XP MAME Framerates :(

[Minwah]

I seem to be experiencing poor framerates on a lot of games (eg Space Invaders '95, Bubble Bobble 2) since I installed XP.  Under Win98, I could run nearly all games with no dropped frames.

The h/ware has remained the same, 1.4Ghz Athlon, 256Mb RAM, ATI Radeon 32Mb.

The large Neo-Geo games seem to run fine, so I don't believe RAM is a big issue.

I don't have the latest ATI driver installed, due to a problem I have (how can you get XP to NOT auto-install default drivers on startup??).

Any ideas??

[rampy]

XP is a ton more stable than say a 98, but there is a bit of a performance hit... but it's also pretty configurable...

Here are some sites to visit for tweaking...
http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

I think there's a site called   tweakxp.com  but I havent been there...

and here's one tip that I like...

I recommend shutting off all the stupid effects in windows xp

START->Control Panel->DISPLAY->Appearance(tab)->EFFECTS (button)
(I don't have my windows xp set to "category view" at work I run it "old
style")
Shut off everything except "use the following method to smooth screen
fonts" and select "Clear Type"    It's the only effect that's worth the cpu
cycles IMHO
***
Just a starting point...  I'd make sure you don't have (besides necessary ones of course firewall/AV/etc) a ton of crap runing in your taskbar (either via startup folder or "automatic" services)  

Good luck.. hope that helps a bit...

Rampy

[Minwah]

Thanks very much  

I'd already disabled the effects and removed taskbar stuff, but that site's got a whole heap of stuff to try.

Cheers