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Building a MAME PC
#330211 - 08/20/14 05:43 PM
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Hey guys new to here looking for a bit of help, always wanted to build my own Arcade Machine and am finally in a position to do it. Thought I would start with building the machine to run it all and looking for some advice.
i am a total novice with PC builds but understand teh basics.
Can anyone help in offering some advice as to what spec parts I need ?
thanks in advance
Edited by NewToMAME (08/20/14 06:00 PM)
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Re: Building a MAME PC
[Re: NewToMAME]
#330216 - 08/20/14 06:35 PM
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Re: Building a MAME PC
[Re: trickyd]
#330265 - 08/21/14 10:31 AM
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Re: Building a MAME PC
[Re: NewToMAME]
#330282 - 08/21/14 04:02 PM
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You can never go wrong by getting the best of everything. If you're on a budget, the best advice I can give is that the CPU is everything when it comes to MAME. A $90 video card will run the current games every bit as well as a $600 video card. If you had experience, I'd suggest getting an i7 4790k, a liquid cooler for it, and overclock that sucker.
Just keep in mind that there are plenty of games that will not run full speed, but it will run the vast majority perfectly.
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Just broke my personal record for number of consecutive days without dying!
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Re: Building a MAME PC
[Re: URherenow]
#342376 - 07/11/15 09:56 PM
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> You can never go wrong by getting the best of everything. If you're on a budget, the
> best advice I can give is that the CPU is everything when it comes to MAME. A $90
> video card will run the current games every bit as well as a $600 video card. If you
> had experience, I'd suggest getting an i7 4790k, a liquid cooler for it, and
> overclock that sucker.
>
> Just keep in mind that there are plenty of games that will not run full speed, but it
> will run the vast majority perfectly.
An i7 and liquid cooling for just MAME? Sorry, but that is absurd. Best of everything?? You have GOT to be kidding. Most any mid-level gaming machine (and even lower), will run MAME. If it was other emulators, like Dolphin, then yes, I could see spending some money to make it work, but with just MAME, you can easily get by with an old AMD XP chip, or even a socket 478 Pentium 4. Pair that up with at least a gig of RAM, and MAME will run just fine. Of course, that would be the LOW END on the MAME chain for system requirements and most people will probably be thinking something a bit faster like a core 2 duo or higher. Save the core i7 for 3D games on a high end PC.
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Re: Building a MAME PC
[Re: Phreakwars]
#342377 - 07/11/15 10:12 PM
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Disagree, the i7 advice is good, if you want to run the newer Golden Tee stuff at full speed you'll need one for example (and even then you need to put it in the lower-res mode to ensure there are never any frame drops)
Old AMD chip? even the current high end AMD chips are a joke for MAME...
The stuff with discrete sound being added (eg. Kid Niki drums and soon Congo Bongo) start to need i7 level tech too, they DON'T run at full speed on my older core2 with the full discrete sound enabled. The trend for increased CPU requirements is only going to continue as the emulation is further refined.
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Re: Building a MAME PC
[Re: Haze]
#342603 - 07/17/15 09:08 PM
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Wow, Haze is allowed back. Anyways, I7 to play Congo Bongo, huh? Hmmmmm.................
> The stuff with discrete sound being added (eg. Kid Niki drums and soon Congo Bongo) start to need i7 level tech too, they DON'T run at full speed on my older core2 with the full discrete sound enabled.
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Scifi frauds. SF illuminates.
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Re: Building a MAME PC
[Re: Phreakwars]
#344255 - 08/20/15 11:08 PM
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> An i7 and liquid cooling for just MAME? Sorry, but that is absurd. Best of
> everything?? You have GOT to be kidding. Most any mid-level gaming machine (and even
> lower), will run MAME. If it was other emulators, like Dolphin, then yes, I could see
> spending some money to make it work, but with just MAME, you can easily get by with
> an old AMD XP chip, or even a socket 478 Pentium 4. Pair that up with at least a gig
> of RAM, and MAME will run just fine. Of course, that would be the LOW END on the MAME
> chain for system requirements and most people will probably be thinking something a
> bit faster like a core 2 duo or higher. Save the core i7 for 3D games on a high end
> PC.
I have a 2.0ghz Core2Duo with 4gb of ram and it runs 2d games like MK2 and Mk3 just fine. It does not run any 3d mame fighting games. I would say a core2duo is a minimum requirement depending on what you're wanting to run. I also have a core i5 with onboard intel graphics that runs the above fine and also runs ps2 titles without issue.
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Re: Building a MAME PC
[Re: pcm2a]
#344257 - 08/20/15 11:24 PM
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It sure doesn't take much to set some people off. This guy wants to buy a decent bit of kit and use it for Mame, and he's being told it's "absurd". Come on people.
We never know what is around the corner, so if you're buying a computer today you get the best one that fits your budget. I've never seen a case where buying a lower end machine has actually benefited anyone. And who knows what this guy will do with his machine in a years time, or two years.
Get a computer that gives you the biggest bang for your budget. If that means its over-speced for your current use, then all the better. You can't go wrong by buying something too fast - but you can if you buy something that eventually isn't good enough (as others have mentioned, perhaps in a years time the guy decides he fancies himself some Nintendo 64 etc.)
Let's not call it absurd. It's not absurd at all. There's nothing to say you should look at the minimum requirements for something, and then pitch the spec a couple points over. Relatively speaking the cost of a decent computer is small, and you'll buy a decent machine once and get years and years of enjoyment out of it.
Look for example at the work going on now to emulate discrete sound boards in older games - they will require a lot more horsepower. Just get it now and have fun.
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Re: Building a MAME PC
[Re: Phreakwars]
#344276 - 08/21/15 04:42 PM
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> An i7 and liquid cooling for just MAME? Sorry, but that is absurd.
Have you run Gauntlet Legends or NFL Blitz lately? Or Prop Cycle, or Gradius IV, or...
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Reged: 09/21/03
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Posts: 9711
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Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
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Re: Building a MAME PC
[Re: Traso]
#344277 - 08/21/15 04:45 PM
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> Wow, Haze is allowed back. Anyways, I7 to play Congo Bongo, huh?
> Hmmmmm.................
Discrete sound is doing a real mathematical circuitry simulation. In general, those aren't expected to ever execute in real time in e.g. SPICE, so the fact that MAME and modern PC processors can is actually sort of a miracle.
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Re: Building a MAME PC
[Re: R. Belmont]
#344281 - 08/21/15 07:14 PM
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You know what - MAME is a miracle! The whole thing. I have never lost my feeling of wonder and amazement that it works at all - that we can play these games (almost) exactly as we did back in the day. I hope I never lose both my gratefulness, and amazement that it's possible at all.
For the record I play Mame on an i7 machine with an Nvidia 570 card and 16Gb of RAM. There are STILL games that are not really playable due to performance issues. However, my favorite games play perfectly.
Having said that, my system is not dedicated. With this much power I make Mame artwork, browse the net and so on. There's no shame in that. Maintaining old software and devices isn't as easy as more up-to-date equipment, it's that simple.
Buy the most you can! And when Mame developers go to that next level - as is the case with discrete soundboards - I'm all ready to go with them.
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Re: Building a MAME PC
[Re: Vaughan]
#344283 - 08/21/15 08:46 PM
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For what it is worth, my advice would be not to build a MAME PC.
Instead, when you decide that you need a new desktop PC because the present one is no longer capable of coping with your day to day needs, put the present one in your MAME cab rather than disposing of it.
Everytime you upgrade your desktop PC, your MAME cab gets an upgrade at no extra cost.
As long as it can play the games you want to play, no need to worry about what it may be be able to play in two to three years time.
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