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My PC's limits?

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push2reject:
There were several versions of the P4 Intel processor, what is the FSB?  Dells model # system isn't too clear.  If your P4 has a front side bus of 400 or 533 you'll find even with a mid-range AGP upgrade the processor will start to bottle neck.  I think you'll see a big slow down  running software newer then the last 5 years.  I wouldn't throw any cash upgrades at it unless it has an FSB of 800 or better.  I wouldn't worry about an upgrade with Mame, as stated most 2D games should run fine.  With a few exceptions (like racing) most 3D games of the late 90's and early 2000's had little gameplay and pulled in quarters based on the "3D/VR/photo-realistic" hype.

That stated I have a Core 2 Quad, 4 gigs ram, and a NV 8800 and the full 134 roms/chds,  I've done a lot of playing around with the 3D mame games and some of them are very slow on my higher end rig (ex. <50% of full speed emulation).

The only 3D Mame game I wish I could get at full speed is Ikaruga (but NullDC runs it well on my machine!)

DillonFoulds:
@push2reject:

Which cpu specifically is it, and does it run the 3d Gauntlets? :D

push2reject:
@DillonFoulds:

Its a 6700 @ 2.66, not the latest or greatest, the 3D Gauntlet games don't run well.  I have all the N64 roms on my PC and the Gauntlet games run faster then the N64 or arcade ever did and @ 1080p rendering (trust me its beautiful!).  I love the accuracy and standards the Mame coders keep, but most 3D stuff runs better in emulators which utilize the graphics card.  Mame uses your CPU almost exclusively for rendering and uses the GPU for only scaling and filtering.  A fast graphics card will do nothing for Mame.  This is especially heartbreaking when you consider the Gauntlet: Dark Legacy arcade board had a PCI connector with a stock Quantum3D Voodoo2 PC Card plugged into it.  The game was essentially a bare bones PC board with a great graphics card on it!  When you load the game up it even states its checking the 3dFX chipset.  Some of the latest generation of arcade boards that run 3D games like Street Fighter IV are in fact running Windows XP and are pretty much just high end PCs.  SF IV on my rig runs at 80 FPS at 1080p. :)

bkenobi:
I saw SF Rush in the arcade when I was in school.  When I realized it was running a 3dFX card, I ran out and got one myself.  Quake was AWESOME with the advanced graphics turned on.  I'm not sure if they intended to use the arcade to sell computer hardware, but they certainly sold at least 1 unit because of it.   :cheers:

Turnarcades:
Sorry peeps, gotta pipe in again and defend lower-spec systems. I have consistently had certain 3D fighters working fine as low as 2Ghz using older builds of MAME, when the emulation core was less mature. Using the correct display and frameskip settings, I had Tekken 1 running fine as well as SF EX. Also I've had N64 and even PS1 running sweet as low as 1.6Ghz, though found 1.8Ghz is better, so sod 3D fighters in MAME as the PS1 had many of them ported over, with more characters, versus modes and more features. Oh, and the systems I'm talking about don't have massive RAM or additional graphics/sound cards either, just average on-board NVIDIA graphics. My minimum spec to run what I've mentioned would be 1.6Ghz with 256mb RAM, but I'd say it all runs just great for what is worth playing at 2.4Ghz with 1GB RAM - just optimise Windows and use a pre-0.106 build of MAME.

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