly arcade games (SSF IV, SF X Tekken, Double Dragon Neon, Sine Mora, etc) and they all run on the highest detail settings without a hiccup (SSF IVs in game test showed 120 FPS!).  This card rates similar to the 9800 series which is fairly cheap as well.  I think as long as you go 8800 or better, you can't go wrong.

[Howard_Casto]

This is a hard one to reply to.  Type X games didn't have a set piece of hardware tbh.  Different games used different video cards, and some games won't render correctly without a compatible one.  I'm sorry I don't have a list on hand, but I know with some ati cards you have rendering problems with one of the BlazBlue games and something else, I can't remember. 

[SegaOutrun]

This is a hard one to reply to.  Type X games didn't have a set piece of hardware tbh.  Different games used different video cards, and some games won't render correctly without a compatible one.  I'm sorry I don't have a list on hand, but I know with some ati cards you have rendering problems with one of the BlazBlue games and something else, I can't remember.

Correct. I forgot about that. Some games wont play on some ati cards. But I think at most 2-3 games have issues with ati cards. Also the loader hates a bluetooth enabled PCs. You need to disable bluetooth (at least while the game is playing). Once again the hyperspin ftp has the files you will need including a temporary bluetooth disabler if you need it.

[BadMouth]

There is a graphics issue with Blazblue and one or two other games that can be corrected by turning off anti-aliasing in the video card software.
The deal with the ATI cards is that some models give you no option to turn it off.

SegaOutrun, thanks for mentioning there is a 2 player SSFIV out there now.
Now if someone would just crack the Type X driving games. 

[twistedsymphony]

I ended up going with an HP 6200 slim desktop that is running an i5 3.0 and had the onboard Intel graphics.  It played all of my emulators up to the Dreamcast/PS1 just fine, although I played mostly MAME.  Came across the Taito Type X games and I was smitten!  SSF IV AE was the tipping point, man did it lag bad.  Since I was using a half-height desktop, I needed a half height card but like you wanted to not break the bank and so I ended up getting an NVidia 430 1GB video card for a ridiculous price and while the reviews were lukewarm, and let me tell you...  that little card plays everything!  All Taito games run perfect on it, NAOMI, Sega Model 2 and 3, and emulation up to the Dreamcast/PS2 runs great.  I have since expanded to cabinet friendly arcade games (SSF IV, SF X Tekken, Double Dragon Neon, Sine Mora, etc) and they all run on the highest detail settings without a hiccup (SSF IVs in game test showed 120 FPS!).  This card rates similar to the 9800 series which is fairly cheap as well.  I think as long as you go 8800 or better, you can't go wrong.

Awesome thank you for that insight... I per-fer smaller "half-height" PCs for my MAME builds since it frees up a lot of space, I was thinking I might have to give up on that in order to support a full-sized card but you've given me hope   

...Once again the hyperspin ftp has the files you will need including a temporary bluetooth disabler if you need it.

I check out the FTP last night and gigapig's folder only seemed to have wheel images and other graphics I didn't see anything related to game launching.

Also it seems I have the single player version of SSFIVAE. Do you have any idea I tell the difference between the single and 2 player versions when searching for a new dump?

[SegaOutrun]

There is a graphics issue with Blazblue and one or two other games that can be corrected by turning off anti-aliasing in the video card software.
The deal with the ATI cards is that some models give you no option to turn it off.

SegaOutrun, thanks for mentioning there is a 2 player SSFIV out there now.
Now if someone would just crack the Type X driving games. 

There arent many racers on taito x. there a youtube video of someone playing Chase HQ2 on the PC about 6 months ago but it was extremely choppy. Word is that its been dumped but it hasnt been successfully hacked to be fully playable. Battle Gear has also been dumped and goes to the title screen before it give an i/o error. Hopefully they figure out how to emualate or bypass the steering//motor error. Wacky racers and D1gp have not been dumped.

While we are on the topic of updated Taito Games, Half-life Survivor 2 became playable about 6 months ago and Silent Hill the Arcade(Gun Game) became playable about week ago.

[twistedsymphony]

There arent many racers on taito x. there a youtube video of someone playing Chase HQ2 on the PC about 6 months ago but it was extremely choppy. Word is that its been dumped but it hasnt been successfully hacked to be fully playable. Battle Gear has also been dumped and goes to the title screen before it give an i/o error. Hopefully they figure out how to emualate or bypass the steering//motor error. Wacky racers and D1gp have not been dumped.

While we are on the topic of updated Taito Games, Half-life Survivor 2 became playable about 6 months ago and Silent Hill the Arcade(Gun Game) became playable about week ago.

HLS2 is a cool game and all but I don't think there are many people with cabs capable of properly playing an FPS... I'm sure Silient Hill is a welcome addition for owners of gun cabs though.

There might not be too many racers on the platform but I'd be ecstatic Battle Gear was playable playable with FFB and LAN... There are too few "fully featured" arcade racers available period. the Model 2 stuff is nice and so are various PC games, but having a genuine modern arcade racer would be awesome. Chase HQ2 and D1GP both look great and I'm sure if they get one working the others well follow suit.

Speaking of arcade racers aren't he Need for Speed/Fast and the Furious arcade games based on PC hardware? has anyone ever made any progress dumping/hacking those running on non-original hardware?

[njgsx96]

I ended up going with an HP 6200 slim desktop that is running an i5 3.0 and had the onboard Intel graphics.  It played all of my emulators up to the Dreamcast/PS1 just fine, although I played mostly MAME.  Came across the Taito Type X games and I was smitten!  SSF IV AE was the tipping point, man did it lag bad.  Since I was using a half-height desktop, I needed a half height card but like you wanted to not break the bank and so I ended up getting an NVidia 430 1GB video card for a ridiculous price and while the reviews were lukewarm, and let me tell you...  that little card plays everything!  All Taito games run perfect on it, NAOMI, Sega Model 2 and 3, and emulation up to the Dreamcast/PS2 runs great.  I have since expanded to cabinet friendly arcade games (SSF IV, SF X Tekken, Double Dragon Neon, Sine Mora, etc) and they all run on the highest detail settings without a hiccup (SSF IVs in game test showed 120 FPS!).  This card rates similar to the 9800 series which is fairly cheap as well.  I think as long as you go 8800 or better, you can't go wrong.

Awesome thank you for that insight... I per-fer smaller "half-height" PCs for my MAME builds since it frees up a lot of space, I was thinking I might have to give up on that in order to support a full-sized card but you've given me hope   

Anytime!  If you think you might need  a little more power, the 630 half height is only $50 now and as long as you don't want to play BF4 at full everything in 1080P or higher, it will be way more than enough.  Heck, my 430 plays everything I throw at it at 1280X1024 so there is definitely hope for yout o stick with a smaller form factor PC if needed. 

I think like everyone else has said, no set standard with TTX but less problems with NVidia cards and remember the BT settings to turn off.

[twistedsymphony]

Anytime!  If you think you might need  a little more power, the 630 half height is only $50 now and as long as you don't want to play BF4 at full everything in 1080P or higher, it will be way more than enough.  Heck, my 430 plays everything I throw at it at 1280X1024 so there is definitely hope for yout o stick with a smaller form factor PC if needed. 

I think like everyone else has said, no set standard with TTX but less problems with NVidia cards and remember the BT settings to turn off.

yeah I'm finding that the beefiest low-profile cards I can find are either a 640 with 2GB of memory or a 650 with 1GB of memory both are around $100.

before I get a card I have find a cheap PC with an i5.

[BadMouth]

Don't limit yourself to low profile.  Especially if this is going inside a cabinet eventually anyway.
It would severely restrict your options for both the video card and cpu cooling.
I can understand doing it for a living room box that will be treated like a console, but there is no reason to do it on a full size cab.

Just my $.02

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah also you are going to save yourself a lot of money.  The whole world has went laptop/tablet crazy so the "ancient" pc form factor is often a lot cheaper. 

[twistedsymphony]

Don't limit yourself to low profile.  Especially if this is going inside a cabinet eventually anyway.
It would severely restrict your options for both the video card and cpu cooling.
I can understand doing it for a living room box that will be treated like a console, but there is no reason to do it on a full size cab.

Just my $.02

I'll need to take some measurements in my KI2 cab to see what will actually fit but the two cabinets I'm in the middle of now (Dance Dance Revolution and Fix-it-Felix Jr.) both needed to be low profile  the Nintendo cab I'm using for FiF a full-sized PC wouldn't have cleared the coin door/box and the DDR machine I have the PC still sitting outside of it because I still haven't figured out how I'm going to make it fit. Kind of Laughable considering how monstrous that cab is but it's got a ton of internal structure that severely limits any good mounting options... I might have to decase it and try to get it to fit in the original PCB location.

-----------

I've been poking around eBay and it seems like for the price range I'm looking at it doesn't really matter much going full-sized or half sized.... the only down side is it's limiting my video card options...

[BadMouth]

SegaOutrun, did Daemon Bride ever get fully cracked?

[SegaOutrun]

SegaOutrun, did Daemon Bride ever get fully cracked?

yes. You use a program called xbmonitor 2 to play it. same with arcana hearts 2

[twistedsymphony]

Ok so here is what I'm looking at for a build...

Asus P8H61-M LC/CSM Motherboard - $43
Intel Core i3 2120 CPU w/cooler - $112
Crucial Ballstix 8GB DDR3-1600 RAM - $72
Zotec Geforce GTX 650 1GB - $115

I already have a HDD and OS and plenty of cooling fans

and that leaves me another $50 for a case with a PSU (Power consumption calcs state I'll only need ~250W so I figure 350W+ should be good.

Goals:
1. Runs Demul smoothly with a target resolution of 640x480 (Tri-Sync Arcade monitor).
-- I also want to run PCSX2, TTX2, Dolphin, MAME etc. but I figure Demul will be the most demanding

2. Fits in a MicroATX form-factor case.
-- I like the flexibility of this form factor, it might limit my GPU but overall it will have lower power consumption which helps the cost goals

3. As low-cost as possible
-- I might be building 3 more of these machines for racing cabs so every $1 saved on a single build is worth $4 saved overall

[SegaOutrun]

Its there a specific naomi game or games your are interested in? the 650 seems too low of a 3DMark Score for demul. i have a 550ti and many games would choke. I use a 7850 now and it definably and improvement. I still have both cards if you have a specific game for me to test.

[BadMouth]

I have this power supply in all my budget builds.  Every few months it goes on sale for $20 after rebate.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139026

I don't trust the ones that come with cases.  I've used them twice and both were dead within 2 years.

[twistedsymphony]

Its there a specific naomi game or games your are interested in? the 650 seems too low of a 3DMark Score for demul. i have a 550ti and many games would choke. I use a 7850 now and it definably and improvement. I still have both cards if you have a specific game for me to test.

At what resolution though? I only need 640x480 which I would suspect would be a lot less demanding than HD resolutions.

The Most demanding game for my upright would probably be Virtua Fighter 4
I'm also interested in MvC2, Guilty Gear, DOA2 etc.

For my racing cabs Initial D would be the most demanding... but I'm also interested in Crazy Taxi, F355 Challenge, and Faster than Speed.

I have this power supply in all my budget builds.  Every few months it goes on sale for $20 after rebate.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139026

I don't trust the ones that come with cases.  I've used them twice and both were dead within 2 years.

thanks for the tip!

[SegaOutrun]

At what resolution though? I only need 640x480 which I would suspect would be a lot less demanding than HD resolutions.

The Most demanding game for my upright would probably be Virtua Fighter 4
I'm also interested in MvC2, Guilty Gear, DOA2 etc.

For my racing cabs Initial D would be the most demanding... but I'm also interested in Crazy Taxi, F355 Challenge, and Faster than Speed.

[/quote]

youll be fine with the fighters. You may get a few graphical glitches but nothing major.  the one that will hiccup in your list is crazy taxi(big moving world). F355 is not playable in demul but the dreamcast version works on nulldc. Intial d and faster than speed will play with graphical glitches.

[Howard_Casto]

I will say this.  While half of the type X games work well with an arcade monitor, the other half are really meant to be played at a higher resolution.  SF IV comes to mind. You'll have no incompatibility issues... they'll just look bad.   

[twistedsymphony]

so I realized that the HTPC I built a while back has a GTX 550 2GB Supercloced card in it (Core 2 Quad Processor with 8GB Ram)

I threw TTX SSFIV on there as well as demul and a handful of NAOMI roms.

SSFIV ran beautifully... Demul actually ran really well too,

I had both setup to output at 720p with Vsync on and whatever the other default options were.

all of the NAOMI 1 stuff played perfectly smooth I did notices the occasional graphical glitch in some of the 2D overlays on screens (for instance the "insert coin" text on Guilty gear looked weird). Also, on some games whenever scenes changed there would be brief studder in the audio but it didn't seem to effect the gameplay at all.


The only NAOMI 2 game I tried was VF4 Final Tuned... it had a lot of graphical and audio problems but it didn't seem like the graphics card was having trouble keeping up, more just like the emulation wasn't complete... it ran smooth but it had problems like the on screen text appearing behind the 3D graphics in spots... some of the models weren't constructed properly, audio was skipping a lot.

I've seen videos of Demul running VF4 and I remember seeing some problems like lack of proper shadows and lighting but I don't remember seeing a lot of the other issues... is there a preferred version of VF4 or specific settings I should be running?

[BadMouth]

I've seen videos of Demul running VF4 and I remember seeing some problems like lack of proper shadows and lighting but I don't remember seeing a lot of the other issues... is there a preferred version of VF4 or specific settings I should be running?

I haven't messed around with VF4, but disabling stuff in the video plugin settings helps with some other games.

[twistedsymphony]

So this is what I ended up buying:

Mobo: AsRock B75M-GL - $60
CPU: Intel core i3-3240 3.4GHz - $120
RAM: Crucial Ballistix 8GB DDR3 1600 - $63
GPU: EVGA NVidia GeForce GTX 580 1.5GB - $125
PSU: EVGA EVGATX12VQ 500W - $40

I'll be using a HDD and case from spare parts I have at home.

totals just a hair over $400, and arguably the best I can get for that amount of money while still using reliable parts.

[twistedsymphony]

So I've been setting up this machine for the better part of the last two weeks...

MAME runs great, TTX runs great (except for KOF XIII which I can't get to launch and KOF RA which crashes a few seconds after it starts)


Demul "runs" but not well enough to play... it actually runs WORSE than the lower specced machine I used to test it...     and I built this box specifically to accommodate NAOMI/Atomiswave emulation.

I'm running 640x480 with all the lowest graphical settings, using the DX11 driver

Games like Guilty Gear play smooth for about 5 or 6 seconds, then will lock up for about 1 or 2 seconds, then play smooth then lock up, etc. etc.

  Any help would be appreciated

[Malenko]

for the sake of argument, what happens when you run Demul at 800x600?

Also, the specs seem to be adequate for what you want to run, what kind of hard drive are you running?

[BadMouth]

Disable stuff in the video plugin options in Demul.  I think I have the first two video options disabled and the last one enabled.
(don't recall what the options are, one of them was z-order or something like that)
I think I'm on the original video plugin that came with Demul .58, not the slightly newer one that was released after.

Sounds like crap running in the background though, probably automatic updates.
Try turning those off.

Your video card should be plenty good enough and your 3.4Ghz i3 has to be better than my AMD 3.4Gz X3.

I'm running an old 9800GT and the newest driver at the time completely killed the performance of not only Demul, but also the demanding games in MAME like NFL Blitz.  Reverted to old driver and everything was full speed again.  So you might try an older driver.

Makaron Emulator is less demanding, but there really isn't any documentation for it.
The developer just shared it on his blog, whatever state it was in. 
If you hadn't been following along with the development, it's a PITA to understand and use it.
I think someone made a user interface version of it, but it's kinda shady

[twistedsymphony]

for the sake of argument, what happens when you run Demul at 800x600?

Also, the specs seem to be adequate for what you want to run, what kind of hard drive are you running?

The harddrive is a  SATA3 Seagate Barracuda 64MB Cache 7200 RPM  3TB

Disable stuff in the video plugin options in Demul.  I think I have the first two video options disabled and the last one enabled.
(don't recall what the options are, one of them was z-order or something like that)
I think I'm on the original video plugin that came with Demul .58, not the slightly newer one that was released after.

Sounds like crap running in the background though, probably automatic updates.
Try turning those off.

Your video card should be plenty good enough and your 3.4Ghz i3 has to be better than my AMD 3.4Gz X3.

I'm running an old 9800GT and the newest driver at the time completely killed the performance of not only Demul, but also the demanding games in MAME like NFL Blitz.  Reverted to old driver and everything was full speed again.  So you might try an older driver.

Makaron Emulator is less demanding, but there really isn't any documentation for it.
The developer just shared it on his blog, whatever state it was in. 
If you hadn't been following along with the development, it's a PITA to understand and use it.
I think someone made a user interface version of it, but it's kinda shady

like I said, every option in the video plugin is disabled.

Nothing is running in the background either. this is a clean Win 8 installation, no antivirus, windows update is disabled, windows defender is disabled, as the windows search indexing service and a few other things.

the only application running is demul

------------

Other things run perfectly fine... TTX games like SSFIVAE and Blaz Blue run sikly smooth, as does pretty much everything I've tried running in MAME (including highly demanding modern 3D titles) PC games like Injustice  and SF X Tekken runs great even on high settings too.

[Howard_Casto]

That emulator has various hardware requirements as well.  They say that the proper level of shaders is all you need, but I've had trouble getting it to work on cards that should be supported.  I'm not necessarily telling you to get a new video card, but you might want to try it on another pc with similar specs.

[twistedsymphony]

That emulator has various hardware requirements as well.  They say that the proper level of shaders is all you need, but I've had trouble getting it to work on cards that should be supported.  I'm not necessarily telling you to get a new video card, but you might want to try it on another pc with similar specs.

I tested on a Core 2 Quad with a GTX550Ti and it ran "pretty good"  but a little choppy here or there. so when I built this machine I speced it out similarly just with faster parts from the same family.

-----------

To be honest the problems don't seem like slow performance.  I'm getting a rock-solid 60FPS for a few seconds then the game locks up then goes back to 60FPS like nothing happened.... Not to mention this is happening even in 2D game menus as well as video cut-scenes when nothing is being rendered.

I would think if this were a performance issue I'd have a flaky frame-rate that got worse during more intense parts of the game but that's not the case.

[BadMouth]

You're not running Windows XP are you?

The legacy directX 9 driver for Demul is total crap.
Use Demul 5.6 if running xp.

[twistedsymphony]

no, as I stated earlier I'm running Windows 8

more specifically 8.1 Pro 64-bit and it has the latest DX11 driver.

[twistedsymphony]

You were right BadMouth... I had stuff running in the background.

there were a handful of "game.exe" files running from TTX games that didn't exit properly. For some reason they were running under the "service" list as opposed to the active programs list.

This despite having rebooted, Windows 8 like's save and reload all of your running processes when rebooting so even thought I shut down thinking I would clear out any problems Windows decided to keep running all that crap until I manually killed them.


This is the 2nd time this "feature" of Win 8 has caused problems for me... earlier one of the programs went screwy and caused Metro UI as well as the task bar to crash leaving me with nothing but my background image and no interface... I hard rebooted and it brought me right back to the same state <_<

I had to look up the command to re-launch the windows UI (if you're curious: Ctrl+Alt+Del and open task manager then run "explorer" and it will fix itself)

---------------

pretty much all of the NAOMI and AtomisWave stuff runs good now.

The only problem I'm having now is with Virtua Fighter 4... the music skips at a regular interval, despite the fat that the rest of the game runs smoothly with a solid frame rate.

[BadMouth]

The only problem I'm having now is with Virtua Fighter 4... the music skips at a regular interval, despite the fat that the rest of the game runs smoothly with a solid frame rate.

That's probably just incomplete emulation.  The NAOMI 2 emulation still needs a lot of work.
Glad you got it sorted out.

[haku99]

I tried running these games on my i3 laptop which just has crappy on-board graphics and they ran but were unplayable because of how slow they were (Type X games were able to play perfectly fine)

So are you asking about the Taito Type X games or the Steam/PC versions of them?
The Taito Type X games are less demanding, but as far as I know the 2 player version of SSFIV hasn't surfaced.

If you want fighters, don't skimp on the processor or video card or you'll miss out on the ones running on Demul.
(Guilty Gear, Dead or Alive Millenium, KOF Maximum Impact)

IMO:
For the processor, 3.2Ghz or faster
For the Nvidia GPU, 800, 80 series or higher (i.e. 8800 for old generation, 480, 680, 780 for current generation)
You might get away with a 60 series of the newer generation. 

I'm getting by with budget setup of outdated parts - 3.4Ghz Athlon X3 & 9800GT.
I have to run Dead or Alive Millenium in Makaron emulator because it doesn't run full speed in Demul for me.
The modern PC games run at 1280x720 with most quality settings in the middle. 
(SSFIVAE, SFxTekken, Mortal Kombat Komplete, Injustice)

Keep in mind that you'll need DirectX11 for the newest versions of Demul and Some of the PC games, so that rules out using Windows XP.

Hi

I have a similar system as you: dell inspiron 531
-AMD athlon 64 x2 dual core processor 6000+ 3.0ghz
-4gig ram
-gefore 9800 gtx+

Running mame 0.152

For some reason, 3D type games such as: soul calibre 1, soul edge, tekken 3, basically all older 3D games have sound and game play lag

is it my processor that is too slow?

Before I even installed the 9800 gtx+, even donkey kong jr, ran slow as hell.  I tried different emulators such as groovymame, mameUI but ran into the same issues....
 

[BadMouth]

If it's the old socket 939 Athlon 64, the processor is too slow.

If it's an AM2 socket X2, then it's borderline, but should still be able to squeak by.

For Donkey Kong, I'm guessing HLSL was enabled and the prescale was set high.
Otherwise it should have had no problem running full speed.

For Tekken 3, Soul Calibur, etc., the processor is probably just barely enough and will require tweaking.
Having a 64-bit OS and 64-bit version of MAME helps.
Definitely can't have HLSL enabled at all on those games.  No antivirus, nothing running in the background.
For Tekken 3, I remember ending up running one of the clones instead of the parent because it ran better.
There are also 2 completely different versions of Soul Edge.  IIRC, I've only got one running full speed.
Dreamcast version is the best.

Using an old version of MAME might help also.  My old setup uses somewhere around MAME 127.

The big thing to remember in MAME is that the GPU doesn't help much.  The entire machine is being emulated by the processor, 3D rendering and all.

[haku99]

If it's the old socket 939 Athlon 64, the processor is too slow.

If it's an AM2 socket X2, then it's borderline, but should still be able to squeak by.

For Donkey Kong, I'm guessing HLSL was enabled and the prescale was set high.
Otherwise it should have had no problem running full speed.

For Tekken 3, Soul Calibur, etc., the processor is probably just barely enough and will require tweaking.
Having a 64-bit OS and 64-bit version of MAME helps.
Definitely can't have HLSL enabled at all on those games.  No antivirus, nothing running in the background.
For Tekken 3, I remember ending up running one of the clones instead of the parent because it ran better.
There are also 2 completely different versions of Soul Edge.  IIRC, I've only got one running full speed.
Dreamcast version is the best.

Using an old version of MAME might help also.  My old setup uses somewhere around MAME 127.

The big thing to remember in MAME is that the GPU doesn't help much.  The entire machine is being emulated by the processor, 3D rendering and all.

thanks for the reply

you confirmed my fears.

guess i'll have to upgrade the computer!  i got it free from a friend but spent $40 on a new CPU (it was 2.2ghz before)

cheers

[twistedsymphony]

I'm finding that PS2 emulation is even more demanding than Demul's Naomi 2 emulation.

I get a lot of sound glitching even on low settings with PCSX2

Dolphin and Demul are running fantastic on my setup though.