MAME... how slow can I go...

[Red 5]

I too, like the rest of the world it seems, am planning on building a mame machine. Just for classic arcade games. (Nothing after 1988)

 

Right now, I am running MAME beautifully on my computer which is a 2.3 ghz machine.

 

Can I use my older machine which is like a P2 or P3 tops and I believe 800 mhz. If I throw in 128 for RAM and a good sized hard drive would I be able to pull it off ?

 

I know a video card would be cheap because it doesn't take much there, but for my last question, how does it look on a TV instead of a monitor? I can afford a much bigger TV screen than I can a computer monitor screen, but how bad will it look?

 

Thanks for you help with this MAME newbie !

[Avid Fan]

It will look decent (the games anyway, not the desktop) but you must use at least an S-video cable, anything less turns arcade games blurry (hence so many game review sights giving MAT 1&2 bad ratings in the graphics department, they werent using s-video)

[Red 5]

Yeah, I was definitely going to use S-video.

 

What about the computer.

How cheap can I get here w/o experiencing any slow down?

[Blackjack]

A [email protected] will run the classics just fine but you might need to use an older version to get the speed. I say might but I think you'll probably be ok even with a current version of mame.

 

I used to run Mame32 on a [email protected] and all the oldies worked great.

 

In fact, when I first started using Mame, it was on an AMD K63 @ 333mhz w/32megs and a 4 meg ati card. Even with that lame setup, the classics worked pretty good, but that was back in '98.

[AtariYoungin]

I have a Pentium 100 sitting in my room that can run pacman without slowdown, that was the only game i ever tested on that system...So for classics you can go pretty low. Id say 500 just to be safe.

[Red 5]

That's great news.

I guess the biggest cost will be the joystick.

Thanks again for all the help.

[shep]

I have a [email protected] and only 64mb of RAM, 1MB being used for video, and it runs older ones great, chokes though on 2d fighters that are relativley new (Xmen v SF), very choppy in fullscreen.