Lagging games in MAME

[YoungWarrior]

I'm having a problem with lagging games such as street fighter 2 and darkstalkers (basicly, every game from 1992 up). I have skip_validitychecks 1 in my ini file, so I don't know what else to do.

[ahmer]

I am assuming that you are using standard mame port from www.mame.net

make a new folder and just put Mame.exe and Roms folder.
Now make a default mame.ini and again set (skip_validitychecks 1)

run mame.

Make sure that some of these are not getting trouble.

1)Using Old Roms and Bios Pack.
3)Hardware requirements such as less Memory.
4)Extra Windows services running.

Virus in your system may also cause this problem. 

[elvis]

Describe the hardware you are running in your system. 

[YoungWarrior]

Describe the hardware you are running in your system.

I am running a compaq 6300US
Intel Celeron 1.4GHz
128mb Ram
40GB hard Drive
Integrated Intel Direct AGP 3D graphics

I am assuming that you are using standard mame port from www.mame.net

make a new folder and just put Mame.exe and Roms folder.
Now make a default mame.ini and again set (skip_validitychecks 1)

run mame.

tried it and it didn't work.

[Timoe]

What version of mame are you using?


I've heard many people say that using an older version of mame will solve your problem.

Try Mame version .55 or around there.   I need someone to post where you can get the older version tho.

Mameworld.net maybe?

[elvis]

A couple of pointers

1) 128MB + Windows (assuming you are running Windows and not DOS/Linux/other) + Darkstalkers (CPS2 game) will very likely start forcing you into swap, and limiting performance.  Check your memory usage via task manager (running MAME in Windowed mode makes this easier) and see what's happening in your system.  If you see mame.exe eating up more than 100MB of RAM, there's a good chance you need to shove another stick of RAM in the system.

2) Onboard intel video is known to have issues with MAME, but generally this is limited to rotation issues only.  Still, if you have another video card lying around somewhere (it'll have to be PCI), try it and see what happens.

3) Try switching blitters.  If you are using Direct3D, switch to DirectDraw or vice versa.

My money is on the memory limitations.  1.4GHz should be OK for CPS2 (I've run "Marvel vs Capcom" - also CPS2 - on an 850MHz Coppermine Celeron, albeit on a much older copy of MAME).  If MAME runs out of physical memory, performance drops like a tonne of bricks.  I had 256MB in my cocktail, and found that games like GunBird2 with MAME together ate upwards of 300MB of memory, causing the game to stutter terribly.  I upped to 512MB (I had a second 256MB stick lying around doing nothing) and don't have a problem any more.

[YoungWarrior]

I ran Darkstalkers in windowed mode and it ran fine, so I changed the hwstrech veriable from 1 to 0, and sure enough, no more lag!