slow running games

[mdcarp]

Finally got a cabinet for my gameex maching!! Everything is great...except that a few of the 90's era games run slow. I think my pc should be able to handle them (killer instinct, tekken, etc). The processor is pretty fast, it has a little over a gig of memory, and the video card is an older nvidia (geforce II I think). It used to run the pc version of grand theft auto III without a problem. Are there any settings I can change to get these newer arcade games running smoother? I would appreciate any help.

thanks,

mc

[bkenobi]

Killer Instinct is notoriously poor these days. I heard (probably from Brian) that you have to use an old version of MAME if you want to run it correctly without a super powerful machine. It's not one that I run, so I can't say. Basically, I doubt your machine is up to the task with the demands of the emulator.

[headkaze]

You need around a P4 3Ghz to run KI and Tekken at 100% AFAIK. Some games like blitz2k, blitz99 and carnevil actually need a Dual Core + Mame64 + 64-bit OS to run at any decent speed. Some of the seattle games even require an overclock of a Dual Core to 4 Ghz. Although quad cores don't really have any kind of benefit in Mame yet.

Running GTA III is not really a good benchmark as it's natively written for the x86, that game will run okay on a low to medium spec machine and has hardware accellerated 3d graphics. You need a much higher spec machine for some games in Mame because they are emulated and software rendered. Video cards don't help Mame out that much.

Future of Mame is definately going 64-bit with multi-core processors. It seems the 45 nm Dual Cores like the E8400/E8500 overclocked to 4Ghz+ running 64-bit Mame on a 64-bit OS seem to be the most affordable and best system to run Mame at the moment. You can check out some of the benchmarking going on here

[bkenobi]

I wanted to go into more depth, but I guess it's good that I didn't since all of the numbers I was *going* to quote were way off.

[headkaze]

You know I think I might be wrong about KI and Tekken. I do know one of the Tekken's is terribly slow on my P4 3Ghz. But first 2 or so should run okay on a lower spec machine I think. KI might run on a lower spec machine I'm not sure. Anyone have it running on anything lower than a P4 3Ghz at decent FPS and a recent version of Mame? I was having a look at some old benchmarks but that might be because they're older versions of Mame. Taking a look at Pacman fps in MAME versions shows newer versions of Mame actually require a faster CPU for that game.

[bkenobi]

Taking a look at Pacman fps in MAME versions shows newer versions of Mame actually require a faster CPU for that game.

That's messed up!

[Canti]

It's because the MAME project is about emulating the machines as accurately as possible as opposed to cutting corners to gain speed increases. The newer games would work 100% speed for sure if they went the same route as most emulators. They use pure software rendering, no hardware because it wouldn't be accurate since a 90's arcade machine didn't contain a GeForce 8800 . Err, that may not be right, I don't understand it all but I'm fairly certain that accuracy lowers performance.

The first Tekken and possibly Tekken 2 should run fine with a relatively modern MAME build on 1.8ghz+. It does stutter though, but it even does that on the most powerful of machines due to emulation inaccuracy. IMO the series isn't worth the time/money/effort to get working on a rig.

[bkenobi]

I didn't consider that they were improving the accuracy. Although I can't imagine that there would be that much more to Pacman than what you initially saw.

[shaunopp]

Killer Instinct is notoriously poor these days. I heard (probably from Brian) that you have to use an old version of MAME if you want to run it correctly without a super powerful machine. It's not one that I run, so I can't say. Basically, I doubt your machine is up to the task with the demands of the emulator.

Killer Instict does need to be run in an older version of MAME on slower machines. It was unplayable on my old PIII 2.0 when I used versions past .106 I think. KI2 wasn't playable at all on that machine.

The first Tekken and possibly Tekken 2 should run fine with a relatively modern MAME build on 1.8ghz+. It does stutter though, but it even does that on the most powerful of machines due to emulation inaccuracy. IMO the series isn't worth the time/money/effort to get working on a rig.

Tekken and Tekken 2 ran ok on slower systems for me especially using ZiNc instead of MAME. For Tekken 3 you may want to try the playstation version in ePSXe. I find this to work better. I disagree that Tekken's not worth getting to run.

Are there any settings I can change to get these newer arcade games running smoother? I would appreciate any help.

I don't think it's a settings issue, these are just a little outside the limits of your hardware.