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Running mame and other emulators from network

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Turnarcades:
I would place doubt in running any type of game over a network due to the constant read/write cycles of emulators and PC games. Even by modern standards, it's just not as good as having it stored locally. By all means update over your network, but I personally wouldn't run them over the network. Until 'cloud computing' arrives properly and forces network protocol to be improved along with efficient remote access, I'd stick with the 'it's all wired in one place' solution.

bkenobi:
If the emulators are stored remotely, then you would definitely have more issues.  I was assuming the roms were networked and the emulators would be local.

Deadly:

--- Quote from: bkenobi on November 03, 2009, 01:41:14 pm ---If the emulators are stored remotely, then you would definitely have more issues.  I was assuming the roms were networked and the emulators would be local.

--- End quote ---

HIGHLY ill advised if you are planning on any heavy hitters such as Dreamcast, PS1, PS2 (others) or any MAME games that use a CHD. Storage is dirt cheap these days. If you're worried about updates then script it to push the updates to your clients which will also serve as a backup in case your server went down.
Any of the small stuff (for example) like SNES, Atari, MAME non CHD stuff would work fine over a NIC

Unless you are planning on fiber .. I would assume you're not.

Hyperfan:
No just gigabyte ethernet.

I guess then i can have a master emulator folder on the server with all the roms sets ect. then as you say get some big drives on each client and now and again get a script to copy the master set to make sure clients upto date.

1.5 tb drives are dirt cheap as you sy.

Deadly:
Download this:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9D467A69-57FF-4AE7-96EE-B18C4790CFFD&displaylang=en
You'll want to use robocopy.exe
Here's a script I wrote to use at work. Copy and paste in a text file calling it (for example mame.bat)
You can set this as a scheduled task on the CLIENT side so the ONLY thing you ever have to worry about is updating your server.
This will copy only data that changes to a newer file date. It will also PURGE items that no longer exist on the source.
Minor changes needed to match what ever directories you create.

====== Start Copying below==============
REM This script to be used to PULL files from server to client
REM This maps a drive letter to use
net use K: \\COMPUTERNAME-OR-IP\C$ PASSWORDHERE /USER:COMPUTERNAME-OR-IP\USERNAME /YES

K:

cd\PATH-TO-FILES

REM Tell the path to robocopy.exe. Then the mapped network path. Then where you want the files backed up to locally and finishing with a log file.

C:\Robocopy\robocopy.exe "K:\PATH-TO-FILES" *.* C:\MAME /R:0 /copyall /mir /ETA >> C:\log_files\backup.txt

C:

net use K: /DELETE /YES

exit
======Stop copying at the word EXIT====
 
I've added a couple extra steps due to past issues. This should ensure you see none ;)

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