Re: Bit of help needed...

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: : Okay - I've discovered MAME and fallen in love. I need to build myself a two player cocktail table akin to the Gemini project on the pic pages - great stuff!!! : Cocktail tables are cool. My personal favorites are Bomb Jack and Psychic 5 :) : : : I've rooted around the office (IT dept) and managed to salvage some stuff to build the main system from. What I need to know is whether this is up to spec and whether I'll be able to run MAME fast and well enough. I'm not interested in any of the other emulators currently, as I see that the NEO GEO emu requires high memory and processor speed apparently. : Just wait and see if the classics are enough ;) : : Okay - heres what I've got: : : Intel 430TX board (USB and PS2 on board) : : 128mb RAM : 128 mb RAM is great. I only have 96 mb and it works for most games (even big NeoGeo games like Metal Slug II)... : : Cyrix 6x86 MII 300GP : I have an old AMD233 and it works great with most classics but also early NeoGeo games... : : S3 Virge OR ATI 3D Rage Pro Vid card (Need to know which one best for needs...) : I would go with the ATI card. I currently use an old Diamond Viper 128 card... : : 4GB HDD : I have _all_ mame 0.36 final roms (including every NeoGeo) + screen shots of all games + AdvanceMENU frontend + Norton Commander etc. on a 2GB HDD and I still have plenty of space left. I use a plain DOS 7.1 rip as os and my personal build of MAME 0.36 final until MAME 0.37 final is released (I am to lazy to update the cabinet every beta cycle)... : : And the rest is just monitor and insignificant stuff. : Yes isn't it if you happen to work at the IT dept ;) : : Some questions. : : 1) I won't use this for anything except MAME. Should I run a DOS only environment? : I would go for a plain vanilla DOS environment (if you can live with a file manager like NC instead of Explorer :) Faster boot up, less foot print, better MAME performance... : : 2) I fancy using a PS/2 or USB hack with pass through should I need to do anything. Suggestions on which one and will the USB work in DOS only? : I would go for an I-PAC and use it in PS/2-mode... : : 3) If anything REALLY needs upgrading - what should be first? (I'm aware the VID card selection isn't great) : CPU... : : 4) How much extra cooling is needed in the cab? It may be on for a few hours odd ;-) : My motherboard is mounted on the wall of the cab like a JAMMA PCB, just a small CPU-fan. AT-power supply has it's own fan and so does the monitor... The monitor is acctually generating more heat in my cab than the cpu, hdd, power supply etc... : : Sorry to sound dim - I'm trying to find out as much as poss by myself. Front end selection is proving a maze.... : AdvanceMENU is a great and easy to setup MAME frontend (you don't have to run AdvanceMAME to use AdvanceMENU). Game Launcher is another beautiful generic frontend. : : Many thanks. : You are welcome! : / EmuMannen

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