Windows Mame performance vs Dos Mame performance

[Wade]

It is pretty common on this board to see people mention that Windows mame performs better than DOS mame, and this is accepted as true.

I question this, as I have only found the opposite to be true on my machines (better sound and framerates on pure DOS vs. Windows mame).

I'm wondering if there is any truth to this assertion or is it simple a myth?  I'm not interested in hypothetical or theoretical reasons why Windows mame would perform better - only some real world examples.  Perhaps someone can provide an example of a few games that get better framerates in Windows mame.

Wade

[Minwah]

When I first built my 1.4Ghz Athlon machine, I found these results:

DOS + DOS MAME = Very poor
Windows + Windows MAME = Very good for 95% of games
Windows + DOS MAME = Perfect!

I found that DOS MAME running under Windows gave me the best performance. eg, Stun Runner was really bad with Windows MAME, but I got a 100% framerate with DOS MAME under Windows.

This was quite a while ago (remember when MAME v0.37? had all those betas?).  I cannot explain why DOS MAME out-performed Windows MAME.  Nor can I explain why DOS MAME in pure DOS was crap (from memory even PacMan didn't run at 60fps).

I still use Windows MAME, as using DOS MAME in Windows used to cause a horrible repeating noise when I pressed escape.  Plus I preferred the video modes selected by WinMAME.

Anyway, so in my experience, using pure DOS was just not an option.

[Jakobud]

Its completely dependant on the speed/age of your machine.  

Old machines will give better DOS Mame performace.
Old machines will give worse Windows Mame performance.

Newer machines will give worse DOS Mame performace.
Newer machines will give better Windows Mame performance.

[Wade]

Minwah,

   Wow, that's strange.  I wonder what could have been the problem?  I used version 0.37 and version 0.6X on a K6-450 and the DOS version performed better on the 0.6X version.  I didn't even try the windows version or 0.67 on the P-133, but most of the classics I tried ran fine on that old machine with version 0.37.


Jakobud,

   I'm looking for proof of better Windows performance, not hypothetical/theoretical reasons or explanations.

Wade

[Odonadon]

I've found DOS + DOS MAME outperforms Windows MAME by quite a bit on my K6-3 450MHz 128Mb RAM.  From what I've been hearing, I think Jakobud explains it perfectly.

Odonadon

[Minwah]

I'd just like to point out that my earlier post was based purely on my 1.4Ghz Athlon, Asus mobo and 256mb RAM.

Previous to that I ran a P2 333Mhz, and yes, DOS MAME + pure DOS was the king on that machine.

Wade: if you are using that 450 machine I would definately stick with DOS + DOS MAME.  I don't know at which point the spec crossover is for DOS/Windows, but I guess around 800Mhz (?)  Of course RAM then plays a part too...

[Mike]

I had much better performance on windows. But i think you have to take a couple of things into account. One is the speed of your computer and two is ram. If you have a PIII (Dont know about k6-2) or newer windows is probably gonna run better for you unless you have a tiny amount of ram. In which case the memory management of windows isn't going to help you out. But with an athlon 1.4ghz and 256mb of ram i'm pretty sure you'll get better performance off windows. When i had a P3 600 in my cabinet and ran dos on it I couldn't play 19XX or NBA Jam on them at all. With windows 98se loaded I could play both without a problem. Since then I've gone to windows 2000 and i feel it operates even better. I think this has to do though with having 768mb of ram in the computer and windows 2000 being better at using it.

But the short of it is now the windows version is the main supported version they are working on so why not use it.