NeoGeo emulation

[chubsta]

As I have just picked up a neo geo cab i am trying to decide whether or not to use it for emulation, or to buy the mvs games. The one thing that s putting me off buying origionals is, of course, money - it would cost a fortune. On the other hand, it would be nice to play stuff as 100% origional, and the lovely credit display and coin counter would work still.

Emulation has the advantage of allowing me to play everything i want, but im not sure how accurate emulation is when it comes t the neogeo. So, my questions are...

1. Is it possible to get 100% accurate gameplay/graphics/sound through mame? I like mame because i am used to using it and setting it up for a cabinet.
2. What is the minimum spec for running NeoGeo stuff in mame - i hope to be able to buy an old motherboard cpu to save money.
3. Are there any better emulators than mame for neogeo stuff that would integrate easily into a cabinet and give a nice front-end etc.

[Flazh]

MVS is cheap really. There isn't really any point in going down the emulation route, as any money you would spend on a decent PC to put inside would easily get you a fair amount of games. Also consider the fact that the carts won't lose their value (they'll fluctuate, but not lose vast sums of cash) compared to a PC.

[AeroCityMayor]

As far as NeoGeo emulation is concerned, it's pretty much finished now in MAME and in .106 you can run about 85% of the games without problems on a pretty cheap ghetto PC. (my 1,8GHz Celeron works fine). You could probably drop as low as a 1.4GHz and a 40GB HDD will be plenty. 512MB RAM will help a lot too.

Front ends are a matter of personal opinion, but I have opted for AdvMENU for the native rotation as my graphics won;t support rotation.

Other expenses you will incur would be an Arcade VGA, and a J-Pac which you can get from http://www.ultimarc.com".

HTH

[Checen Rebel]

Other expenses you will incur would be an Arcade VGA

or use soft15khz with your current videocard (if it's supported, most modern cards are and loads of older cards). If you are building a pc just for it then it's cheaper to buy a £10 soft15khz supported card than £60 or whatever an arcadevga costs.

[chubsta]

Ive currently got a couple of mame cabs that are running soft15khz and it works pretty well - not sure how much better an ArcadeVGA card would be as i havent seen one in action. At the moment im leaning towards giving the MVS a proper try - just buy a few games i know that i like and compare them to the mame versions that i already have - i can always switch a couple of months down the line i guess. Of course, if i get another cabinet in te meantime then this one can definately stay as origional and i will convert the new one!

[legztec]

My first emulation cab i made was with a Pentium 3 733Mhz and 512MB memory.
I have seen good neo geo emulation run on a celeron 366.
NeoRage is a lot less demanding btw

[cools]

Other expenses you will incur would be an Arcade VGA

or use soft15khz with your current videocard (if it's supported, most modern cards are and loads of older cards). If you are building a pc just for it then it's cheaper to buy a £10 soft15khz supported card than £60 or whatever an arcadevga costs.

Requires Windows license

[Checen Rebel]

Requires Windows license :lol:

That particular app requires windows, but if you are a linux user you don't even need soft15khz, changing res/refresh to a custom one is trivial.

I suppose if you are running OSX you may need an arcadevga - but do they even supply OSX drivers?

[cools]

Requires Windows license

That particular app requires windows, but if you are a linux user you don't even need soft15khz, changing res/refresh to a custom one is trivial.

Damn true.

I was trying to make the point that saving cash by using Soft15khz instead of an ArcadeVGA isn't a massive saving, but I forgot that if you're buying an ArcadeVGA you'll be running it on Windows anyway. Too early on a Monday for me

[Jahya]

As a warning, i run soft15khz and a JPAC, and I can't run about 25% of mame games. Shinobi is an example. For some reason it splits the signal into 4 small screens and distorts them a bit. Mame is configured in ddraw mode, no stretching or filters, and I used avres utility to manually set each arcade game to it's original res. It's gorgeous on games that display. I ordered an arcadevga but it didn't function, so I'm awaiting a replacement. Might be a res my card doesn't like.