Mame pc help.

Lowndski

Lowndski

Lowndski

Associate
Joined
26 Nov 2007
Posts
61
I'm currently building an arcade cabinet for running mame and maybe some other emulators. (mega drive, snes etc) and need some help on some parts.
I currently have an old pc with a p4 3gig I think and 1gig ram.
I need a pci graphics card and at least a 22" monitor plus an IDE hard drive. I don't want to spend too much (£150 - £200max) but not quite sure what to go for.
Any help much appreciated. Thanks.
 
vza83m.jpg


but tbh i wouldnt buy an IDE HDD well not brand new neways and i would try to add another at least another gig of ram:D
 
there are the 3650 AGP on sale at OCUK but the price is just rediculus, cheaper to get a new motherboard AND a pic-e gfx card.
 
The spec seams a bit over kill for an arcade emulator .I have a friend who uses an old p3 733 256ram windows2000 laptop to run old arcade games on a old 21" CRT tv in the arcade cabinet with all the old style joysicks great fun with streetfighter2 .Just get an old p3 laptop of the bay for £30-£50 .
 
Last edited:
All the old 2D games can run full speed on a 1GHz CPU. The ones that don't obviously need more work so more CPU speed can be handy. The later 3D games are more taxing and glitchy. A P4/3Ghz is probably fine.

You could probably underclock and undervolt to save power and lose nothing on the performance front. I'd use an nvidia card if possible but it's not a huge dealbreaker.

As for ram I'd whack in another gig. Under Windows you may need it unless you want to sit and wait for the page file when you change game.
If you use AdvanceMame/SDLMame on Linux then 1Gig may be sufficient but ram is cheap so get another gig anyway.
 
yashiro said:
All the old 2D games can run full speed on a 1GHz CPU. The ones that don't obviously need more work so more CPU speed can be handy. The later 3D games are more taxing and glitchy. A P4/3Ghz is probably fine.

You could probably underclock and undervolt to save power and lose nothing on the performance front. I'd use an nvidia card if possible but it's not a huge dealbreaker.

As for ram I'd whack in another gig. Under Windows you may need it unless you want to sit and wait for the page file when you change game.
If you use AdvanceMame/SDLMame on Linux then 1Gig may be sufficient but ram is cheap so get another gig anyway.
Click to expand...

Don't wast money on ram or gfx card or monitor .Just go for a p3 laptop with tv out and a 21" tv with a scart .All these old games memory requirements a measured in kb's not mb's or gigs .If its soley for use as an emulator there is no need to have it on-line .There is no need for antivirus or firewall .This means that windows 98 or 2000 will be using less than 80 mb of ram and will be very quick. With windows98/2000 and 256mb ram you could easily run multiple games with out slowdown be cause of paging .Also the 640x400 crt gives a nice warm nostalgic glow and the lappy is very easy to hid in the cabinet with out worrying about heat and air flow.
 
Last edited:
TV out is terrible. And while a lot of pre 90's games are very small some of the later fighting games like KoF 99 and Third Strike require a lot more ram.
 
Thanks for the replies.
I won't be able to go for a CRT as the cabinet I've built isn't as deep as a normal cab so flat screen only.
Could someone take a look at this for me please. - http://support.thetechguys.com/layout.aspx?ID={1bffb1b8-6637-4722-8622-8d78bcc9b760}&CatID={9cadea12-d164-4b50-8d7e-855abca91a38}
It's the motherboard I have in the pc I want to use. Am I right in thinking I can put a SATA hd in there?
Also would a PowerColor X1650PRO 512MB AGP Graphics Card be good enough to run the 22" monitor mentioned above?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom