Most lightweight OS that supports MAME (and preferably other emus) and FE?

[crtrrss]

What is the most lightweight OS that is capable of running MAME and a FE? I have a bunch of really crappy P4-based PCs and Ubuntu just doesn't seem to cut it on them. Everything is way too sluggish on it. Is there anything smaller that can be used?


Thanks,



Carter

[ballboff]

Mmmm... depends on what the p4 speed is.  I'm using a p4 on my main machine which is a 2.8.  Mine runs fine with windows 7 and a SSD and mala frontend.  I didn't even install a lite version of the OS either.  I have disabled all transition effects.

[empardopo]

I'm using a PIII with a lite XP version and it works fine with MALA.
Greetings!

[ballboff]

Also depends on what games you're playing I guess.  None of the more recent king of fighters games would work.  I'd say from about 94 onwards you might have issues.

[adder]

i got good results using 64bit mame with 64bit windows xp, using a P4 cedar mill 3.4ghz.   if u dont have that option then use microXP 32bit.

[elvis]

What is the most lightweight OS that is capable of running MAME and a FE? I have a bunch of really crappy P4-based PCs and Ubuntu just doesn't seem to cut it on them. Everything is way too sluggish on it. Is there anything smaller that can be used?

Like most people, with Ubuntu you're running a bloated desktop distro underneath your emulator and front-end that's completely unnecessary.

I've written a post previously about this, with a guide on how to disable all of the bloated desktop stuff, 3D compositing engine, and do away with everything other than just the raw video output part (Xorg):
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,135914.0.html

It is a little technical, but particularly with modern, heavy, desktop-focussed Linux distros, it can save quite literally gigabytes of memory and gain quite a bit of speed.

[Malenko]

Also depends on what games you're playing I guess.  None of the more recent king of fighters games would work.  I'd say from about 94 onwards you might have issues.

Any game Neo Geo MVS based would run fine. So all the way up to King of Fighters 2003 and SNK vs Capcom:Chaos.


Op: If the hardware is a slug I think your best bet would be XP Lite.

[ballboff]

Any game Neo Geo MVS based would run fine. So all the way up to King of Fighters 2003 and SNK vs Capcom:Chaos.

mmmm...  didn't have as much luck with mine.  Had issues with king of fighters millennium and strider 2, which are both from 1999 I think.  Also mr driller I had similar issues with performance.  I also had issues with street fighter alpha which was a few years earlier, 1995 I believe.

[Malenko]

mmmm...  didn't have as much luck with mine.  Had issues with king of fighters millennium and strider 2, which are both from 1999 I think.  Also mr driller I had similar issues with performance.  I also had issues with street fighter alpha which was a few years earlier, 1995 I believe.

KOF Match of the Millennium was a NeoGeo Pocket Color game. Capcom vs SNK, Capcom Vs SNK Pro, and Capcom Vs SNK 2 :Millennium Fight 2000 were based on Naomi (Dreamcast) Hardware, not MVS.

Mr.Driller ran on Namco System 12 hardware , which is an upgrade from Sony's PlayStation-based System 11, the MIPS R3000A microprocessor is 50% faster, and the C76 sound processor is replaced by the H8/3002. But its just a glorified PS1.

Strider 2 ran on the Sony ZN-2 platform (aka System 16) which is just another improvement over the playstation hardware (more ram, medium res support, etc)

[ballboff]

mmmm...  didn't have as much luck with mine.  Had issues with king of fighters millennium and strider 2, which are both from 1999 I think.  Also mr driller I had similar issues with performance.  I also had issues with street fighter alpha which was a few years earlier, 1995 I believe.

KOF Match of the Millennium was a NeoGeo Pocket Color game. Capcom vs SNK, Capcom Vs SNK Pro, and Capcom Vs SNK 2 :Millennium Fight 2000 were based on Naomi (Dreamcast) Hardware, not MVS.

Mr.Driller ran on Namco System 12 hardware , which is an upgrade from Sony's PlayStation-based System 11, the MIPS R3000A microprocessor is 50% faster, and the C76 sound processor is replaced by the H8/3002. But its just a glorified PS1.

Strider 2 ran on the Sony ZN-2 platform (aka System 16) which is just another improvement over the playstation hardware (more ram, medium res support, etc)

Ah ok fair enough.  I misread your post before, I didn't realise you were just on about mvs hardware.  PS1 and dreamcast hardware, that explains why I can't emulate them very well.

I meant king of fighters 99 millennium battle, but yeah I get your point

[keilmillerjr]

What is the most lightweight OS that is capable of running MAME and a FE? I have a bunch of really crappy P4-based PCs and Ubuntu just doesn't seem to cut it on them. Everything is way too sluggish on it. Is there anything smaller that can be used?


Thanks,



Carter

You do know that there is more lightweight distress of ubuntu, right? Attract-mode front end is awesome and linux compatible.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuFlavors

[Malenko]

Ah ok fair enough.  I misread your post before, I didn't realise you were just on about mvs hardware.  PS1 and dreamcast hardware, that explains why I can't emulate them very well.

I meant king of fighters 99 millennium battle, but yeah I get your point

All good, I figured you didnt quite get what I was saying, but Im glad this may have helped you figure out your emulation issues. All KOFs that run on the MVS hardware will all run at the same speed. Doesnt matter of its KOF94 or KOF99, its literally all the same hardware 

[nitrogen_widget]

I use pclinuxos lxde for most low end systems or slitaz but pclinuxos doesn't have as vast a repository as Debian distros and slitaz will require you compile everything plus its finicky on certain hardware.

I've just started playing with antix 13.2 and its really low resource my test system boots up using 90mb of ram with desktop.
I haven't even turned off services I don't need like Bluetooth and printing.
Using Elvis's method once your comfortable with Linux would make it even lower on the resource usage.
Antix will also allow you to make a live CD of your system after you configure it the way you want


edit: changed antis to Antix.

[emb]

Checkout xubuntu. Its optimized for a lightweight environment to run on older hardware. It uses xfce for the default desktop.

Website: www.xubuntu.org

"Xubuntu is an elegant and easy-to-use operating system. Xubuntu comes with Xfce, which is a stable, light and configurable desktop environment.

Xubuntu is perfect for those who want the most out of their desktops, laptops and netbooks with a modern look and enough features for efficient, daily usage. It works well on older hardware too."

Here is a video of it in action on my machine:
RetroFE on Linux: