Any MAME users in here? What is your setup?

[jim1976]

Originally posted by: Joe750
it's strictly an Arcade machine emulator, not console. It emulates the PCB's found in standup arcade games, from Pong to Anything that is not too 3d (Tekken, MK4, Virtua Fighter). It is awesome with the addition of an authentic arcade control stick and buttons, which use your keyboard port and work well. I recommend the HotRodSE, and the X-arcade is available at Fry's (more buttons, more money) The thing about MAME that is good (but confusing) is that since there are 4000+ games spanning 30 years, a P2 will handle some and a P4 can't handle others. That's what I'm trying to figure out. I want to go as high as MK3. I gather that an AMD 2400+ or a P4 2.66 is the way to go for that.

That's because there is a huge boost in performance man and these are too old. But new versions are out all the time.
For roms mame.dk (i think it's functioning again cauz they had a badwidth problem) ALL THE ROMS of the games of my generation.
AAAHHH! BACK IN THE ROOTS !! YEAH!!
:brokenheart:

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: jim1976

Originally posted by: Joe750
it's strictly an Arcade machine emulator, not console. It emulates the PCB's found in standup arcade games, from Pong to Anything that is not too 3d (Tekken, MK4, Virtua Fighter). It is awesome with the addition of an authentic arcade control stick and buttons, which use your keyboard port and work well. I recommend the HotRodSE, and the X-arcade is available at Fry's (more buttons, more money) The thing about MAME that is good (but confusing) is that since there are 4000+ games spanning 30 years, a P2 will handle some and a P4 can't handle others. That's what I'm trying to figure out. I want to go as high as MK3. I gather that an AMD 2400+ or a P4 2.66 is the way to go for that.

That's because there is a huge boost in performance man and these are too old. But new versions are out all the time.
For roms mame.dk (i think it's functioning again cauz they had a badwidth problem) ALL THE ROMS of the games of my generation.
AAAHHH! BACK IN THE ROOTS !! YEAH!!
:brokenheart:

Mame.dk is down now. :| I hope they are back online soon. They are my main rom source.

 

[jdurg]

mame.dk's host has died, so don't expect them to come back for quite some time. As for MAME, it's all about CPU power. Video card plays little to no effect on system performance. I've got a P4 2.8@2.94 GHz and all of the MK games run at 100% full speed, as does Area51/Max Force. War Gods is a slideshow, and the Crusin' games can run 100% if I turn off the sound and underclock processor 0 to 25%. KI and KI2 run 100% without any hiccups. If you want to run just the MK games at full speed, I would reccommend going only as low as a P4 2.0 GHz. The accuracy of the emulation is getting better all the time, which results in the speed going slower. What many people don't realize is that the age of the game does not determine how difficult it is to emulate the hardware. Many older games are, in fact, much harder to emulate than some newer games. So if you're wondering why GameA from 1994 isn't emulated, while GameB from 1999 is, it's most likely due to the complexity. The later generation of Mortal Kombat games are quite complex and eat up a lot of CPU cycles due to the DCS sound system used by the real PCBs. You can get by with a slower CPU if you use older versions of MAME (0.68 or earlier), since the emulation wasn't as accurate and speed-hacks were used to make the games playable. As a result, the emulation is nowhere near accurate, but the games are playable.

The basic rule of thumb when buying hardware for playing MAME is to purchase the fastest that you can afford. If you can afford a 2.8 GHz CPU, go for it. Having more CPU power will only mean smoother emulation.

 

[JackBurton]

" mame.dk's host has died, so don't expect them to come back for quite some time."

Are talking about the guy running mame.dk? If so....DAMN!!!! That sucks! Man, the guy was AWESOME!!! The site was second to none!

 

[Joe750]

can anyone out there attest to ~1.5ghz AMD running MK3? plus that guy died? that's too bad.

 

[jim1976]

There are a lot of games that CPU proccesing power helps but in some older roms it creates incompatibility issues.

 

[jdurg]

Originally posted by: JackBurton
" mame.dk's host has died, so don't expect them to come back for quite some time."

Are talking about the guy running mame.dk? If so....DAMN!!!! That sucks! Man, the guy was AWESOME!!! The site was second to none!

No no no no noooooooo. A little misunderstanding. I meant that the company/hardware that was hosting the website has stopped working. No human beings have lost their lives. Only the hardware that is directly responsible for Mame.dk existing. So when I said their host had died, I meant that the company which hosted their website and provided their bandwidth had gone under.

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: jdurg

Originally posted by: JackBurton
" mame.dk's host has died, so don't expect them to come back for quite some time."

Are talking about the guy running mame.dk? If so....DAMN!!!! That sucks! Man, the guy was AWESOME!!! The site was second to none!

No no no no noooooooo. A little misunderstanding. I meant that the company/hardware that was hosting the website has stopped working. No human beings have lost their lives. Only the hardware that is directly responsible for Mame.dk existing. So when I said their host had died, I meant that the company which hosted their website and provided their bandwidth had gone under.

Ok, that is alright. I'm sure they can get another host. Hopefully soon!!!

 

[Lyfer]

They should host a bittorent site.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: JackBurton

Originally posted by: jdurg

Originally posted by: JackBurton
" mame.dk's host has died, so don't expect them to come back for quite some time."

Are talking about the guy running mame.dk? If so....DAMN!!!! That sucks! Man, the guy was AWESOME!!! The site was second to none!

No no no no noooooooo. A little misunderstanding. I meant that the company/hardware that was hosting the website has stopped working. No human beings have lost their lives. Only the hardware that is directly responsible for Mame.dk existing. So when I said their host had died, I meant that the company which hosted their website and provided their bandwidth had gone under.

Ok, that is alright. I'm sure they can get another host. Hopefully soon!!!

Oddly enough, Roms3 is still up, and that's the most important one. Mame.dk will be back up on their feet shortly I imagine.

 

[crazygal]

My roommate and I finished our mame project recently and it kicks butt. I will have a website and pics up soon, if someone is interested, I can email them pics now.
If you need specific information, please pm me. We managed to do it cheap and it works very very well.

 

[JackBurton]

Hey crazygal, can you post some pics on this thread? I'd like to see the finished product.

 

[Joe750]

I would like the specs on that cheap build, crazygal

 

[Joe750]

For anyone interested, I just tried MAME on my folk's PC,

Compaq Presario
Windows ME
AMD Athlon 1.3ghz
256 PC2100
GeForce2 mmx 400

60% resources free, mind you, after Norton and DSL software, and it runs MK2, MK3, and Metal Slug 4 at FULL SPEED, perfect. Can this be because of WinME? Is XP possibly killing enough CPU/Ram that it makes that guy's P4 2.4 not run MK3?

 

[Nebor]

Sounds like this MAME software isn't very efficient. If it's bringing a 2.8C to it's knees. I'm pretty sure they didn't have 2.8Cs back when those games were made.

 

[AsianriceX]

Originally posted by: Nebor
Sounds like this MAME software isn't very efficient. If it's bringing a 2.8C to it's knees. I'm pretty sure they didn't have 2.8Cs back when those games were made.

Mame is made for compatibility first, efficiency second. The fact that it can emulate 3000+ games is a feat in itself.

 

[gregor7777]

Originally posted by: Nebor
Sounds like this MAME software isn't very efficient. If it's bringing a 2.8C to it's knees. I'm pretty sure they didn't have 2.8Cs back when those games were made.

The idea is to replicate the original as close as possible.

Comparing those old chips with the new ones is apples to oranges.

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: Joe750
For anyone interested, I just tried MAME on my folk's PC,

Compaq Presario
Windows ME
AMD Athlon 1.3ghz
256 PC2100
GeForce2 mmx 400

60% resources free, mind you, after Norton and DSL software, and it runs MK2, MK3, and Metal Slug 4 at FULL SPEED, perfect. Can this be because of WinME? Is XP possibly killing enough CPU/Ram that it makes that guy's P4 2.4 not run MK3?

The Metal Slugs game will run just fine on an Athlon 1.3GHz machine. However, try playing MK3 all the way through. You'll see it gets VERY choppy and unplayable on certain levels.

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: Nebor
Sounds like this MAME software isn't very efficient. If it's bringing a 2.8C to it's knees. I'm pretty sure they didn't have 2.8Cs back when those games were made.

Some of these Mame games (especially the hard drive games) will bring the fastest desktop to it's knees.

 

[gregor7777]

Cruise'n USA will hammer a 3.2 P4

 

[styrafoam]

I have a mATX in a mini tower with a duron 700, 256megs pc133, and a GF2pro with tv-out hooked to my television in the living room. It runs everything except the .hdd games fine, but the kids don't care for any of those so it's not an issue. There is occasional slow downs from what I have noticed, I am going to stick a duron 1.3 in there when I find a good deal on one. For those talking about mame.dk, I thought they disabled downloading last year, did I miss something?

 

[jdurg]

Originally posted by: Nebor
Sounds like this MAME software isn't very efficient. If it's bringing a 2.8C to it's knees. I'm pretty sure they didn't have 2.8Cs back when those games were made.

The difference is, modern CPUs use one particular architecture while those "older" arcade games used completely different CPU structures. Emulating games is NOT easy. Trying to emulate older arcade games is like trying to run new Macintosh Software on your PC. Since the software wasn't written for the PC, the performance would be atrocious if it even ran at all. When I first got into the whole field of emulation, I too wondered how games which ran on far inferior hardware could make my new CPU fall to its knees. It wasn't until I learned about different CPU architectures that everything made sense. Trying to run that 1993 arcade game on your 2003 PC is like trying to get that engine from your 1940's airplane to run in your 2003 lawnmower. The amount of power needed to emulate a CPU is far more than one could ever imagine. Then, throw in the fact that most arcade games have upwards of five or six different CPUs, and you'll truly see how much power is needed to successfully emulate something.

MAME's goal is also accuracy ahead of playability. There's no point in preserving the arcade games if you are throwing in all these "hacks" just so you can play them on today's hardware. Being able to play the games is just a benefit of their preservation. MAME also is not platform specific. The code will run on every OS out there, and as a result, some "speed hits" may be taken since the code isn't fully optimized to run better on one platform over another.

 

[jdurg]

Originally posted by: gregor7777
Cruise'n USA will hammer a 3.2 P4

Actually, if you underclock CPU0 to 25-30% and turn off the sound, Cruis'n USA/World can run beautifully on a P4 2.6 GHz machine. The sound hardware on those games is INCREDIBLY complex, thus causing the slideshow if the sound is enabled.

 

[OmegaRedd]

Here is my mame system amd 2400 oc's like crazy 512 samsung 2700 ddr and a gf4 4200 128mb 2 ibm 60gig gxp 7200 in raid 0 on a msi kt266a motherboard , runs KI2 with slight stutter on monster combos.

 

[OmegaRedd]

For the latest roms go to suprnova.org must have bit-torrent.