minimum emulation specs

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 6:23 am

I've been tossing around the idea of getting a laptop once I get a summer job and was wondering the minimum I would need for cps2 and neogeo, and (I would assume by default) everything under them, genesis, nes, etc.

I'm pretty sure I have less than a gig of roms total, wouldn't need a big harddrive at all.

Also just looking for general recommendations as to buying used laptops, things to watch out for, etc.

thanks

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 6:35 am

Ok. My old desktop with 256 MB of ram, Duron 750 Mhz, and Geforce 3 64 MB could run them just fine. So provided you get a decent mobile gfx card, I think a 1.5ghz computer could cut it. Just stay away from Celerons. Not that they are bad per se.. but they aren't called the "Poor man's Pentium" for nothing.

Compaq isn't bad, but there are better. Also, don't fall for a Vaio. All style, no substance. I'd say a Gateway or Dell are good options. Now, if you could get one of those yummy AlienWare laptops...

UnscathedFlyingObject · Sat Feb 12, 2005 6:52 am

AlienWares are MONSTERS. I haven't seen one in person, but like any great monstrosity, the stories surronding it would make you drop your jaw in surprise

. My friend's friend supposedly has one, and I heard it cost somewhere around 5000. The specs were higher than I cared to remember because all the time my friend was telling me I was dumbfounded--that thing weighs 15 pounds alone!!! It's basically a desktop replacement, having two expansion bays and a two fans at the bottom.

I wouldn't feel safe going around with it. People would make mincemeat of me on the streets. It's like me carrying all my finances + personal possessions to parade around.

Tar-Palantir · Post by **Tar-Palantir** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 7:22 am

Let's see...I have 128MB and a Celeron 400Mhz (HA !

) and all the CPS2 games I've got run fine on Kawaks and MAME (sometimes). Neo-Geo (again, o n Kawaks) depends on the ROM size...Blazing Star and Metal Slug 3 didn't run for me. For Cave/Raizing/Taito/Toaplan/Psikyo stuff, whatever Raine can support runs fine on my machine (if you can live with some not-so-accurate emu, and some hanging). On console emu, S/NES, Genesis, PC-Engine (Duo too) run just fine. But I suppose this might depend on the emulator too.

incognoscente · Post by **incognoscente** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:41 pm

I don't remember the exact figures recommended for CPS-2 emulation via MAME, but I *think* 1.5 GHz will work--it should work for most at least.

Most NeoGeo games can be run fine with a bit less than that, unless you are running with raster effects enabled. Galaxy Fight works best with 1.5GHz or higher, but Top Hunters will need around 3Ghz to run with raster effects enabled and without dropping frames.

There are sometimes faster emulators than MAME on a system-by-system basis if accuracy isn't a big deal to you. If you end up with a "ghetto" laptop, give FinalBurn, Nebula, Raine, etc. a try if MAME isn't running as you'd like.

magnum opus · Post by **magnum opus** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 3:40 pm

yeah i used to be using a celeron 666 with 56 mb of ram (i'd like to point out that it was running windows ME, which requires 128 mb)

and yeah raine almost always worked fine for me, also in mame pretty much anything 2D and pre-ESPrade worked pretty well (except Psikyo games they take a shit ton more power than their peers).

now a days you're not likely to find a brand name laptop (x86) with less than about 1 ghz and 128 mb so i really wouldn't worry about it.

as for some thigns to think about celeron=/<sempron<celeron M as far as the lower end mobile processors go.

Post by **system11** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 4:07 pm

As a ridiculous out-there benchmark, a twin 2.8ghz Xeon can run Gridseeker (F2, pretty heavy to run) in 3 seperate windows at once. It can push Feveron, DDP, and Guwange easily too - at the same time.

If anyone can actually play the games at the same time, it would be truly worthy of a video

Davey · Post by **Davey** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 5:49 pm

Yeah, assuming you're buying a *new* laptop, even the cheapest computers today are more than capable of running that stuff. The most important thing for emus is the CPU, and modern CPUs (even low-end ones) are way more than what you need for most (all?) 2D games in MAME. Another note is that good video cards won't do much, if anything, to improve MAME performance, so don't bother getting a good one (unless you play PC games, of course).

Stormwatch · Post by **Stormwatch** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 6:38 pm

When in doubt, overkill.

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 11:21 pm

I'm on a 1.6 Ghz intel laptop (Dell Inspiron 8200, GeForce 440).

I haven't run into a problem running any of the games that normally run well in Mame, SNES9X, Gens, MagicEngine, or FCEU.

Damocles · Post by **Damocles** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 11:25 pm

I used to be able to run all CPS-2 games on my old 766Mhz P3 comp, so honestly you shouldn't have any problems. I had a Geforce 3, but a graphics card won't matter with Mame.

OmegaFlareX · Post by **OmegaFlareX** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 3:22 am

- 500mhz Celeron
- 96MB SDRAM
- 4MB on-board ATI Rage Pro Turbo 2X AGP (with factory-installed drivers, which means no OpenGL

)
- Windows 98 SE

Yay, I suck! No really, this system is shit, but it runs most of everything you mentioned just fine. Fine as in near-constant 60fps, no frameskipping. I use Final Burn Alpha, Raine, Gens, Magic Engine, ZSNES (Snes9x works great, too), VirtuaNES and FCEUltra.

SNES games give me the most trouble, but that's only a few games here and there. Seiken Densetsu 3 runs too slow, and anytime there are a lot of transparency effects going on (like the Launch Octopus level in Mega Man X), it studders quite a bit. I'm sure there are others I haven't tested yet (like Star Ocean).

Anyway, anything you get nowadays, even if it's a cheap-o $700 Dell Inspirion 1000, will run your emulators just fine.