Is MAME faster with CoreDuo or CoreQuad type cpus?

[paulstevens]

I know that compile times are greatly reduced for dual and quad core processors, but how does MAME itself benefit from these processors?

Do they allow games like NFL Blitz finally to run at full speed/framerate without skipping?  In other words, are games like Blitz playable with multi-core processors?

And finally, does high speed PCIExpress video cards help with the playability?

I'd imagine that a dual core plus 16X PCIE video card should help a lot, but does anyone have first hand experience?

Thanks.

[Green Giant]

Dual core use is just now getting into mame.  I think they would have to do more than just allow multiple cores to get some of the unplayable games running.  A good video card probably won't do either.  To get some of those games playing, you should probably just use a differeny emulator.

A high speed video card would only be useful if the mame coding for 3D and physics stuff could use it.  I don't think it can yet.  Would probably require some recoding and using different graphics stuff that I don't understand.  Basically, don't waste your money on a quad core processor for your cab, use it for your desktop.

[Havok]

Mame has always been about brute force clock cycles, hopefully we will be seeing a change in this soon. I am running a PCI Express card in my Mame cab, and it doesn't really help all that much. Fortunately, it works great with my PC games though...

 

[u_rebelscum]

Dual/Quad core doesn't help much for most games in mame; the driver has to be written for multithreading, and you have to enable mame's -multithread option.  Even then for the very very few games this "helps", the speed increase is only from 2%-10%.  Not enough to change a game from too-slow-to-play to playable except for borderline games; if you call it 5%, that's moving from 57 FPS to 60.  Blitz is not a borderline game, and is not coded with multithreading, AFAIK.

Coding for multithreading for time critical stuff (like emulation) is Not Easy, so adding more games that are helped with -mt option is going to be slow.

AFA fast video cards, they won't speed you up.  However, a slow video card can be slowing you down, especially with artwork enabled.  So moving from an old, low end video card to a medium video card might speed you up.  From medium to fast cards don't help though.


FWI, the core 2 CPUs are doing very well with mame, but not because they are dual core.  (BTW, intel had to call a line of CPUs "Core", but their first CPUs with the "Core" brand not be in the the "Core" line, which was the "Core 2" CPUs, at the same time they introduced dual core and multi-core CPUs.  Really makes it hard to be clear which core is being discussed.) 
Anyway, "Core 2" (whether Duo or Quad, and probably Solo if it ever comes out) CPUs benchmark nearly as fast as penD and P4 that run at twice the GHz in mame.  As for video card, check out mame32qa benchmark page.

[xmenxmen]

The 1st intel dual core are call pentium D as both core share the cache.  Core 2 cpu have seperate cache.

[rockin_rick]

You got that backwards.  Pentium D has seperate cache, while Core 2 duo has shared cache -

http://www.intel.com/products/processor/core2duo/index.htm


Not quite as good of a source, but in the specs...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116258

Rick

[rockin_rick]

I've also seen it theorized that the shared (IOW - really large) cache is part of what helps MAME to run so well on C2D.

Rick

[paulstevens]

Dual core use is just now getting into mame.  I think they would have to do more than just allow multiple cores to get some of the unplayable games running.  A good video card probably won't do either.  To get some of those games playing, you should probably just use a differeny emulator.

Thanks for the discussion so far!   What other emulators are there for things like Blitz, Killer Instinct, etc, for the systems like midway seattle, etc?   I've heard of Raine, Zinc, etc but don't know anything about them or what other emulators there are that make these newer types of games playable.

Thank you!

[Dmod]

What other emulators are there for things like Blitz, Killer Instinct, etc, for the systems like midway seattle, etc?   

Try this...
NonMAME   

[SGT]

What other emulators are there for things like Blitz, Killer Instinct, etc, for the systems like midway seattle, etc?   I've heard of Raine, Zinc, etc but don't know anything about them or what other emulators there are that make these newer types of games playable.

This emulator claims to emulate the two versions of Killer Instinct.  I have not tried it:

http://www.sys2064.com/u64.htm