mame 2gb ram v 4gb?

[chubsta]

Im just about to order components for a new mame system, but im not sure how much difference ram makes.

The system will be
athlon 6000x2
250gb sata hd
soft15khz compatible mobo

it will be running vista 64 - so, is the extra 2gb ram worth the extra money? This system is for a vertical cab for shooters so the games themselves arent generally as 'needy' as the horizontal ones so i think the above spec should be ok...

[Chi]

Sounds fine if it is just for vertical shooters.

However, your HDD is too small if you are intending to be a MAME completist... there are 4 Laserdisk game supported (out of 25 that once were in MAME), and it already totals almost 50GB for that. Add on 80GB for the standard CHDs, and 17GB for the ROMs, 3GB for art & extras and you are already up to 150GB (not including the Vista install). I'd go for a 500GB, seeing as you are talking about a tenner's difference.

As for 2GB vs 4GB... no point, IMO. MAME doesn't use that much memory for *any* game.

[chubsta]

Sounds fine if it is just for vertical shooters.

However, your HDD is too small if you are intending to be a MAME completist... there are 4 Laserdisk game supported (out of 25 that once were in MAME), and it already totals almost 50GB for that. Add on 80GB for the standard CHDs, and 17GB for the ROMs, 3GB for art & extras and you are already up to 150GB (not including the Vista install). I'd go for a 500GB, seeing as you are talking about a tenner's difference.

As for 2GB vs 4GB... no point, IMO. MAME doesn't use that much memory for *any* game.

I used to be a 'completist' but now cant be bothered

Ive got a horizontal machine with all the chds on etc but i figure a vert only one wont have many chds, if any!

cheers for the memory advice tho, im going to go for 2gb, every penny helps!

[cools]

My MAME machine runs off a 2GB Compact flash card with about a gig free

[chubsta]

My MAME machine runs off a 2GB Compact flash card with about a gig free

well, ive ordered the bits - you going to do a step by step guide to setting up a linux mame??

[markedkiller78]

My MAME machine runs off a 2GB Compact flash card with about a gig free

well, ive ordered the bits - you going to do a step by step guide to setting up a linux mame??

Erm, would you do that Cools?

I was thinking of installing TinyXP on a CF card & IE adapter I've never got the time though

[cools]

Regarding Linux MAME (since I've been promising it for a long time): I do have a barebones guide I did a few months back - my way of doing things has changed somewhat since then - it actually works for a start.

Things have actually come together nicely now and there's no longer any need for compiling. The most recent SDLMAME build changes a few bits that I had to battle with - so the guide I wrote originally should work with some tweaks.

I've got to get around to doing some more playing about and deciding whether framebuffer or Xorg is better, but it will happen at some point soon (might be getting a chance to properly geek out next week during ATEI).

Bear in mind the front ends available for a cab on Linux are limited to AdvanceMENU or AdvanceMENU (the others aren't worth bothering with) and that's fantastic fun to configure to look pretty... The frontend thing is a real downer - I'm simply using the built in frontend in MAME at the moment, which is functional at best.

[Alex]

My MAME machine runs off a 2GB Compact flash card with about a gig free

Yeah, I was planning to do somethig like this. A system that runs from IDEtoCF adapter with one CF for the S.O and another for the games+emulators..... Then, if my setup it's in Tate mode I put the CF with vertical games and tate config, If the monitor it's in Yoko I put the CF with hori games... easy, isn't it?

[cools]

I was going to do it a little differently - have a script that allows you to select hori or tate at startup (and remembers what you selected until you choose something different) that switches settings for MAME and the frontend.

This is actually where the whole thing fell down - it all works, except the filter that AdvanceMENU uses for showing hori or vert games doesn't work on newer builds of MAME (they changed the XML). I did try hacking advancemame to get it going with no luck (but some other fixes did make the tile modes a lot nicer looking...), I'm not enough of a programmer to do it though.