OK---WHO IS THE ADVMAME GURU HERE?!

[vettetek]

OK,
Im STILL trying to get advmame and arcadeos congfig'd. I have made it through the missing roms, the monitor setup, and the soundcard initializing. But one problem I CANT overcome is some slow -@$$ arcadeos load times- like 25 seconds. This seems to happen under emm386. But when I remove that and load umbpci, it loads in 5 seconds!. The problem with that is that I cant get me soundcard to work then - it needs emm386.
Anyone here know about DOS memory management? I have PLENTY of DDR ram to spare, this should not be an issue. Id say im pullin my hair out, but im bald already! LOL

[maraxle]

Make a backup of the advmame.exe file and try UPX packing it.  I had a similar problem, and it turned out to be disk i/o rather than memory related, so UPX packing it sped the load time up tremendously for me.

[vettetek]

Ok then
where do I go to learn how to do that?
Thanks,
~V

[Thenasty]

I think your problem is this.

Make sure your emm386.exe line in config.sys is this:

EMM386.EXE NOEMS NOVCPI

[maraxle]

Ok then
where do I go to learn how to do that?
Thanks,
~V

Follow the link in my post above.

[exibar]

OK,
Im STILL trying to get advmame and arcadeos congfig'd. I have made it through the missing roms,

  Please please please please let me know how you got past the missing roms deal.  I've been trying and trying to get my romlist to show up in ArcadeOS using ADVmame but nothing is happening :-(  
  Any chance that you could post your ArcadeOS.CFG file or send it to my email address?  exibar@thelair.com   that might be just the ticket that I need...

  thanks Vette!
    Mike B

[vettetek]

WOW!
Ill tell you guys what! Between the two of you my load times REALLY improved!
After I changed the emm.386 line to include the noems and novcpi, It dropped from 25 to 7 seconds. Then I recompiled my advmame with that UPX tool, and that turned my load times down to 4 seconds! I guess I can live with that. Instant load would be nice, but beggars cant be choosers! Anyone else with any more memory optimisation ideas, please post!
Thanks guys!
~V
PS Mike B....ill be emailing you direct on the roms ok?

[exibar]

sure thing, thanks a bunch Vette!

[Raven..]

For me, ArcadeOS locks up when I try to load a game.  Any clues here?

[MonitorGuru]

Okay, I am new to AdvanceMame (see the main forum for some timings I did on various speed computers).

I found a web site (I'll post it later once I find the URL again)

It suggested not using EMM386 and instead something like UMBPCI.SYS .

On a cruddy old P166/16 meg system it took almost 3 minutes to load AdvanceMame 83 and BTIME.ZIP to get to the OK screen.

When I added EMM386.exe (or replaced UMB.sys) the load time went to about 9 minutes, using the settings listed above.

I'll have to try some other stuff too.  I know there isn't much hope with such a new .83 version and a P166/16 meg but I am just using it as a baseline for what the worst system is and what it takes to speed it up as much as possible, and then apply the same info to faster systems.

[vettetek]

 
Well guys, due to ny stupidity I have got a memory management problem conce again. I took the hard drive out to "back it up" and add some roms from my other windows machine. I lost my config and autoexecute files (amongst others). I reread all these ideas for setting up memory, and set it up what I believed like before, and now Im back to 20 second load times.
again I have the "recompiled" version I made of advmame, and have the device=c:\EMM386.EXE NOEMS NOVCPI
line added.
Any help? Im sure i just need a good kick in the pants to remind me what im missing.
Thanks

[vettetek]

 
Well, my stupidity is running rampant today! I forgot to utilise smatdrv to assist in the caching.
Its all good now!
~V

[Thenasty]

WOW!
After I changed the emm.386 line to include the noems and novcpi, It dropped from 25 to 7 seconds. Thanks guys!

Glad your Happy now