Will this pc play Mame?

[Dupre]

Hi everyone,

Quick down and dirty question. I bought a P3 766mhz, 512~mb sd ram, Radeon 64mb video card (not sure the model sorry) with a 20 gig hardrive at a garage sale last weekend for $40. Should this machine be able to play Mame with little to no problems? It seems a LOT of games that play perfect on my other pc either the sound is very sluggish or the game runs slow.

Thanks for the help guys and gals!

[Brian Hoffman]

  Dupre said:

Hi everyone,

Quick down and dirty question. I bought a P3 766mhz, 512~mb sd ram, Radeon 64mb video card (not sure the model sorry) with a 20 gig hardrive at a garage sale last weekend for $40. Should this machine be able to play Mame with little to no problems? It seems a LOT of games that play perfect on my other pc either the sound is very sluggish or the game runs slow.

Thanks for the help guys and gals!

Yes but you will be better off using an older build of mame... Like the .96 build

As it will perform better

[Dupre]

Ahh so because Im using such a new version of Mame, do you think that is what is causing the sound to be choppy? If you dont mind also, what are the +'s and -'s of using a older version?

[gerble1000]

my guess is that a newer virsion of mame will play newer games for mame ,as the older versions dont have the configs (just a guess)

ive been using old versions and they work fine

the newer versions are probably optimized for newer pc's like duel core and sli ect

its worth trying a few versions and find the right won for ur p3

i used a p3 once with mame

and it worked perfectly

not sure on the mame version though,

and i had a 64mb nvidia geforce (old)

also ur better off downloading the newest graghics card drivers as they will be better

it looks like u got plenty of ram

u probably wont be able to play chd files as they requuire a lot of computer power (i got a p4 and i struggle)

hope this helps

also make sure u get the right version like mame32 for 32bit operating systems

[Dupre]

Sounds like a plan on using a few different versions of the mame. I downloaded the most up to date version of my video card, but Im having a heck of a time getting a driver for a creative 16. Even Creative has disabled support for it on the website.

[gerble1000]

  Dupre said:

Sounds like a plan on using a few different versions of the mame. I downloaded the most up to date version of my video card, but Im having a heck of a time getting a driver for a creative 16. Even Creative has disabled support for it on the website.

try torrent sites like ****** or ****** take it the creative is the sound card

if so try downloading the latest ac97 sound drivers (should be compatible)

[Dupre]

Yeah sorry about that,

Its a creative sound blaster 16. In my device manager its called a sound blaster 16 plug and play which is weird. I try digging up some old drivers again, and Ill post either way if I find them or not, and if I do find them if it fix's the sound problems.

[gerble1000]

  Dupre said:

Yeah sorry about that,

Its a creative sound blaster 16. In my device manager its called a sound blaster 16 plug and play which is weird. I try digging up some old drivers again, and Ill post either way if I find them or not, and if I do find them if it fix's the sound problems.

what operating system are u using,

and i still think that ac97 might still work for the sound driver,

and

is ur sound card built into ur motherbourd or is it a pci card that u put onto the motherbourd,

as the drivers r different usually

[Dupre]

  gerble1000 said:

what operating system are u using,

and i still think that ac97 might still work for the sound driver,

and

is ur sound card built into ur motherbourd or is it a pci card that u put onto the motherbourd,

as the drivers r different usually

XP pro with a actual sound card, not onboard.

[gerble1000]

  Dupre said:

XP pro with a actual sound card, not onboard.

a creative soundblaster is one of the best sound cards ever made,, most compatible,

it shouldnt be hard to find a driver

[emphatic]

Brian Hoffman: Why the 0.96? Did some big code find it's way into MAME after that build? I have a "little project" that would require a "light" build as well and I'm curious. Have to check in MAWS what games it supports I guess.

Emph

[bkenobi]

In general, drivers for games that have been in MAME for a while won't change. Unless the core code changed somehow, I don't see why it would matter much which version of MAME you run.

For example, I've recently looked at Ikari Warriors in MAME 0.122 vs MAME Analog+ 0.71. Both play identically as far as speed, graphics, sound, etc. This is because the game was added ages ago and hasn't been updated. If you try to play a modern game with advanced graphics, you will need a faster machine no matter what version you run.

However, I believe there was a change in some of the core MAME code in ~0.96 that changed how the graphics were displayed. I remember having to set up my video options after the update, so that might be a limiting factor for the low powered card you are talking about using (compared to modern standards).

[Brian Hoffman]

  emphatic said:

Brian Hoffman: Why the 0.96? Did some big code find it's way into MAME after that build? I have a "little project" that would require a "light" build as well and I'm curious. Have to check in MAWS what games it supports I guess.

Emph

Well first off Im pretty sure in that build you can still -Skip_disclaimer so you dont have to custom build your mame.

Second of all I used to run that build for my roms and KI and UMK# ran at good speeds... After that build mame started really changing its video cores and inputs so I find it to be very compatable.... your really only missing out on cps3 games..

However there is always the nebula's CPS3 emu which may run full speed for ya!

Download an old mame32 release of .96 to see the supported games

[Brian Hoffman]

  Dupre said:

Yeah sorry about that,

Its a creative sound blaster 16. In my device manager its called a sound blaster 16 plug and play which is weird. I try digging up some old drivers again, and Ill post either way if I find them or not, and if I do find them if it fix's the sound problems.

www.driverguide.com

[Dupre]

  Brian Hoffman said:

www.driverguide.com

Yeah Ive hit up driversguide already, I have used that site since when the password and id was drivers and all, but the file doesent work for some reason, Ill take another stab at it tonight.

[Brian Hoffman]

  Dupre said:

Yeah Ive hit up driversguide already, I have used that site since when the password and id was drivers and all, but the file doesent work for some reason, Ill take another stab at it tonight.

what card is it exaclty..perhaps I will have better luck:)

[emphatic]

Thanks for the info guys. I don't need CPS3 games at all. But if someone would like to play Bubble Bobble "as it should be" you need MAME 0.111 or higher, since they only "cracked" the Dragon-chip then.

Emph

[Dupre]

  Brian Hoffman said:

what card is it exaclty..perhaps I will have better luck:)

Thank you for being willing to help me out, like I said I bought this pc for $40 at a garage sale so Im not 100% positive. I have looked on the card and all it says Is Creative Soundblaster 16. When I go into device manager, it says my card is "Creative Sound Blaster 16 Plug and Play (WDM)". Hope this helps you because Im out of things to do. Worst comes to worst, I could always try looking for a new sound card, but heck its prob going to cost more than I payed for this pc!

[Dupre]

I went to DriverAgent.com, and it scanned my pc and it said I have the most up to date driver out. Does that mean I have to get a new sound card to make the sound not choppy?

[Brian Hoffman]

  Dupre said:

I went to DriverAgent.com, and it scanned my pc and it said I have the most up to date driver out. Does that mean I have to get a new sound card to make the sound not choppy?

did u remove -tripplebuffer ?

[Dupre]

  Brian Hoffman said:

did u remove -tripplebuffer ?

I did, both in Gamex and mame.

[Brian Hoffman]

  Dupre said:

I did, both in Gamex and mame.

what game are u trying to play? what build of mame are you running?

[Dupre]

  Brian Hoffman said:

what game are u trying to play? what build of mame are you running?

Mameui (32) .123 from the emulatorzone.com, and a variety of games. Just about all that I have played Bloodstorm, Mortal Kombat 1 Aliens vs Predator, Marvel vs Capcom, Street Fighter 2 Turbo (or hyper) Dungeons and Dragons Shadows of Mysteria etc etc....

[Tempest]

  Dupre said:

Mameui (32) .123 from the emulatorzone.com, and a variety of games. Just about all that I have played Bloodstorm, Mortal Kombat 1 Aliens vs Predator, Marvel vs Capcom, Street Fighter 2 Turbo (or hyper) Dungeons and Dragons Shadows of Mysteria etc etc....

Did you take a look in the Task manager to see what your resources are? Memory and cpu usage?

You can start the task manager, then start a game, and use ALT + TAB to switch to the task manager.

Sorry if this is way off base, I didn't read the whole topic again...

[Dupre]

  Tempest said:

Did you take a look in the Task manager to see what your resources are? Memory and cpu usage?

You can start the task manager, then start a game, and use ALT + TAB to switch to the task manager.

Sorry if this is way off base, I didn't read the whole topic again...

Memory usage isint maxed, but cpu is right around 80-99% usage.