Topic change : Full speed MAME on a Pentium 166

[spystyle]

Howdy!

I've got MAME .36 running on a P166 in DOS 7, just for the classics.

Dig Dug runs at 59 FPS with sound, so despite the low numbers it looks hopefull.

I've setup Game Launcher and it runs, but super slow, it takes an entire 60 seconds to load...

Is there something I can do to speed it up?

Thank you,
Craig

[daywane]

switch to vantage on that pc.

[spystyle]

I see,

I could swap emulators but I was thinking that MAME was once played on these P166 when they were considered "new" on DOS 6.

I figure if I can find information about their settings I can get it running as they did...

The games run great! I was surprised to see all of the MAME .36 games that I tried ran at more than 50 FPS, looked and sounded fine - my problem is with Game Launcher - it takes 60 seconds to load each time and 5 seconds to scroll down each title on the list.

Vantage wouldn't work well on this cabinet as the screen is horizontal, but Raine could...

I guess I need support from MAME users of 10 years ago!

Craig

[spystyle]

Topic change :

OK!
I got it working super fast with "MAMEload" front end, now all is well.

Here is the formula for full speed MAME on a Pentium 166 :

Specs : P166, 40 MB RAM, 800 MB HDD, DOS 7, MAME .36, MAMEload front end.

Those old computers can still play great games



Dig it?
Craig

[epic69]

i am using Arcadeos on a 200mhz pc with 72mb ram. works great, no slow down scrolling through the gamelist. Of course im not using any extras like screenshots, or other imagwhen selecting a game. On dos 7. i have used Vantage and mame .36 and both run fine.  I just love settting mame iup in Dos super quick start up and no shutdown, just pull the plug. Alos set up the bios so the PC pwers up when it senses power been restored, Cool feature. Im loving it!

[JoyMonkey]

GameLauncher works well on old PCs too. I think I've gotten it going on a P100 with 16mb RAM. You could try using my bootable Vantage/Gamelauncher floppy disk if you wanted to do some quick testing on old machines.

[spystyle]

Oddly I couldn't get GameLauncher to run on a p166 with 40mb ram.

It's whatever version they have on their website right now. I wonder if there is a setting I missed or if the version is "too new"?

Craig

[JoyMonkey]

The new version should work just as well, I used an older version for the floppy just becasue it took up less room.

[Chris]

Are you loading Smartdrv?

[spystyle]

Yes, I am using "c:\dos\smartdrv.exe /x" in the autoexec.bat

Also, the problem is pretty much solved as MAMEload goes so fast it's as if it was written for a 486. Kinda ugly but it works perfectly.

My only problem with MAMEload is I want to remap the ESC button so it is not "quit frontend" because when little ones play the cab they'll end up leaving the front end if they hit the "exit game" button too much. (some of the neighborhood kiddies are daft and I expect they will hit the buttons repeatedly)

I will look into a MAMEload version that has mappable buttons.

Also, besides smartdrv, are theere other tricks to getting MAME running uber-fast on old PC's?

I'm running everything at 400x300 with vsynk and 22K sound. It's smooth as can be @ 59 FPS. The cab has 500+ 1-stick 2-button games from .36.

Thanks,
Craig

[Chris]

Well, if you need a juke, DOSCab should run on that system...

[JoyMonkey]

My only problem with MAMEload is I want to remap the ESC button so it is not "quit frontend" because when little ones play the cab they'll end up leaving the front end if they hit the "exit game" button too much. (some of the neighborhood kiddies are daft and I expect they will hit the buttons repeatedly)

An easy solution to this would be to re-load MAMEload every time it exits. Just end your Autoexec.bat with call loop.bat and make a loop.bat that contains the lines
mameload.exe
call loop.bat

[spystyle]

Thank you :)

[Chris]

Or end your autoexec with:

:loop
mameload.exe
goto loop