Best OS / Software Combo

[dwmcqueen]

I have read through the forums and am a little confused about what would be the optimal set-up for my system.

I have an old Celeron 500 that I plan to run Mame on (and, hopefully Daphne, but no guarantees there). 

If I just want to run Mame is AdvanceCD my best option?  Should I look at DOS?  Performance wise, which will work better?

[gamecreature]

I don't know about XP, but you should be able to run an older version of windows without much problem. I'm running Windows ME on a 300Mhz system and while it won't play everything, it can certainly play the classic games without any problems at all.

[Grasshopper]

Personally I would try AdvanceMAME running under DOS first of all.

One thing worth mentioning about AdvanceMAME for DOS that many people don't realise is that it comes with all the LINUX sound and graphics drivers precompiled into the main executable. This means that you can get it to work with almost any sound or graphics card. If you're lucky it might even autodetect your hardware but I had to edit some configuration files to get it to work on my system. Also it means you don't need to mess around with settings in CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT which is one of the things that puts some people off DOS.

Downsides? Well there are really only two. Firstly, the executable is massive and takes ages to load. Load times can be brought down by setting up a RAM disk but the AdvanceMAME developers really ought to introduce a modular loading system. Secondly DOS doesn't offer any support for USB HID devices. But if you can live with those downsides then AdvanceMAME for DOS is the best option IMHO.

[dwmcqueen]

Good advice.  I have been fighting Linux and my only reason was to attempt to get Daphne running as well.

I am giving up on that.

As far as DOS - will FreeDOS work?

[dwmcqueen]

Will the performance under FreeDOS & AdvancedMenu be better than say a simple Linux distro with AdvancedMenu?

[Grasshopper]

Will the performance under FreeDOS & AdvancedMenu be better than say a simple Linux distro with AdvancedMenu?

Theoretically, AdvanceMAME running under DOS should be slightly faster that the Linux/Windows equivalents because DOS is not a multitasking OS. However, in practice I doubt that you'll notice a difference. Also the performance will depend to a degree upon the quality of the compiler that was used to generate the executable.

The main reasons for using DOS instead of Linux are that it requires less memory/disk space and is easier to set up.

[gonzo90017]

Personally I would recommend Windows98 or XP. I just built a purely emulation machine using Mamewah and windows xp. It has a pentium 3 500mhz 128mb of ram. I used Nlite to strip all the unnecesary stuff from xp. All the games run full speed. You just have to know which emus to use. Here they are in order of use.
Winkawaks = Neogeo, CPS1+2
Raine = Arcade
Mame = FastMame 71
Fceultra = Nes
Kega = Genesis, Master System, Game gear
Visualboy Advace = Gb, gbc ,gba

It's controlled using only 2 playstation joysticks hooked up via usb adapter.
The only reason I didn't use windows 98 was because I couldn't get joytokey working. Or was it joy2mouse? You get something like a 10% increase in performance with 98 instead of xp. Also if the game is supported by Winkawaks, Raine or Mame. Winkawaks has better performance then Raine and Raine has better performance than mame.

[AlexC]

I would use Win98 booting into to Dos and Gamelauncher.

[Buddabing]

Please consult the wiki for the advantages and disadvantages of each operating system.