CHD games not working right, what to do???

[Taborious]

Non of my games with CHD's work right. They will start but they run SLOW, so slow you can't play and the sound is affected as well. What am I missing about the CHD games setup?

[Chris]

Non of my games with CHD's work right. They will start but they run SLOW, so slow you can't play and the sound is affected as well. What am I missing about the CHD games setup?

What games are you trying and what kind of system are you trying them on?

[Taborious]

NFL Blitz, Gaunlet Dark Lagacy those are the only 2 i've tried so far.

P4 2.4, 512ram, 128meg ati video...

[MKChamp]

Those games won't run on any system available today.

[Taborious]

Are you serious??? No one has played any of the CHD games??? I find this very hard to believe...

[pointdablame]

Are you serious??? No one has played any of the CHD games??? I find this very hard to believe...

No, that's not what he said.

There are a few games in MAME that just WON'T run on any hardware today.  Cruisin' USA comes to mind, as well as some newer CHD games.

Try Killer Instinct I and II... those CHD games should run.  A few others will also, but not all.  Read the MAME FAQ, this is covered.

[MKChamp]

You CAN play them...if you like playing games in super slo mo.

I have a 3 gig P4 with 1 gig ram and they aren't playable for me. Carnevil is the CHD game that pushes the limits of my setup but is still very much playable (except the fact that it crashes after getting the acid gun or after defeated the bosses in the 2 stages after the haunted house).

[MKChamp]

Just a note:
 Cruisin' USA  is very playable after they (MAME team) realized a debugging switch was turned on. They fixed that in .94u5 I believe. Turn off autoframeskip and you have a quit enjoyable experience 
Still not as fluid as it is SUPPOSE to be, but very playable.


Note: like I stated in my earlier post, this is with a 3 gig P4

[pointdablame]

I agree about cruisin, but it is still on the VERGE of playable IMHO.... its just not quite there yet.  I've tried it on my main rig and it's "playable" though.. but still causes most people problems.

[Chris]

Try Killer Instinct I and II... those CHD games should run.

[steptoe]

Guys,

Are chd games better then the standard zipped rom games, ive never been able to get one to work, im getting some soon, so ill try. Anyone tell my the best chds to look for.

Thanks

[pointdablame]

Guys,

Are chd games better then the standard zipped rom games, ive never been able to get one to work, im getting some soon, so ill try. Anyone tell my the best chds to look for.

Thanks

They aren't "better" heh, its not like they are some sort of super rom.  It's just that the original arcade machine had a hard drive in it, so to emulate the game correctly you need an image of that hard drive.... a CHD... Compressed Hard Drive.

It has nothing to do with qualtiy of the rom and/or game.

[MKChamp]

Generally speaking, the games that had hard drives(and thus have the chds in MAME) are
1) Newer
2) usually more graphically intensive
3) Required more arcade processing power than your early 80's games

That is why alot of the chd games don't seem to play as well as your galaga, dkong, etc.

They aren't necessarily 'better'...just have more data to them. Hell, punch out!! is a 'better' game than war gods!

[Taborious]

I realize what CHD's are and there purpose but does anyone know what the hurdle is with those games? r/w access times? would a RAM disk solve the slowness problem? Or do they just need more horsepower; doubt it though. Does anyone know what the issues are with the CHD's that play slow?

I tried everything I could to improve performance, throttle=no, frameskip=6(just to try) and some other settings but it only help a very small amount and it was still unplayable.

[Chris]

I realize what CHD's are and there purpose but does anyone know what the hurdle is with those games? r/w access times? would a RAM disk solve the slowness problem? Or do they just need more horsepower; doubt it though. Does anyone know what the issues are with the CHD's that play slow?

I tried everything I could to improve performance, throttle=no, frameskip=6(just to try) and some other settings but it only help a very small amount and it was still unplayable.

The CHD itself is not the issue.  These games either require the emulation of 3D processors (in software; MAME doesn't use 3D hardware assists), multiple high-speed RISC processors, or both.  It just seems like CHD games are a problem because many recent games have hard drives; the CHD is not causing the problem and thus speeding up access to the CHD isn't going to help much.

--Chris

[pointdablame]

The emulation just isn't there yet.  I'm sure you realize that to properly emulate a game, you need a PC that is much faster Mhz wise when compared to the original machine.  Since the CHD games are newer, the arcade machines have a faster equivalent speed... and today's PCs just can't perfectly emulate them yet.

I'm sure there may be some driver issues or something in the MAME code as well.... but its mostly just current hardware problems.  You're just gonna have to wait until raw PC horsepower makes it more playable.

[SirPoonga]

General rule of thumb is to emulate something you need 5 times the resources than the original hardware.   That's a GENERAL rule.

With blitz it ran on a R5000 @ 150MHz.  I'm betting that is about as fast as a PIII 400-500 since I think that was the minimum requirements of the Pc version.  Also need to emulate the 3dfx graphics processor and sound processor on one cpu in your system.  So we are looking at well over a 3ghz machine to emulate all of that.

As they said, it isn't the CHD, it's the fact that games that use hard drives are also ones that use more modern hardware that needs emulating.

[Taborious]

AH, I see now. So we need an emulator for the emulator  jk.

Guess I'll have to wait for MAME to catch up....

Does anyone know if there are other emulators that work with these or this is a problem all around?

[SirPoonga]

Did you not read my post?  It's not mame, it's the power that is needed to emulate them.
Mame doesn't have to catch up, it's the hardware.

Another emulator might be able to (though there isn't one in mind) only if it takes advantage of the computers hardware instead of emulating the entire machine.

[MKChamp]

If your wanting to play NFL Blitz with todays hardware, you can get it here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000028U2F/ref=pd_sxp_elt_l1/104-1913413-3407916

[pointdablame]

AH, I see now. So we need an emulator for the emulator  jk.

Guess I'll have to wait for MAME to catch up....

Does anyone know if there are other emulators that work with these or this is a problem all around?

Actually if you had an emulator for an emulator... you'd be emulating MAME... which was trying to emulate the CHD game... so it'd be even slower  

heh, but yeah.... you'll just have to wait til they become playable. 

[SirPoonga]

If your wanting to play NFL Blitz with todays hardware, you can get it here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000028U2F/ref=pd_sxp_elt_l1/104-1913413-3407916

You can find '99 for the pc if oyu look hard enough.  I have it for PC, pretty cool stuff.

[melarky]

Do you pretty much have to have a screaming new computer to enjoy the few CHD games that do work?  Is it even worth trying a  game like Area 51/Maximum Force Duo on a PIII 600 MGhz with 256 RAM?  Should I just not even try?  Anyone else try on a similar setup and get ok results?

[MKChamp]

Do you pretty much have to have a screaming new computer to enjoy the few CHD games that do work?

[Scoobie]

You can find '99 for the pc if you look hard enough.  I have it for PC, pretty cool stuff.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I have Blitz for PC and have never been able to correctly map the keys...the exit game yes/no is the only item that doesn't seem to map to any key on the ipac.

Okay, pls continue. (end rant)

[Seven7]

Hey all, first post after a year of browsing in the shadows.  Ok, mello-dramatic, or however you spell it
Anyway this is something thats been bothering me awhile.

Try Killer Instinct I and II... those CHD games should run. 

I beg to differ with this one.  Ki2 runs so slow you can HEAR and SEE EVERY SINGLE FRAME!!! (sorry, this just annoys me alot.)  (oh, i don't have ki1)  My setup is a p3 1ghz, 192mb ram, and a geforce mx 4000 64mb.  The rule of thumb is 5 times more than the origional cpu right?  According to the information mame gives, Clock speed for Ki2 was... A megahertz, 5 times that is 5mhz, I have a thousand, and it runs frame by frame.
Needless to say, this bytes (pun) Because ive wanted to play this game for a long time.

Any help whould be appreciated.

-Seven7-

[wolfi]

My setup is a p3 1ghz

Your setup is crap, more than ghetto. both ki-games run fine on my p4 2.4, and this cpu is nearly 2 years old.

[SirPeale]

I beg to differ with this one.  Ki2 runs so slow you can HEAR and SEE EVERY SINGLE FRAME!!!

I have a 750 MHz processor, running Mame .98u2, and it runs @ ~ 30 FPS average.  You must have a configuration issue.  What resolution are you running things at?

[Havok]

Did you not read my post?

[RayB]

A good emulator will still run slower, however you shouldn't require 5 times the processing power to run an application, that's ineffecient...

 ... oh never mind. I won't even bother wasting my fingertips.

[Seven7]

To wolfi, My apologies for not being able to afford better...really.  We don't need you to state the obvious, and yeah it is crap, but this was state of the art...in 2000

I beg to differ with this one.  Ki2 runs so slow you can HEAR and SEE EVERY SINGLE FRAME!!!

I have a 750 MHz processor, running Mame .98u2, and it runs @ ~ 30 FPS average.  You must have a configuration issue.  What resolution are you running things at?

800x600 at 32 bit color.  Ill try screwing around with this and see if it improves, Anyway, any suggesstions?

-Seven7-

[Havok]

A good emulator will still run slower, however you shouldn't require 5 times the processing power to run an application, that's inefficient...

 ... oh never mind. I won't even bother wasting my fingertips.

Oh come on, you know I'm right!

 

I bet you were one of those people that when DVD drives first came out for computers, thought you needed a super fast pc to play a DVD, when all you needed was a cheap video card that had hardware acceleration...

"You need a faster pc - it's the only way!"

"But, I'm playing this DVD fine on my PIII 500 with a new DVD hardware accelerated video card"

Hmmmm.....

[SirPoonga]

A good emulator will still run slower, however you shouldn't require 5 times the processing power to run an application, that's ineffecient...

But it is emulation, you are using software to emulate hardware, this will always be VERY slow.

[Havok]

A good emulator will still run slower, however you shouldn't require 5 times the processing power to run an application, that's ineffecient...

But it is emulation, you are using software to emulate hardware, this will always be VERY slow.

I agree, it will be slower, but there could be code optimization that could better utilize the current hardware. e.g. - SMP, HT, Open GL, and Direct 3D to name a few. Look at the power of the current average pc, which can barely run some emulated games, and honestly tell me that it's only slightly better than a game pcb from 10 - 15 years ago?

I understand it's about emulating the ROM exactly, but there is room for improvement, there always is with emulation...

[Seven7]

Iam gonna take a guess with the current argument going on that iam not gonna get any relevent help anytime soon?

-Seven7-

[pointdablame]

Iam gonna take a guess with the current argument going on that iam not gonna get any relevent help anytime soon?

-Seven7-

The only relevant help we can give you is to get new hardware.  It's not meant to be mean, but it's going to be hard if not impossible to get KI2 running perfectly on a 1ghz machine.  It's just not going to happen.

[picasso]

I am not sure there is anything you can do except beef up your system.   Maybe more memory. 
Maybe turn on frame skipping.  If the horsepower is not there it is not there. (No disrespect intended)   For about $500 you could buy another board and chip/mem user your current HD, Video card etc.. and probably get it going.  I am running an AMD64  3200+ w/1 gig of memory and KI1 and 2 are very smooth.  I am still not close to running NFL BLitz though.   Good luck getting the KI games running.

                       Paul

[Havok]

Try the standard things:

• Add some more memory
• defrag the hard drive
• delete temp files (C:\Temp, C:\Windows\Temp, %temp%
• disable useless services - if XP\2000
• remove any extraneous startup programs
• curse
• cry
• bang fists on keyboard
• curl up in the fetal position and keep repeating why, why, why?

All of these things, done in this order will fix this and any other problem you may have.

 

[Seven7]

I beg to differ with this one.  Ki2 runs so slow you can HEAR and SEE EVERY SINGLE FRAME!!!

I have a 750 MHz processor, running Mame .98u2, and it runs @ ~ 30 FPS average.  You must have a configuration issue.  What resolution are you running things at?

judgeing from this, i don't think beffing up my system is the only option, and besides, there is a money issue, if i could have afforded any major upgrades to my system, i'd of done it when doom 3 came out, (because then i whould have been able to afford doom3 aswell)

Iam poor-ish, money crunch, need more options please, and thanks to the quote, i know they exsist.

Thanks anyway for the suggestions, though, i know your trying to help.

-Seven7-

[cdbrown]

maybe provide your mame.ini info and someone may see a problem in the config somewhere.  The ram seems a little low so try to borrow some from your friends and try it out.