If the OS ain't broke...upgrade?

[Organic Jerk]

I'm seeing a growing number of people posting lately with talk of running their Mamed/PC Arcade machines with XP64, Vista, and Vista64

Am I the only person who thinks that this is a bit much?

I personally use TinyXP on mine but if I felt comfortable enough I would jump down to 98 (or even a slim Linux install)... 

Don't get me wrong I'm a total believer in sticking in the most powerful Hardware you can afford to stick in, but I figure I'd want the leanest OS in the world so all that power gets spent where it matters most, no?  A clunky or overcomplicated OS does nothing but hog resources and get in the way of the processes and executables that matter the most...

Not to mention the compatibility issues you're likely to have impede your progress..

Am I wrong?  Is there a justified tide turn?

[Paul Olson]

I think most of the people who are upgrading are doing so for the newer 64 bit processors with multi cores. The most popular FEs are windows only, so there is not much choice in going with the newer OSes.

[Organic Jerk]

Ahh, ok... well then XP64, max...

I wouldn't want to subject any poor mame machine to Vista, though...

[Thenasty]

DOS..........all the way.......

If your OS aint broken, why fix it 

[Organic Jerk]

Nah...  at least not for my setup.  For a system to play just classic mame games, Dos and mamewah are definitely an option, although I personally would go crazy without a GUI..

TinyXP's been good to me so far...

I just can't for the life of me see why someone would make the jump to Vista for an arcade machine (well unless you needed to play DX10 games)..Drivers...Compatibility Issues...and just the general hog of an OS it is with resources.  I figured there had to be something I wasn't seeing.

[Jdurg]

If you're pretty adept with computers, you can severely trim back the resources that Vista uses and prevent them from starting up at all.  There are quite a few websites that I can't recall off the top of my head that tell you how to cut out nearly all of Vista's "issues".  Granted, it will then make the OS very minimal but for an arcade cab isn't that what we want?

[Organic Jerk]

Then why go Vista at all?

[joebells]

I'm different than most on here I run vista for the media center. But I believe those that run it for x64 reasons do it because overall vista x64 has better driver support than XP x64. Some on here say XP x64 is ok but I hear its kind of a stalled effort and most new drivers go for vista x64 and not XP x64. My media center is vista ultimate x64 and I really didn't have too much trouble.

[kevinp]

Windows 2000, super slimmed down is the best.  In fact, 2000 was probably the best ver of Windows ever.

[joebells]

2000 huh, what about all the speed advantages the x64 version of mame has over the 32 bit version of mame? And I don't believe 2000 has the full directx 9 c or something along those lines(more and more things are using directx for some cool features)

2000 is the last os I would use but it is personal preference of course.

[Thenasty]

I know MAME can run in X64, but if MAME can run on  C64, I'd do it 

[Organic Jerk]

2000 huh, what about all the speed advantages the x64 version of mame has over the 32 bit version of mame? And I don't believe 2000 has the full directx 9 c or something along those lines(more and more things are using directx for some cool features)

2000 is the last os I would use but it is personal preference of course.

DX9c supports Win2k.  If you have a 32b processor than you can't go 64, so thats moot.  If you have a 64b processor I'd say X64 is the choice..

I know MAME can run in X64, but if MAME can run on  C64, I'd do it 

Nah...  I should wait until the new Windows 7 alpha gets released so I can base my machine on that and come to the forum expecting magical drivers for specific hardware to appear out of nowhere....

 

[Jdurg]

Then why go Vista at all?

There is basically no driver support for XP-64.  Vista is the current OS so when designing 64-bit drivers, developers will look towards Vista compatibility and not give a rat's ass about XP-64.  Hell, many people don't even know that 64-bit XP exists!   

[TOK]

Man, where were all you guys when I was making this same argument and being told I was a dummy? 

Light guns don't work in the 64 bit OS's, some of the front ends don't work with them, driver support is a bit uncertain... I was told I was left in the past for not capitalizing on the 20% speed increase of MAME on a 64 bit OS. I see no reason not to use XP32 or 2000 if you have a copy and want to avoid the activation hassles.

[massive88]

Don't get me wrong I'm a total believer in sticking in the most powerful Hardware you can afford to stick in, but I figure I'd want the leanest OS in the world so all that power gets spent where it matters most, no?  A clunky or overcomplicated OS does nothing but hog resources and get in the way of the processes and executables that matter the most...

Am I wrong?  Is there a justified tide turn?

Utilizing the 64 bit mame binaries provides an increase in performance worthy of several hardware upgrades.  So using a 64bit OS maximizes your hardware much more than an OS with less overhead.  Not to mention with some time and effort, you can remove a lot of that overhead.  The future is definately 64bit.  Now its a little tough to make the move, so only those who really want to maximize their performance are doing it.

The question is always what do you want to do though, and if you dont care about running the beefier games, theres no good reason to jump.

[SGT]

Man, where were all you guys when I was making this same argument and being told I was a dummy? 

Light guns don't work in the 64 bit OS's, some of the front ends don't work with them, driver support is a bit uncertain... I was told I was left in the past for not capitalizing on the 20% speed increase of MAME on a 64 bit OS. I see no reason not to use XP32 or 2000 if you have a copy and want to avoid the activation hassles.

  Some people want to play games that they cannot play otherwise.  They also want to plan for the future if they're going to buy a computer anyway.  No one called you a dummy for what you are doing.  They questioned why you insisted that the Win98-Win2k route was the ONLY sane one.   Different goals for different people.  So you were told that you were left in the past because of not capitalizing on a 20% speed increase.  Can you link to that as I remember there being a lot more to it than that?

[TOK]

Not you again! 

I didn't say there were the only options, they were left off a poll as to which were the preferred options. You neglected to mention any of the shortcomings related to using a 64 bit OS, and there are quite a few.

[headkaze]

So what are these "shortcomings" of running a 64-bit OS. Driver support for what? Lightguns? So is that it, lightguns?

I run XP 64 and didn't have any problems getting drivers for my hardware. Running old hardware you might though.

64-bit OS's do run 32-bit software so I only see benefits. If your getting a new PC and a Dual Core or Quad Core it would seem silly not to get a 64-bit OS IMHO.

[Minwah]

In fact, 2000 was probably the best ver of Windows ever.

 

[TOK]

So what are these "shortcomings" of running a 64-bit OS. Driver support for what? Lightguns? So is that it, lightguns?

I run XP 64 and didn't have any problems getting drivers for my hardware. Running old hardware you might though.

64-bit OS's do run 32-bit software so I only see benefits. If your getting a new PC and a Dual Core or Quad Core it would seem silly not to get a 64-bit OS IMHO.

So is that it, lightguns?
Look at the 90's/Early 2000's era we're into for games being emulated in MAME.
Probably 1/3 of them are lightgun games. House Of The Dead 3, Area 51, Maximum Force, Beast Busters Second Nightmare, Carnevil, Crypt Killer, Confidential Mission, Evil Night, Ghost Squad, Gun Survivor, Gunblade NY, The Lost World, Operation Tiger, Police Trainer 1 and 2, Silent Scope series, Star Trek Voyager, Terraburst, Time Crisis series, Trophy Hunting, Turkey Hunting USA, Virtua Cop 3, World Combat.

You really looking to play those with a joystick or trackball? 

[headkaze]

So is that it, lightguns?
Look at the 90's/Early 2000's era we're into for games being emulated in MAME.
Probably 1/3 of them are lightgun games. House Of The Dead 3, Area 51, Maximum Force, Beast Busters Second Nightmare, Carnevil, Crypt Killer, Confidential Mission, Evil Night, Ghost Squad, Gun Survivor, Gunblade NY, The Lost World, Operation Tiger, Police Trainer 1 and 2, Silent Scope series, Star Trek Voyager, Terraburst, Time Crisis series, Trophy Hunting, Turkey Hunting USA, Virtua Cop 3, World Combat.

You really looking to play those with a joystick or trackball? 

I didn't mean it like that, obviously we do want lightguns to work on 64-bit OS, but if that is all there is, then we can hope there will be drivers coming. In fact a quick search on the web about it and I found this post from EMS.

The TopGun XP64 driver is only a beta version, which may not be very stable.

So they are working on it

[kevinp]

2000 huh, what about all the speed advantages the x64 version of mame has over the 32 bit version of mame? And I don't believe 2000 has the full directx 9 c or something along those lines(more and more things are using directx for some cool features)

2000 is the last os I would use but it is personal preference of course.

I don't have a 64bit system, perhaps I should have mentioned that.  2000 is still one of the most stable versions of Windows ever, at least in my own experience.  I am also very happy with it when used in a cab.  DirectX 9C works flawlessly as well.  I use Maximus as my shell so everything is kept as slim as possible.  My overall design is minimal with no keyboard, admin buttons, etc.  Therefore I require a very slim and reliable OS like 2000.