Front Ends too slow on PIII 900Mhz (should I expect more)?

[melarky]

I have a PIII 900Mhz machine with 384 MB of ram (it was in the 300s, I think that is the right number, I could be wrong on that), running Windows ME.

I have tried both MALA and AtomicFE on this computer, and both seem to run really really slow (AtomicFE seems to be slower than MALA though for the record).  I used to have XP on the machine, and I figured that was probably the problem, so I found an old copy of ME and stuck that on the machine hoping it would perform better, but it didn't.

Should I expect more, or are the front ends always going to run that slow on older machines?  I guess I was under the impression that my machine was more than enough to run the frontends really well.

Also, the reason I was trying those 2 front ends was because this is for a cocktail cabinet, and those two seem to the best frontend for cocktail cabinet auto flipping etc...

[gonzo90017]

That's very weird. I would think anything above 700mhz would be sufficent for both. I personally have run AtomicFE on a 400mhz system with 128mb ram. The only reason I switched to Mamewah was because the gameplay previews ran in 'slow motion'. But your system should be more than enough. Did you install all of the official drivers for your system?

[shock_]

Define "slow".  Gamelist scrolling?  Responding to keypresses?  Something else? 

[loadman]

Define "slow".  Gamelist scrolling?  Responding to keypresses?  Something else? 

Indeed. It could be something as simple as not having the right drivers for your Video Card installed.

More info please

[Turnarcades]

I have run mamewah as low as 500mhz P3 with 500+ games per list, screenshots and music with no problems. If you are running your frontend as a program in Windows (ie windows desktop loads first, then frontend launches), you're going to be using up loads of resources as windows explorer rns in the background, as well as any other associated programs.

You're best to use regedit and have the frontend launch as the main shell straight from bootup.

[youki]

Hi,

I managed to make usable Atomic on a pentium 1 233Mhz.  So on a PIII 900...

Atomic is very customizable in term of performance. If you get it "out of the box" , the default layout is quiet cpu consuming.  But by choosing other layout (less animated , reducing resolution , etc..etc.. ) you should be able to "calibrate" atomic to your hardware.

For instance what you could quickly try , is to change the layout and use the "layout for slow machine" which is the layout folder.

And as said shock_ ,  define more precisly what is "slow" .

[TOK]

My bartop is a P3/933 running MaLa and it runs very snappy. I concur with some others here that you have a configuration issue and not a front end issue.

[melarky]

For MALA, slow is navigating from game to game (just scrolling through the games takes forever, a few seconds between games, it doesn't sound like much, but when you have thousands of games to scroll through, a few seconds to change from one game to the next is very tedious).

For AtomicFE, slow is referring to everyhing about it.  When I launch it, it sits at a black screen with white text at the top (general text about launching the program), and it seems to hang there until I start pressing buttons.  Once I press the buttons, it adds some more text (including some yellow text) on the black screen that talks about finding all of the roms.  It says it only needs to do this once (unless the rom locations change), but it does that check every time I start the program and every time I exit a game and try to go back to the list, it seems to "re-index" the game list.

Once in AtomicFE, it does seem to run better than MALA (moves between the games faster) but all of the loading and slow startup seem really odd.  I did use the layout for slower computers as suggested above, I didn't notice any difference.

I didn't have any specific drivers for the video card on that computer, so I guess it could be that (I bought the computer used from the local university with this project in mind, I am hoping I don't have to open it up again, because I already have it screwed into place in my cocktail cabinet and removing it would be a pain).  Is there a way to check on the video card without opening up the case?

I chose WinME over Win98 because ME has all of the USB drivers already loaded onto it, and I figured it wouldn't be that more more of a resource hog than 98 (I have a USB hub plugged in to use things like mice, keyboards, and flash drives to move files back and forth on the machine).  I figuired the specs were good enough for ME anyways.

I really appreciate everyones help with this, this is the first time I've tryed to set any of these front ends up (I have just used Mame32 in the past on my other arcades, but like I said, I wanted to use these front ends because they have stuff in place for flipping for cocktails apparently).

[gonzo90017]

You can use this little application to get all the info you need AIDA32

[shock_]

Read the MaLa wiki for some tips on speeding up the gamelist.  Top of those would be unticking everything except the gamelist itself when scrolling (there's a setting for this somewhere) - esp. videos.  I did have some issue with a video card on someone's PC recently that needed to be taken down one notch on the "hardware accelleration" scale in order to scroll properly.   I think the hardware was dodgy, since it was on a completely vanilla XP install with fresh drivers.  (Start » Control Panel » Display » Settings » Advanced » Troubleshooting)

[youki]

For AtomicFE, slow is referring to everyhing about it.  When I launch it, it sits at a black screen with white text at the top (general text about launching the program), and it seems to hang there until I start pressing buttons.  Once I press the buttons, it adds some more text (including some yellow text) on the black screen that talks about finding all of the roms.  It says it only needs to do this once (unless the rom locations change), but it does that check every time I start the program and every time I exit a game and try to go back to the list, it seems to "re-index" the game list.

For your black screen problem at start, it is because you didn't install the codec for the intro video.  In Atomic Folder there is file named :  codec_tcss.exe  , just run it once, it will solve that problem.

For the re-indexing , i notice this problem on Windows ME and some version of Window 98. To avoid that ,  run Atomic once, in order it regenerate it list.  and then edit your .CFG file with the notepad and add the line :

TESTFOLDERTIME=NO

It should solve your problems.

And don't hesitate to ask question or search on the Atomic official support forums here :  http://spaceinvaders.7.forumer.com/ .

Let me know if you have other problems.

[melarky]

the re-indexing trick worked, but it still hangs at the opening black screen until I hit player one button one it seems.  I installed the codec, and it still does that.  Could something else be causing that?

I also installed the correct video driver, seems to run the actual games much better now, and inside the FE it seems faster, but there are some games that I'll try to lauch, and while sitting on the loading screen it says something like it "times out" or something like that, so it kicks me back to the FE, but if I exit the FE, the game seems to load.  I know that is confusing, let me know if I need to clarify that at all.

Once I get the FE working, I will still need to figure out how to configure it for my 3 sided cocktail (right now it only works on the horizontal side, I don't know how to get it to flip the screen for the vertical games etc...).

[youki]

the re-indexing trick worked, but it still hangs at the opening black screen until I hit player one button one it seems.  I installed the codec, and it still does that.  Could something else be causing that?

Strange, but on windows ME, some strange things can occurs...  may be the codec doesn't work on ME..

Try to disable the intro video,  open your .CFG file with AtomicManager.exe .

On General tab, tick "Advanced options"

Then go on "Options" Tab

Then go on "options 4" tab

and untick "run video at Atomic Start"

Save and exit , and retry.

or something like that, so it kicks me back to the FE, but if I exit the FE, the game seems to load.  I know that is confusing, let me know if I need to clarify that at all.

Here on the "option " subtab , you can set "Display time before returning to the front end".  You can increase the value.  But if your game are so long to load the problem can be elsewhere.

-try to edit your mame.ini , and put or modify  skip_validitycheck  1

Once I get the FE working, I will still need to figure out how to configure it for my 3 sided cocktail (right now it only works on the horizontal side, I don't know how to get it to flip the screen for the vertical games etc...).

still on the "option 2" subtab , tick "Automatic Front End rotation depending on game launched" and choose default orientation for vertical game.

On the same tab, you can also Tick "Coktail mode"  , that allow the second player by pression a button (configurable with AtomicKey.exe) to switch the view to him.

All settings in Atomic concern only the Front End.  You could have to do some setting in MAME to see game in the orientation you want. 

[melarky]

I was trying some of your new advice, but for some reason the gui wasn't updating the correct config file (even though I kept settiung it to overwrite the main one, after I would save and close I would open the main config file and none of my changes would be there).

I think I may uninstall atomicFE and then re-install and start fresh with all of the advice given in this forum (I think I probably screwed something up in the settings when I was trying to figure it out on my own).  I'm so close, I'm really excited to see this working.

[youki]

Yes, i could be a good idea to restart from a clean install.

Don't use plug'n play module in your case.

Just install Atomic 0.19 and then the latest patch. Keep all default settings, don't run atomicmanager. Just install.

Run the file codec_tscc.exe  .

then run Atomic.exe  , and look how it starts.  If you have still the black screen.    (don't try to run game in the list, they are fake it won't work)

run AtomicManager.exe and disable the intro video.  and try again.

If atomic runs at a good speed for you.  You can start to configure it with your mame and roms.

If it starts and it is too slow, try to change the layout with AtomicManager and use the one for slow computer to see if it is better.