What is the Recommended PC for N64/MAME?

[rezendes]

I'm just curious what specs the PC I will buy needs to have in order to run MAME/N64 well. Minimum requirements would be nice, I like saving money. Sound/Graphics/Processor/Hard Drive size (for all roms including mame/n64/gba/nes/snes/ etc...) THANKS!

[djrobx]

MAME is all over the board. I think there are some emulated games which don't run properly on any modern computer. But if you want to play Ms. Pac Man, you can do that on a Pentium 200 (at least with an older version of MAME, I understand newer builds have become slower in the interest of removing "speed hacks")

For N64 emulation you should have a decent Directx9 card. Doesn't need to be too fancy. Seems to work even with Intel integrated graphics. I've seen the recommended CPU speed as 1.2ghz P3 or better.

Personally I would buy a 2.8ghz or better processor, just based on the price/performance ratio. I picked up an Athlon 64 3000+ motherboard+CPU for just $140 last month. Time is money, given how cheap processors around 3ghz are, I don't see it as being cost effective to buy something that you'll need to upgrade again soon.

-- Rob

[Paco62]

I'm just curious what specs the PC I will buy needs to have in order to run MAME/N64 well.  Minimum requirements would be nice, I like saving money.  Sound/Graphics/Processor/Hard Drive size (for all roms including mame/n64/gba/nes/snes/ etc...) THANKS!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Currently, I am using:

AMD Athlon XP2800+ 400MHZ FSB

1GB DDR 3200 RAM

NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti 8X AGP

and I can run most everything smoothly, including ZiNc (with the exception of Tekken 3, which runs at 45-50 FPS). That being said, there are games, like NFL Blitz that I am not sure are playable even with the top-end computers. I agree with djrobx on the price/performance ratio. If you can swing it, it's worth the loot.