Mame slow to start on 500mhz system

[Knievel]

Trying to get a 500mhz system running for a tabletop project. It's got 512mb in it, just did a fresh install of XP. I know it's probably not the best choice for a system this slow but it's what I had on hand. I'm running v0.91 of mame because that's the oldest romset I have.

I'm experiencing a delay of over a minute from the time I hit enter til the time the game starts?? This is starting it from a command line, I haven't even got to the front-end stage yet.

Any ideas? XP can't be the cause of this can it, everything else seems to run along nicely on it, starts up quick. My mame version and roms definitely match.

This is my first experience running mame on a system this slow but this can't be normal..

[JoyMonkey]

Did you try using upx do decompress the Mame binary?

[lokki]

are you  using skip_validitychecks parameter?

[EndTwist]

Try using an older version of MAME (0.71 or below). Also, trying Windows 2000 or Windows 98 couldn't hurt much either. I'm using a 450MHz w/384mb RAM running MAME 0.59 on Windows 98 and it runs extremely fast. With a 500MHz PC, I wouldn't go much higher than that (Maybe MAME 0.64 and Win2k)

[Knievel]

You'll have to bear with me as the software part of this hobby is not my strength...I can free-hand with a router but that doesn't do me much good here.

-I don't know what upx is

-Thought I had the validychecks off but I didn't, some improvement..thanks for that

-I could try doing a fresh install of 98 as I've got that now..don't really see how that is going to effect mame much though

-Going with an older version of mame means some/all of my newer roms aren't going to work, right? I suppose there is a way to fix them but I have a feeling that would be a PITA as well..

[EndTwist]

You'll have to bear with me as the software part of this hobby is not my strength...I can free-hand with a router but that doesn't do me much good here.

-I don't know what upx is

-Thought I had the validychecks off but I didn't, some improvement..thanks for that

-I could try doing a fresh install of 98 as I've got that now..don't really see how that is going to effect mame much though

-Going with an older version of mame means some/all of my newer roms aren't going to work, right? I suppose there is a way to fix them but I have a feeling that would be a PITA as well..

1. Read this. Ignore that comment/post though because it has virtually no effect on MAME's loading speed (sorry JoyMonkey )
2. No need to answer this.
3. I've tested XP, 2000, and 98 on the 450MHz machine, and I did a benchmark on the FPS in certain MAME games. 98 has the best FPS, with 2000 in second, and XP in third (last).
4. Not necessarily. Some roms change, and others don't, so it really depends. "Downgrading" your ROMs isn't really a big deal. ClrMAMEPro will help with that.

Hope that helps

[Knievel]

Thanks for the info EndTwist. Found my old 0.71 romset so I installed mame v0.71, noname mame actually so I could lose the warning screens. It's running real nice now so I'll stick with the XP...for the time being.

So your Vertiwah project is dead? I was just reading about your new vertical frontend and I'm about to give it a go. Will probably have some questions for you. I've got gamelauncher going pretty good but the taskbar and prompt windows popping up are really annoying.

And thanks Joymonkey for the VMOVE utility, that little beauty saved me a lot of time. I'll have to check out the rest of the goodies on your site.

[EndTwist]

Yeah, VertiWAH is pretty dead. The skinning/theming aspect was too difficult to work with and I just didn't like it. My new FE (FiveCredits) is simpler, but I like it better.

Just remember though - when using my FE, split up your games into categories. Having 1 large list not only scrolls slowly (my fault), but IMHO is generally a pain to navigate. Besides, there is no reason to have 1 large list with the linking capabilities I added to the FE.