MAME 0.160 MK4 - System Requirements?

[newoski]

Hi Guys,

I just tested MK4 (Mortal Kombat 4) on my i5-4670 (no OC) and it's running at about 50-75%.

From what I've read, my CPU should be adequate, no?

Any suggestions to improve performance?

[Malenko]

run the superior dreamcast version MKGold ?

[DarthMarino]

That should definitely be more than sufficient to play this game at 100%.  I tried it on my older computer with a 3.33 GHZ Core 2 Duo and was pretty much running perfectly (besides the glitches). Are you running any video effects like HLSL?

I will second the suggestion to play MK Gold on Dreamcast.  Just make sure you get the Red Disc/Version 2.0 (often labeled as "Hot New").  This corrects some glitches in the original release. 

[Yenome]

Yea my i5 won't run it either. I never cared for it but like they said use the dc or ps2 versions

[BadMouth]

Are you running any video effects like HLSL?

This.

The prescale setting makes the biggest difference.
You may get away with just lowering prescale for MK4 and still having HLSL enabled.

[Malenko]

The prescale setting makes the biggest difference.
You may get away with just lowering prescale for MK4 and still having HLSL enabled.

Lets be honest, no HLSL effect is going to make MK4 look better.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah, wanting to play MK4 is like wanting to play Street Fighter 1.   I suppose you can... but why would you want to?

[newoski]

I'm using GLSL...

How do I change prescale?

[BadMouth]

I'm using GLSL...

How do I change prescale?

you can change it for all games (or just to test) in mame.ini
To only have it affect mk4, you'll have to create an mk4.ini (a copy of mame.ini with different settings) and put it in the ini folder.
I'm assuming the rom name here is mk4.  name it whatever the rom is called.

If you don't have mame.ini in your mame folder, use the command line
mame.exe -createconfig
or
mame.exe -cc
to create it.

Both ways used to work, not sure if they still do.

[newoski]

Weird. So disabling HLSL / GLSL / OpenGL and I'm still getting about 75% speed.

Any other suggestions?

I appreciate that there are better versions of the game available, but after investing in the hardware, I'd like to get the performance I invested in

( :

[newoski]

Enabling/Disabling prescale from 1 to 0 and vice versa didn't have any affect either

[lamprey]

Prescale doesn't have any affect on GLSL. Are you using the 64bit version of MAME?

You could also try a different version of MAME to see if that helps. Sometimes performance goes up or down between versions. On my workstation 0.162 runs about 65% and on 0.156 I'm closer to 80%. So, there is a bit of a dropoff between those two versions for MK4.

[DarthMarino]

I tried it on my i5-3550 and it was about the same.  Usually 100% and sometimes dips to 95%-97%.  Not sure if this really has any effect but do you have a video card? Both computers I tested it on did. 

[lamprey]

One other thing to double check (assuming you are using Windows) is that you have you Power Options set to Performance mode.

[bulbousbeard]

Whoever recommended the DC MK Gold was correct.

MAME's emulation of MK4 sucks hard. It has so many glitches. Go with MK Gold for now.

[Howard_Casto]

Well what we are all eluding to is the fact that even when the arcade version of MK4 is working perfectly, it's still littered with glitches and looks and plays horrible.  It was made on midway's zeus hardware as the board was being developed and it became apparent to the developers that the board wasn't powerful enough to do what they wanted.  Midway left the arcades shortly after this game for good.  The arcade version of MK4 is unfinished and the finished version is actually mk4 gold. 

[Yenome]

just tried it again and it ran 100% how ever there is lots of missing gfx in the game. i was even using opengl and GLSL at 1080p. dont know if you know or not but right now the emulation in mame for it is imperfect. so there will be glitches. if your fine with that it should be running at 100%

[Malenko]

Well what we are all eluding to is the fact that even when the arcade version of MK4 is working perfectly, it's still littered with glitches and looks and plays horrible.  It was made on midway's zeus hardware as the board was being developed and it became apparent to the developers that the board wasn't powerful enough to do what they wanted.  Midway left the arcades shortly after this game for good.  The arcade version of MK4 is unfinished and the finished version is actually mk4 gold.

Yes, I suggested MK4 Gold because of exactly what you typed above. The DC version is more stable, that and it has more characters than any arcade version; Kitana, Mileena, Cyrax, Kung Lao, Baraka, and Sektor. Also has a couple "exclusive" backgrounds as well.

[BadMouth]

Enabling/Disabling prescale from 1 to 0 and vice versa didn't have any affect either

1=scaling by a factor of 1 (no scaling)
0=option turned off

 

IIRC, I have the default set to 4 but reduced it to 1 or 2 for some games that had sound skips.
I'm on a much older processor.

also, I thought GLSL was just HLSL misspelled.
Guess I have some catching up to do.

[lamprey]

Enabling/Disabling prescale from 1 to 0 and vice versa didn't have any affect either

1=scaling by a factor of 1 (no scaling)
0=option turned off

That isn't true for HLSL either.

Prescale is a flag/toggle 0 = OFF and 1 = ON
hlsl_prescale_x/y is the scaling factor. pre-0162 Zero (0) used to mean Auto. Now in 0162 it means OFF.

[BadMouth]

Ugh, things have changed.  Guess I won't be commenting on HLSL settings anymore.
It works the way I described on v.146 on my cab. 

[newoski]

Thanks everyone. Do MAME shaders stress the CPU or GPU?

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[Yenome]

shaders are all on the GPU far as i know. thats why people started putting decent cards in their cabs for the shaders

[newoski]

Odd. I'm at 100% with no shader. Serious slowdown with GLSL Lotte's

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[newoski]

GTX660

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[Yenome]

r9 270 no slow down with GLSL lottes.