Speed up MAME?

[Kampfflieger]

Mame runs better on Linux or Win32?

I'm going to buy a new PC, and I want to know which is the best configuration to run carnevil and war gods on AMD?

I'm thinking in XP 3200, 512 DDR and Geforce FX, don't know if i'm wrong.

Any suggestions are good received.

Sorry by my poor english  

[Tiger-Heli]

Mame runs better on Linux or Win32?

I'm going to buy a new PC, and I want to know which is the best configuration to run carnevil and war gods on AMD?

I'm thinking in XP 3200, 512 DDR and Geforce FX, don't know if i'm wrong.

Any suggestions are good received.

Sorry by my poor english  

You might want to ask this in the software forum.

I've never used Linux but there was an article on www.mameworld.net several years ago that MAME was much faster on Linux.  The windows port may have caught up by now though, and it wouldn't surprise me if some games were faster on Linux and other games were faster on Windows.

Sorry I'm not more helpful.

[Teknique]

As an FYI, I have a 1900+ with 512 DDR ram and Carnevil is so slow to be unplayable for me.  

GL with the 3200 thought.

[Tiger-Heli]

Just remembered http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20040329/index.html has information on how you can run Linux from a CD.  I'm not sure, but I think you could do this and run Linux MAME and test both out (without having to re-format/re-install between tests.

Let us know how it turns out.

[vputz]

Knoppix (www.knopper.net) is an EXCELLENT "live" linux CD that will boot to a full desktop linux environment without ever touching a hard drive.  Highly recommended as a system recovery/repartitioning tool as well!

There has been at least some work on building a customized "mame knoppix" distribution at http://sourceforge.net/projects/knoppixmame, but I'm not sure how far they've gotten...

-->VPutz

[Howard_Casto]

Mame runs better on Linux or Win32?

I'm going to buy a new PC, and I want to know which is the best configuration to run carnevil and war gods on AMD?

I'm thinking in XP 3200, 512 DDR and Geforce FX, don't know if i'm wrong.

Any suggestions are good received.

Sorry by my poor english  

You might want to ask this in the software forum.

I've never used Linux but there was an article on www.mameworld.net several years ago that MAME was much faster on Linux.  The windows port may have caught up by now though, and it wouldn't surprise me if some games were faster on Linux and other games were faster on Windows.

Sorry I'm not more helpful.

If anyone wonders why I am so pro-windows... here is the reason..

Linux uses less resources than windows, so if your machine is crap then it's a good choice (much like dos) however, due to poor hardware support, windows mame is actually considerably faster than linux.  Why?  Lack of direct-x support. I know you are thinking "but I thought mame renders in software." This is correct, for 3d games, but 2d sprite rendering is hardware accelerated, particularly when using hardware stretch.  Now linux has it's own flavor of hardware acceleration, but it's not as good as windows, mainly because of video card drivers being very basic in linux.  

I'm sure I'll get some arguments on that, but I'm just telling you like it is.


Now if that being said, due to the lower footprint of linux you may get a speed increase of 1-5 frames, if and only if the following critera are met.  

The game you are having trouble with is at the cusp of working (45-55/60 fps)

Your Processor is fully supported by linux.

Your Video card is fully supported by linux with drivers with hardware acceleration.  

Your sound card is fully supported by linux.  


Imo all of that trouble for a 5 fps increase, best case scenario isn't worth it.  Of course you can all draw your own conclusions.