Tell me about your MAME setup

emphatic · Post by **emphatic** » Fri Oct 30, 2015 1:00 pm

AdvanceMAME is based on MAME 0.106. No CAVE PGM support even.

Hoagtech · Post by **Hoagtech** » Fri Oct 30, 2015 3:25 pm

Ed Oscuro wrote:
Xyga wrote:
Ed Oscuro wrote:Of course, with Linux, the pitfall is ...
IMHO unless you're already used to it and the 'ports' Linux is a bad choice for emus, it requires much more work and attention compared your average Win setup.
Yeah, you wouldn't jump into a new OS blind, of course. But I think it is also pretty well behaved with not as much in the way of background services (or their equivalents) as Windows, which might have some good effects on power usage and so on. But, generally, I think the Pentium Anniversary is just going to be so capable, and not more.

By the way, here's some pretty recent information on high frame rates and G-Sync monitors:
http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Card ... SUS-PG279Q

They tested with the pg279q and a Geforce 980 Ti, interesting result: nVidia's power ramping is more primitive than Intel's and AMD's. (However, glancing at comments in the investigation article, there's still a question as to which cards are better at load / normal idle.)

It does seem to me that the "ramp up to max" point might be different on other GPUs, perhaps better or worse depending on how high they ramp up or their maximum operating ranges; I'd like to see others tested. Personally, I wasn't interested in going above 120Hz often, but this is certainly interesting for anybody interested in starting high frame rate monitors on nVidia architectures (any architecture where the pixel clock isn't high enough to sustain the framerate at the given CPU clock).
Hoagtech wrote:If your really into windows, there are coming out with Windows server 2016 complete with xbox one streaming. I would love to play halo 5 on my pc for some reason.
That Nano Server install sounds interesting, but I wouldn't count on the server edition being a big gaming performer (for example, in going to the Nano Server version, you swear off 32-bit programs entirely). The Xbox One streaming is going to be a feature of client Windows 10; I haven't read anything about that being discussed for the Server edition.

Little known is and has been known about windows server. All I can say is I had to install the desktop gui and sound, not to mention its "workstation" features. The benefit is no bloat ware but what you install and it works off of windows 8.1 compatibility hence my gtx 780,ti and ram, ssd's, and CPUs running in tandem. It's a beautiful thing. So windows server 2016 will support anything and everything windows 10 supports if it's anything like. Windows server 2012 r2, (windows 8.1) windows server 2012 (windows

or windows server 2008 (windows 7).

I had to go to an IT conference even though I'm not an IT PRO for technet, just to meet up with fellow gaming nerds running beast servers for gaming and photo edit. If any of you guys get it into, it would be cool because info is scarce and it'd nice to share with someone.

donluca · Post by **donluca** » Fri Oct 30, 2015 3:35 pm

cfx wrote:I have no clue what MAME uses, but I have used XP PCs with only 1GB of memory, and they are sluggish, even running notepad or just navigating the desktop. XP's memory footprint via task manager is over 600MB with nothing else running; I just verified this.

donluca wrote:I'll be using MicroXP which only uses like ~64MB of RAM so I'll have plenty for MAME since I won't be using CHD games.

I think you've missed that point, and that I'll be using this machine ONLY for MAME and nothing else.

MAME uses only one thread and its multithread option is broken (even in GroovyMAME where it works substantially different AFAIK) and the program itself takes away 26MB of RAM + the size of the ROM.

If my math skills are still sharp we have:
64MB for windows
26MB for MAME
90MB total
which means I have 900MB+ available which is more than any non-CHD ROM in MAME.

I see your point and I agree that in 99% of the cases it's good to have 2GB+ of RAM since you can get it for cheap, but there's absolutely no reason for my setup to have 2.

I've been tinkering with windows for 15+ years before I switched to Macs (and never looked back) so I know what I'm doing ^^'

Of course, I'll report back my tests and let you know which configuration works best.

P.S.: and disabling services you don't use (the printer spool and lots of other things which are essential in a normal windows installation but are of no use here) help boosting performance since you're saving both RAM usage and CPU clocks.
Again, I want to stress that this is a very niche situation and what cfx is saying is absolutely correct in 99% of the cases, so don't take anything I say here for good in different context.

kamiboy · Post by **kamiboy** » Fri Oct 30, 2015 4:05 pm

emphatic wrote:AdvanceMAME is based on MAME 0.106. No CAVE PGM support even.

That wont affect my use of it, but if it is based on an older build of MAME maybe some games that interest me wont work, or wont work well. I'll just have to test out a few titles. If Advance MAME is not up to snuff I'll need to bite the bullet and go with Groovy.

donluca · Post by **donluca** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 2:15 am

Update!

I've got hold of all the pieces and tonight I've finally found some time to put it together and do some overclock testing.

I might be a very lucky guy as I have a 4.9 Ghz Overclock stable on 1.350 Vcore running under AIDA64 FPU stress test on stock cooler at 66 °C (150 °F).

I think I can get the voltage a bit lower and keep the thing stable, I'll do more tests tomorrow.

I've already installed everything in the meantime and I'm just waiting for my OC tests to finish to be sure that my setup is rock solid.

Will post more updates as soon as I have time to finish setting this up and getting GroovyMame up and running!

QXC · Post by **QXC** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 7:19 pm

donluca wrote:Update!

I've got hold of all the pieces and tonight I've finally found some time to put it together and do some overclock testing.

I might be a very lucky guy as I have a 4.9 Ghz Overclock stable on 1.350 Vcore running under AIDA64 FPU stress test on stock cooler at 66 °C (150 °F).

I think I can get the voltage a bit lower and keep the thing stable, I'll do more tests tomorrow.

I've already installed everything in the meantime and I'm just waiting for my OC tests to finish to be sure that my setup is rock solid.

Will post more updates as soon as I have time to finish setting this up and getting GroovyMame up and running!

Damn, I didn't realize you could get them that high. What is the stock vcore on those? Is it OCCT/Prime95 stable overnight?

lettuce · Post by **lettuce** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 7:25 pm

donluca wrote:Update!

I've got hold of all the pieces and tonight I've finally found some time to put it together and do some overclock testing.

I might be a very lucky guy as I have a 4.9 Ghz Overclock stable on 1.350 Vcore running under AIDA64 FPU stress test on stock cooler at 66 °C (150 °F).

I think I can get the voltage a bit lower and keep the thing stable, I'll do more tests tomorrow.

I've already installed everything in the meantime and I'm just waiting for my OC tests to finish to be sure that my setup is rock solid.

Will post more updates as soon as I have time to finish setting this up and getting GroovyMame up and running!

To be fair for MAME i thing 4.9GHz is overkill, knock it down to something like 4.2 or 4.4 and lower the Vcore for a longer last CPU

donluca · Post by **donluca** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 10:50 pm

QXC wrote:Damn, I didn't realize you could get them that high. What is the stock vcore on those? Is it OCCT/Prime95 stable overnight?

Had no idea either, I started on 3.8 at 1.2 Vcore and was stable, then 4.0, then 4.2, then 4.4, then 4.5... always rock stable. Stock Vcore is 1.050V IIRC. I usually see people running it between 1.200 and 1.300 with overclock without issues, with the more die hard reaching up to 1.500 with esoteric cooling solutions.

So I thought I'd try to see how high I could reach and at 4.6 Ghz it needed 1.250 Vcore. I was afraid of temps but a stress test on AIDA64 with FPU test (which is the most stressful, some say even more than Prime95) and I was at 61 °C O_o

I kept going higher, so 4.7 all good, 4.8 needed 1.300 and temps were still in 63-64 °C.

4.9 Ghz required 1.350 Vcore and temps were at 66 °C

Of course, just for bragging rights, I wanted to hit 5.0 Ghz but no matter how much voltage I gave it, it would sometime boot and crash shortly after. I didn't go higher than 1.450 VCore though because I was afraid of damaging it so I just stayed at 4.9 Ghz and called it a day.

Ran a couple of hours of AIDA 64 FPU stress and temps were still at a nice 66 °C.

I still need to play with other parameters to see if I can get 4.9 Ghz with lower VCore. Ideally I want to get back to 1.300 and I'm a happy camper, although 1.350 shouldn't cause issues due to these low temps.

Keep in mind I'm running this "naked", not in a case. Probably closed in a case (especially a small one) temps would be much higher.

Also, I agree with lettuce: 4.9 is definitely overkill for MAME, but I wanted to see how high I could reach. I want to try and play some of the notoriously demanding game and start getting the clock down until I have a stable 100% framerate.

QXC · Post by **QXC** » Sat Nov 14, 2015 8:15 am

I didn't realize they ran that cool, that's very impressive. Does the cooler have a copper element in the middle or is it all aluminum?

I'll definitely have to look into one of those when I build a tiny mame box. A small low profile cooler should be able to keep it nice and cool with almost no noise.

Xyga · Post by **Xyga** » Sat Nov 14, 2015 10:50 am

4.9 GHz !!!

*Doc Brown's face and voice*

donluca · Post by **donluca** » Sat Nov 14, 2015 2:37 pm

QXC wrote:I didn't realize they ran that cool, that's very impressive. Does the cooler have a copper element in the middle or is it all aluminum?

it's copper! it's the same cooler used with the i5 and (I believe) i7 CPUs and it's really good.

I'll definitely have to look into one of those when I build a tiny mame box. A small low profile cooler should be able to keep it nice and cool with almost no noise.

I'm not sure I would change the stock cooler, honestly. Also, bear in mind I have this running "en plein air", I'm sure that if I had that inside a small case I would have to greatly reduce the clock (and, more important, VCore) to prevent it from melting.

Xyga wrote:4.9 GHz !!! *Doc Brown's face and voice*

GREAT SCOTT!

I must have really won the silicon lottery, I have heard of people unable to go over 3.8 Ghz without crashes under heavy loads.
Anyway, enough bragging, I just wanted to share it because I couldn't believe I could get that high.
I'm now backing it down to 4.6 or 4.4 Ghz and lowering the VCore to 1.200 (or lower, if it's stable).

For those wondering, the motherboard I ended up using is an AsRock H81M-G.

Today I have lots of work to do, so I'll try my setup tomorrow on my monitor and see how that goes.

kamiboy · Post by **kamiboy** » Sat Nov 14, 2015 4:03 pm

Sure is frustrating waiting weeks for a $4 part to arrive from china so I can test whether this motherboard and cpu that I fished out of the e-recycle container works, and is suitable for a MAME setup.

donluca · Post by **donluca** » Mon Nov 16, 2015 1:14 am

Alright, finally have (almost) set everything up and working just to find that... well, my MadCatz TE S stick doesn't work with my system because I need a VIA USB chipset -_-'

Tried playing a bit with my Saturn-replica pad but of course it wasn't the real experience.

I have to wait for my adapter to come, so I can hook up my custom Neo Geo stick to it.
Having ordered it quite a bit ago from China, it should be here by the end of November.
I'll take a couple of pics of my setup tomorrow!

P.S.: is it me or the emulation of Neo Geo graphics isn't perfect? I'd swear that the "saved prisoners" small icons in Metal Slug 2 in the bottom left corner were more pixelated and less refined than in my NeoGeo MVS.
Neo Geo has 320x224 resolution, but in MAME it says 304x224... did I mess up something?

donluca · Post by **donluca** » Mon Nov 16, 2015 6:41 pm

As promised, here are some pics of my setup:

Nice but... where's everything??

Ah, there it is!

Everything is put inside those drawers and the MAME PC is no exception

Notice that I still have to fix everything on the underlying wood table. When I'll have driilled the holes I'll try and do better cable routing.
All the cables (power, video, audio) are routed inside the drawers to keep everything nice and clean looking.

Here's my supergunned Neo Geo MVS and my Mega Drive.

And here's my white japanese Saturn and the power strip.
Video and Audio are taken to the Sony BVM via SCART cable. Then it's splitted into BNCs and audio RCA.
The audio signal is then amplified by a small T-Amp and fed to two speakers taken from a Logitech Z-5500 5.1 system.

Sorry about the low quality photos, those were taken with my smartphone and for some reason it had trouble getting proper focus.

cools · Post by **cools** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 1:39 pm

Er, don't run the motherboard on a conductive anti-static bag.

donluca · Post by **donluca** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 6:27 pm

Modern antistatic bags are not conductive.
This is a common misconception from the old days where the ESD bags used a more conductive material to provide better protection. Today's antistatic bags use a special material (sandwiched between PET plastic) which is not conductive.
That is, unless you rate something with more than 2MΩ resistance per mm conductive

That's a temporary solution btw, I need to move my ass and fix that motherboard onto the wood table but I'm lazy.
Be careful of old antistatic bags though: those are indeed conductive and may short your stuff.

I've been playing with my setup around for a bit and discovered that cv1k games are almost unplayable, at least with vsync on, due to inconstant framerate. With vsync off they are rock solid running at a steady 100% but you're obviously asking for other troubles.

And holy moly, Progear. I've just discovered this shooter and I'm absolutely loving it.

philexile · Post by **philexile** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 3:29 am

Hello,

I've been thinking of building a mini PC for MAME since last September. Unfortunately my job has been keeping me incredibly busy. I'm hoping to have some time during the holidays and have a shopping list I wanted to run by everyone.

Please see below:

CASE: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811119299

MOTHERBOARD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813157526

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819117374

VIDEO CARD: http://www.ultimarc.com/store/section.p ... 39ff82831e

* ArcadeVGA 5000 Card PCIe

PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139049

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231568

HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 2W02DV8166

Does these seem like good selections? Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Xyga · Post by **Xyga** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 3:38 am

The ArcadeVGA 5000 is a way overpriced HD5450 with pre-loaded 15khz drivers.
You can buy an HD5450 and install Calamity's CRT_Emudriver yourself, gotta check on BYOAC but I think there are even better options.

Also that H97 mobo is not useful, with your cpu there are significantly cheaper options that will potentially do just as well or even better for the money considering the OC possibilities.

donluca · Post by **donluca** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 2:24 pm

I suggest you this motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

It's cheaper and it has a 4 power phase which will help you a little bit with OC.

I second Xyga's suggestion: just go for a used HD4350 and put crt_emudrivers.
You can have the boot at 15Khz using Calamity's ATOM15 utility.

Excellent power supply btw!

kamiboy · Post by **kamiboy** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 2:33 pm

That is it, I've had it with this daily fruitless anticipation with which I open my mail box. I am just going to start drinking myself into a heavy stupor until that part from china arrives or my liver gives out. By the looks of it the latter

donluca · Post by **donluca** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 2:55 pm

kamiboy wrote:That is it, I've had it with this daily fruitless anticipation with which I open my mail box. I am just going to start drinking myself into a heavy stupor until that part from china arrives or my liver gives out. By the looks of it the latter

I have my USB encoder in Milan withheld by customs by more than a week by now. I know how you feel, just be patient.

kamiboy · Post by **kamiboy** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 3:45 pm

Those surreal cheap ebay Chinese parts prices come at a cost. I believe they ship by boat, so three weeks of waiting is not unexpected. Still, I wish I found a more expensive alternative from within the EU.

Oh, well. First world problems. I really would like to have that part in time for the weekend. I would love to tinker with Advance MAME for two days in peace.

philexile · Post by **philexile** » Fri Nov 20, 2015 3:38 am

donluca wrote:I suggest you this motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

Thanks, will do!

donluca wrote: I second Xyga's suggestion: just go for a used HD4350 and put crt_emudrivers.
You can have the boot at 15Khz using Calamity's ATOM15 utility.

Is there any lose in functionality though? It seemed like the ArcadeVGA was more plug-and-play and supported multiple resolutions. At this point in my life, I rarely have time for this hobby and tend to take the path of least resistance. I may be mistaken in this case though, so please let me know.

Thamiel · Post by **Thamiel** » Fri Nov 20, 2015 3:46 am

Just grab the 4350 man, it's not hard to flash it and install the drivers. Ends up being cheaper, think it actually supports more resolutions and you have a bit of fun tinkering with things.

QXC · Post by **QXC** » Fri Nov 20, 2015 4:38 am

Thamiel wrote:Just grab the 4350 man, it's not hard to flash it and install the drivers. Ends up being cheaper, think it actually supports more resolutions and you have a bit of fun tinkering with things.

I didn't even have to flash my drivers, I just installed CRT emudriver and set all that up.

philexile · Post by **philexile** » Fri Nov 20, 2015 2:16 pm

OK, I'll give it a go then. Also, how much hard drive space is needed for MAME these days? I figured that a 500 GB SDD would be fine, but I wanted to double-check.

Also, whats the best front end to use – if any? I prefer a simple setup.

Thanks again

donluca · Post by **donluca** » Fri Nov 20, 2015 3:08 pm

Don't go for an SSD, lol, a 500GB SSD will cost you a lot of money, just grab a random 500GB hard disk if you have one around or buy a 1TB one.

A merged 7zipped set is ~35GB and the merged CHDs are almost 400GB.

And a regular 4350 is more flexible than an ArcadeVGA.

@QXC: the flash is meant to have the PC boot at 15Khz so you don't have to wait for windows to start up before turning your monitor on or using a J-PAC. It's a thing called ATOM15.

EDIT: I use mGalaxy as a frontend. Nothing to call home about, but it's simple and it works.

EDIT 2: I finally got cv1k games running smooth at 100%, read here: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 9#p1146719

Thamiel · Post by **Thamiel** » Fri Nov 20, 2015 11:42 pm

I have my entire vertical setup on a 60gb m.2 ssd. PC boots into the front end in less than 10 seconds and it cost me $40.

roachie · Post by **roachie** » Sun Nov 22, 2015 1:18 am

New to this but found an old PC with a P4-2800, Radeon 9800 Pro & 2 GB RAM, am I right in thinking it could be OK for Groovy + CRT_emu?

donluca · Post by **donluca** » Tue Nov 24, 2015 5:29 pm

roachie wrote:New to this but found an old PC with a P4-2800, Radeon 9800 Pro & 2 GB RAM, am I right in thinking it could be OK for Groovy + CRT_emu?

For old games and non-3D games you may be ok, but you should read this first:

donluca wrote:Sad news, boys

The P4 630 (3.0Ghz) computer arrived but lots of games run like shiet.

Most CAVE games run at 50-60% and the older ones aren't able to run at a constant 100% speed, dipping down to 90-80% during most chaotic scenes.

I tried first with a Dell P4 and results were terrible.

I highly suggest you (and everyone else interested) in a G3258 processor to run groovymame without issues.

shmups.system11.org

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