Mortal Kombat speed testing

[paigeoliver]

I have mame55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, and 90 all installed on my laptop and setup so I can command line launch any rom with any version with ease. I just did some speed tests with Mortal Kombat and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and here are the results.

[paigeoliver]

So it appears Mame .60 is the version to use for Mortal Kombat, while UMK3 peaks in speed at version .70

I am gonna test some more games here shortly.

[tommy]

Try crusin usa it wont play well but see what happends

[paigeoliver]

I gave up adding new roms before the hard drive games ever got added to mame. Testing Cruisin' Usa wouldn't do much good anyway, it isn't even supported in most of the older versions.

If you really want to play that stupid game then emulate the stinkin N64 version, it was an almost exact port if I remember correctly.

Who actually has a Mame cabinet with the correct controls for Cruisin' Usa anyway?

[tommy]

Thanks anyway , i tested, crusin on version 0.90 and it ran better then on 0.66 still not that playable but better , it was alittle quicker more playable, its not so much about playing this stupid game paige its about finding out what works and experimenting ,witch was what i thought the purpose of this thread was

[paigeoliver]

The Mortal Kombat series is a big reason a lot of people end up wasting money upgrading their Mame computers, when they can run it full speed simply by scaling back their mame version.

Cruisin USA being a 270 degree  driving game with 2 pedals (or is it 3) and a 4 speed shifter is a game that probably 3 or 4 people on earth have a mame cabinet capable of controlling, so it isn't nearly as big of a deal.

[MiKman]

why has the mame code gotten so much more bloated in the later versions? I mean those speed drops are pretty darn huge! have the coders just gotten lazy or is it because they have made the code more accuarately emulate the games? Crazy I tell ya.  BTW what's the processor in your laptop?

[SirPeale]

I think it's a combo of poor code and more accurate emulation.  The general consensus with the devs is that you should have a top of the line PC no matter what if you're going to play game on Mame. 

That's the credo: hard drive space is cheap (which I happen to agree with) and You Must Have A Faster Processor.

There are people on the boards that work on improving framerates (and sometimes they do a fantastic job with what they have).  Lokki is one.

[tommy]

The Mortal Kombat series is a big reason a lot of people end up wasting money upgrading their Mame computers, when they can run it full speed simply by scaling back their mame version.

Cruisin USA being a 270 degree

[paigeoliver]

My laptop has an Athlon64 3400+.

I did not tweak any mame settings, I just ran the exes (with no changes to the default ini files) with the -nothrottle command, let them run to about the same point in the attract mode each time and then dumped out with escape to view the results.

[Buddabing]

My laptop has an Athlon64 3400+.

I did not tweak any mame settings, I just ran the exes (with no changes to the default ini files) with the -nothrottle command, let them run to about the same point in the attract mode each time and then dumped out with escape to view the results.

These are the unoptimized builds from mame.net? It might be interesting what frame rate improvements you get with an Athlon build.

BTW you might use -ftr 5000 in each run which will run the game for 5000 frames. You might get a slightly more reproducible result that way.

[paigeoliver]

I actually used the 686 build for each one. I don't think Athlon builds exist for most of the old versions, do they?

[Buddabing]

I actually used the 686 build for each one. I don't think Athlon builds exist for most of the old versions, do they?

I seriously doubt it, since I think the Athlon first came out in 2000.

You'd have to add the compile flags yourself. Probably not worth the effort.

[lokki]

why has the mame code gotten so much more bloated in the later versions? I mean those speed drops are pretty darn huge! have the coders just gotten lazy or is it because they have made the code more accuarately emulate the games? Crazy I tell ya.

[Sprucemoose]

First, what are the names of the hacks...Second, How do you add the hacks back into the current version of mame? 

[pointdablame]

First, what are the names of the hacks...Second, How do you add the hacks back into the current version of mame? 

If you want to speed up MK, just run it through an older version of MAME.  Why go through the trouble of putting the speed hacks back in if you can just use an older MAME version.

[KrawDaddy]

I started using Fastmame and MK 3 runs fine now on my 1.4 P4.

[whammoed]

The Mortal Kombat series is a big reason a lot of people end up wasting money upgrading their Mame computers, when they can run it full speed simply by scaling back their mame version.

It will be hard to convince a lot of users to go with a lesser machine and an older mame now that the GT games are in there.

[elvis]

why has the mame code gotten so much more bloated in the later versions? I mean those speed drops are pretty darn huge! have the coders just gotten lazy or is it because they have made the code more accuarately emulate the games? Crazy I tell ya.  BTW what's the processor in your laptop?

MAME cares about accuracy, not speed.  The whole project is aimed at documenting arcade games and hardware first and formost.  As per the MAME FAQ, playing MAME games just happens to be a nice side effect of the documentation, which is the primery concern.

With each revision, new encryption schemes are broken, new chips are better documented, and more accurate features are added.  Be aware that most games in MAME user several processors at once.  Often it can be as simple as one CPU for sound, and one for graphics, and sometimes it is far more complex than that.  Modifying just one part of MAME could (and often does) send ripples throughout the entire project.  This can mean anything from adding new hooks or patches in old drivers to complete rewrites of core CPUs (as happened around the 0.79->0.80 mark with some sound emulation changes).

Don't for a minute think MAME is simple.  It is an open source project, so if you want to see exactly what sort of work goes into it, grab the source and see for yourself.

Again, optimisations are last on the list of concerns for the MAME devs.  When every arcde game and every logic chip, CPU and sound system everywhere is 100% accurately emulated, that's when they'll start optimising.  And even then, don't expect it to be great.  Remember: 1 emulated CPU might be used in 100 different games.  Tweaking the code could well help 5 games to become a little faster, and break the other 95.

And after all of that, if you still want to complain about it, you're welcome to take the MAME devs head-on over in the MAME forums.  Plenty of folks go in guns-a-blazing about how MAME should be, and get a swift kick in the ghoolies from Mr. Belmont and the other more vocal devs.

[paigeoliver]

The Mortal Kombat series is a big reason a lot of people end up wasting money upgrading their Mame computers, when they can run it full speed simply by scaling back their mame version.

It will be hard to convince a lot of users to go with a lesser machine and an older mame now that the GT games are in there.

You can use more than one version of mame at once you know. I have .53-.92 all installed in one folder.

[Lilwolf]

And to second that.  Most frontends allow for more then one version of mame.  So you can have it so the you couldn't tell from inside the frontend which version of mame your running for a give version of mame.

I do this often with mine.  But since they have redone the sega games... I finally dropped my -listinfo parser a bit ago.  So JFront only supports versions with -listxml and above.

[whammoed]

The Mortal Kombat series is a big reason a lot of people end up wasting money upgrading their Mame computers, when they can run it full speed simply by scaling back their mame version.

It will be hard to convince a lot of users to go with a lesser machine and an older mame now that the GT games are in there.

You can use more than one version of mame at once you know. I have .53-.92 all installed in one folder.

Yes, but I think you missed my point.  The Golden Tees require some extra horsepower, so to play them you won't be able to use that old pentium II you have laying around anyway.......But this thread isn't about Golden Tee so I'll shut up anyway. 

[jelwell]

And to second that.