Mame improvement and rolling your own

[Marcade]

Put the kettle on then come back to this post...I have a load of questions all compiled into one post as I don't know how to seperate these questions out yet really  

Right then...let's begin...

So my computer specs are as follows following a very generous donation from a friend who thought the arcade build idea was mental but awesome  
 
 > Mainboard : FUJITSU SIEMENS D1740
  > Chipset : Intel i845G
  > Processor : Intel Pentium 4 @ 2800MHz
  > Physical Memory : 1280MBDDR-SDRAM
  > Video Card : Intel(R) 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller

I'm keeping the budget as tight as possible on this build and so cant throw money at it, but I need a sound card (onboard not working) and can't work out if I need a graphics card.
The onboard GPU is poor to say the least, but runs everything that I want to run fine, except vector games that lag badly and space invaders, as vectors are drawn differently I assume this is a GPU issue, annoyingly this motherboard only has PCI slots, not AGP OR PCI-E so I'm limited for cards too.
I'm also stuck with having to use an LCD monitor, not ideal but it looks great with scanlines added, but of course this slows it down to unplayable   would a new card alter this or does MAME basically solely rely on the CPU Clock.

With regards to cards is there anything in particular that I should be looking around for?

Second part of the same question...

I'm using MAMEUI32 0.141 and out of the list of all the games that I play only space invaders and vector games are giving me real problems.
On my original test rig outrun ran like   and messing around with early builds of MAME did nothing, I'm inclined to not go down the same root of messing around with software.
I want to keep my highscores and am happy to use save states to achieve this, but I've read several posts where people have compiled their own version of mame to remove nag screens and use highscore.dat, although this appeals greatly I'm scared it's going to be too difficult to tweak game settings afterwards, a simple check box in mameui replaced with having to go into individual text files.- just seen the "hiscore diff (with no nag/white box removal)" post- that's what I get for browsing on here mostly on my phone  So ignore this part!


Is it worth the effort of compiling your own version of MAME?


Final Thoughts.
If YOU can answer any part of this or just give me a guide for any part feel free, I know it's a long rambling post but I promise any help at all in these is greatly appreciated.

And once again I'm sorry if this is posted in the wrong section, but I thought ultimatly it's more of a software question, but feel free to move mods  

[Howard_Casto]

You are using a shared memory video card.  Those things are crap... even on mame.  A budget video card should improve your situation somewhat.  The fact that scanlines are slowing your machine down should attest to that..... they are simply a png image at this point... no processing!

compiling your own version of mame generally isn't worth it.....  if you have a good idea submit it to mame.... if they don't accept it, it generally isn't a good idea. 

[Malenko]

+1 to H_C

get a cheapy vid card, the onboard not only sucks, but it sucks up CPU cycles and memory. as for sound card, you cna eithe rget a cheapy PCI or an even cheaper USB to headphone jack adapter

[MKChamp]

compiling your own version of mame generally isn't worth it.....  if you have a good idea submit it to mame.... if they don't accept it, it generally isn't a good idea. 

That may be true 'generally'...but there are a lot of good ideas that would not be accepted only because they are not consistent with MAME's vision of game accuracy. Hiscore being one.
Ok...I can't think of another example...so, your statement is completely correct.

[Gray_Area]

If that's supposed to read 128mb of ram, no wonder it's dragging. Make sure you have at least 512mb, though 1gb would be better. Ram for that should be really cheap on ebay.

[Howard_Casto]

compiling your own version of mame generally isn't worth it.....  if you have a good idea submit it to mame.... if they don't accept it, it generally isn't a good idea. 

That may be true 'generally'...but there are a lot of good ideas that would not be accepted only because they are not consistent with MAME's vision of game accuracy. Hiscore being one.
Ok...I can't think of another example...so, your statement is completely correct.

I speak from experience..... used to maintain a "FE" version of mame.  That lasted about 2 or 3 build cycles.  MAME eventually implemented most of the features anyway. 

Even the hiscore dat will eventually be phased out and that is the real reason why MAME dropped it.  Over the last 5 or six build cycles, mame has slowly but surely implemented nvram saving on all games, even games that didn't have nvram!  Currently it is used for saving things like video options, but my guess is eventually it will save things like the hiscore and remaining credits.  Actually if you use the auto save states correctly hiscores are already obsolete.  The only catch is if you exit mame mid-game it will start up where you left off next time.  That is the arcade accurate way though.

[Marcade]

If that's supposed to read 128mb of ram, no wonder it's dragging. Make sure you have at least 512mb, though 1gb would be better. Ram for that should be really cheap on ebay.

- no I'm not THAT stupid it's 1280mb so 1.2gb

I've bought a sound card and 128mb Graphics card, so all should be well soon hopefully.
I think I'll try to live with the standard mameUI and see how I get on.

Thank you everyone for your help 

[Gray_Area]

Actually if you use the auto save states correctly hiscores are already obsolete.  The only catch is if you exit mame mid-game it will start up where you left off next time.  That is the arcade accurate way though.

The problem with save states is that if you....say....don't like the game you're playing, and reset it, high score goes away. I don't really care anymore, but that is the issue for those who do.