GroovyMAME vs. Raspberry Pi on a CRT

[schadenfreude]

I'm looking for the "best", "most portable" solution for playing MAME on a CRT, consumer TV or arcade monitor or otherwise. I've settled on either building a small form-factor desktop machine with a mini-ITX motherboard and an ATI card, or buying an older small laptop with an ATI card in it, and throwing Windows 7 / GroovyMAME / CRT Emudriver on them — or getting a Raspberry Pi plus a PI2SCART or Gert VGA 666 to output a 15khz signal over SCART or VGA.

Has anyone tried both of these methods with a CRT and can comment on the experience? This gentleman has done both and claims there's a slight audio lag with the RPi setup, probably because it's not using PortAudio for sound. Little things like that I might be able to deal with, but most important to me is the ability to get the resolutions and refresh rates correct: GroovyMAME handles this for you, but the RPi setup requires setting up custom values for each game. How well does this work, and how much of a pain is it to configure?

Overall, GroovyMAME seems to be better, but the size and weight of the RPi are so small that I wonder if I could tolerate the deficiencies. I'd be okay with not being able to run 3D or recent 2D games, like Cave games, but if the system has trouble running, for example, R-Type with its 384x256 resolution at ~55Hz, I'd be pretty sad.

I may have left out some other good portable solution for pairing MAME with a CRT. Please let me know if so!

[Xyga]

Tried my luck with an old laptop (ATI X1700, XP 32), never succeeded. Might try again with 7 some day.
IIRC soft15khz worked once years ago, but I couldn't reproduce the experience later for some reason...

[Overkill]

I've tested both. I was very happy to discover a few months ago that the Raspberry can deal with low resolutions, but after some testings i put it asside and keep my PC Win7 + Groovymame. In this moment GroovyMame is years ahead of Raspberry, and it's allways getting better and they still don't consider the job is done. Maybe in the future, with a new model, and firmware the Raspberry can become a good choice.

[Dochartaigh]

I've played with a GroovyMame setup, and have 3x Raspberry Pi 3's setup with RGB boards outputting to my BVM/PVM's. I don't notice any lag - audio or otherwise on the Pi 3 - I'm mostly playing 2D MAME games though.

The Raspberry Pi 3 is a bit crippled with its limited pixel clock - so you'll never get the resolutions perfect like you can much better get on the GroovyMame setup. But for a lot of us we're playing these on a 15khz TV or PVM, so I'm assuming GroovyMame changes that khz to match the monitor? Here's some more info I posted about the pixel clock and how much work it is to setup something like the Pi2SCART or RetroTink (I HIGHLY suggest the RetroTink because of Mike's excellent customer support).

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=58994

I will say the Pi 3 is totally playable and looks amazing on a nice BVM or PVM. And for $35 for the computer + whichever RGB board you choose it's certainly cheap enough.

[Fudoh]

I must admit that while the Pi3 is overall great, there are enough titles with which you'll run into performance issues. While I always hated the idea of building a rather large PC just to run GroovyMAME, I'm intrigued about the posting here http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 8#p1268168 and seeing that the current version of CRTEmuDriver runs with those (rather) modern integrated R5/R7 graphics units, meaning that all you need is a $70 mobo along with a $30 CPU (and no extra video card) and you'll outperform any Pi3 setup while getting the 15khz output flexibility of CRTEmuDriver.

[schadenfreude]

I've tested both. I was very happy to discover a few months ago that the Raspberry can deal with low resolutions, but after some testings i put it asside and keep my PC Win7 + Groovymame. In this moment GroovyMame is years ahead of Raspberry, and it's allways getting better and they still don't consider the job is done.

What kind of results did your tests give you that you didn't like?

But for a lot of us we're playing these on a 15khz TV or PVM, so I'm assuming GroovyMame changes that khz to match the monitor?

I'm not sure what you mean here.

Here's some more info I posted about the pixel clock and how much work it is to setup something like the Pi2SCART or RetroTink (I HIGHLY suggest the RetroTink because of Mike's excellent customer support).

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=58994

I read through that thread before making my post, and it only made me more concerned about the feasibility of using an RPi. For example, you said:

I used this article as my base (I like the pixel perfect setting - especially for arcade) and I can switch back and forth from my consoles to the Pi 3, on the same game on the same level, and it's like ~90% identical

...but when I checked that article, I saw that the "pixel perfect" setting outputs the video without forcing it into a 4:3 ratio, meaning games with, say, a 256x224 resolution will be pillarboxed. That's not what I want.

And then you wrote:

I'm also confused as to whether you literally have to tweak the custom viewport settings (and save that setting) for EVERY SINGLE GAME ROM you play

I'm just still saddened that you need all this work to do one simple thing on the Raspberry Pi with the Pi2SCART: shrink the image about 15%. With the default 320x240 timings, and the "pixel perfect" settings from that linked article everything is perfect on my system except the image is ~15% larger than any one of my 5 or 6 RGB consoles so the edges are getting cut off.

That sounds like a lot of work to get an underwhelming result. What's it like setting up all the different resolutions and refresh rates before booting up an arcade title?

[schadenfreude]

While I always hated the idea of building a rather large PC just to run GroovyMAME

Indeed — it feels like overkill.

I'm intrigued about the posting here http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 8#p1268168 and seeing that the current version of CRTEmuDriver runs with those (rather) modern integrated R5/R7 graphics units, meaning that all you need is a $70 mobo along with a $30 CPU (and no extra video card) and you'll outperform any Pi3 setup while getting the 15khz output flexibility of CRTEmuDriver.

Now this is interesting. If by $30 you're talking about the A4-600, is that powerful enough to run more recent arcade titles? Over at the BYOAC forum, the favorite CPU for its performance and cost is the Intel G3258, which performs a lot better according to its PassMark score. Regarding the motherboard: unfortunately, that means I'll have to get a big and heavy power supply, right? Or can I use something more portable, like a typical laptop power brick?

[Dochartaigh]

But for a lot of us we're playing these on a 15khz TV or PVM, so I'm assuming GroovyMame changes that khz to match the monitor?

I'm not sure what you mean here.

You initially posted about "R-Type with its 384x256 resolution at ~55Hz". 15khz sets are 60hz, right? (NTSC at least...this kind of stuff I'm nowhere near 100% on admittedly), so that game isn't going to run at exactly 55Hz through a Raspberry Pi to my knowledge – and I don't know if GroovyMame will do that either, or if you have the GroovyMame drivers setup so it knows the monitor is a 15khz/60hz and it'll only stick to resolutions/timings/etc. which it knows that monitor can display (which I know PVM's can do NTSC 60 and PAL 50, but don't know if it'll do 55hz for example).

Here's some more info I posted about the pixel clock and how much work it is to setup something like the Pi2SCART or RetroTink (I HIGHLY suggest the RetroTink because of Mike's excellent customer support).

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=58994

I read through that thread before making my post, and it only made me more concerned about the feasibility of using an RPi. For example, you said:

I used this article as my base (I like the pixel perfect setting - especially for arcade) and I can switch back and forth from my consoles to the Pi 3, on the same game on the same level, and it's like ~90% identical

...but when I checked that article, I saw that the "pixel perfect" setting outputs the video without forcing it into a 4:3 ratio, meaning games with, say, a 256x224 resolution will be pillarboxed. That's not what I want.

That was actually a bad post to link to - that was before I got the wonderful 1600px tweak fully working (which I'm extremely happy with now).

For pillarboxing, I can't think of a single game (talking about MAME here - that's all I really play on my Pi anymore) which is pillarboxed on the left and right. The only problem I currently have with my RetroPie setup is the image getting cut off by approximately 8 pixels on the top and 8 pixels on the bottom (which I believe is only because of how my monitor's are adjusted) - I'll get more into this below.

That sounds like a lot of work to get an underwhelming result. What's it like setting up all the different resolutions and refresh rates before booting up an arcade title?

There is no setting up all the different resolutions before booting up an individual game. The Pi's resolution is in the /boot/config.txt file, and that is set in stone. Only way to change it is to manually edit that boot file, then reboot the entire system. This is the BIGGEST drawback of the Pi in my opinion - it can't adjust that on the fly whereas I'm pretty positive GroovyMame (with the graphic card being able to adjust the pixel clock and all these settings/timings/etc on the fly) CAN adjust that for every single game. That's why they say GroovyMame adjusts each and every game to the correct (pixel perfect?) resolution for every game.

Basically, what I’m doing on my Pi is setting it to 320x240, using those pixel perfect settings so there’s little to zero artifacts and such. When that’s done I basically have two vertical resolutions to deal with: 224 and 240 (scaling horizontally seems to be fine without introducing artifacts so that's nothing to worry about in my experience). Since I can’t adjust the Pi’s settings on the fly (without rebooting before playing every single game) I choose to have 224 fill the screen, and 240 cut off the top 8 pixels on the top and bottom. No other way to do it (besides go the opposite and have 240 fill the screen top-to-bottom, then have 224 have black bars on the top and bottom which isn’t acceptable to me). The latter also isn’t acceptable to me since my monitor’s H/V Size/Centering/Phase (through the service menu) is setup for the video game consoles I most commonly play which is NES and SNES, so I didn’t want to have to go into those service menu settings every time I switch from my consoles to the Pi, so that was the best course of action to me.

Right now I can switch from any one of my 6 consoles (NES, SNES, Genesis, PS1, PS2, Xbox) where the image on my monitors is decently centered with just a little bit of overscan on most/all of the systems (well, the best it can be with all those varied resolutions), and immediately switch to the Raspberry Pi 3 running RetroPie. 224 is pretty perfect. 240 is cut off a little bit, with the option to shift the image up or down quickly (to not cut off a life meter or whatnot) - and you only tweak that once and save the setting and it'll be like that the next time you play it. (hope the above makes sense...this hurts my head and I literally tried it SO many different ways that once I finally got it running, I left it like that months ago and haven't touched it - and hope I've explained it how I actually have my system setup like now).

[Fudoh]

Now this is interesting. If by $30 you're talking about the A4-600, is that powerful enough to run more recent arcade titles?

you can go higher if required. If you choose an AM4 socket instead you can go for a A6-9500 which is the strongest Dual Core CPU with the required GPU. It's only very slightly more expensive.

Regarding the motherboard: unfortunately, that means I'll have to get a big and heavy power supply, right? Or can I use something more portable, like a typical laptop power brick?

you can use a small external one as well. Currently my favorite MiniATX case with integrated PSU is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab0U-eJOpfg&t=291s (Inwin Chopin). Compared to any other MiniATX which (which would allow you to integrate an additional video card, it's really small.

[Fudoh]

For pillarboxing, I can't think of a single game (talking about MAME here - that's all I really play on my Pi anymore) which is pillarboxed on the left and right.

Pillarboxing is just a problem if you use the actual 320px wide output. If you use the 1600px tweak it's no longer a problem.

[donluca]

There is no setting up all the different resolutions before booting up an individual game. The Pi's resolution is in the /boot/config.txt file, and that is set in stone. Only way to change it is to manually edit that boot file, then reboot the entire system.

Wrong. People have been able to make a custom version of Recalbox which switches the resolution and refresh rates on the fly.

https://forum.recalbox.com/topic/3475/r ... en-rgb/108

Besides, you can use AdvMAME on the Pi which does the same thing.

[Dochartaigh]

There is no setting up all the different resolutions before booting up an individual game. The Pi's resolution is in the /boot/config.txt file, and that is set in stone. Only way to change it is to manually edit that boot file, then reboot the entire system.

Wrong. People have been able to make a custom version of Recalbox which switches the resolution and refresh rates on the fly.

https://forum.recalbox.com/topic/3475/r ... en-rgb/108

Besides, you can use AdvMAME on the Pi which does the same thing.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like that topic you linked to (translated from French by Google Chrome), is talking about the same kind of 1600 tweak I've been talking about, and which I use in RetroPie (I personally don't use Recalbox...and in fact haven't ever met anybody in real life in 3x gaming clubs I'm in who uses Recalbox either...). I honestly don't have hours to read all 683 posts....but did read about 50 down and skipped to the end...

That 1600px tweak looks to use the same runcommand-onstart.sh and runcommand-onend.sh scripts to change the resolution – so you are correct in that we're technically changing the resolution, but it's moreso only on the vertical so we can put up absolutely huge margins from that 1600px number to more easily be able to do things like center the image on a per-emulator and per-ROM basis. ...but what I've been more so talking about is the static height of the image, which usually tends to be the same exact horizontal 240 number as the /boot/config.txt (even if the horizontal is 1600px with HUGE margins) - and this 240 number is good so you don't get funky artifacts showing up on screen (which happens whenever I change that number away from the 224 or 240 or whatever base-resolution of that particular ROM/game).

Besides that, even if they hacked Recalbox (which would be cool, awesome for them!), you would STILL be stuck with literally only 6 or so hdmi_timings the Raspberry Pi 3's limited pixel clock can produce. That is a hardware limitation you can't touch no matter what. If my memory serves only THREE of those actually hold any relevant use for ~240p/480i retro gaming we've been talking about....which again, is where GroovyMame with it's special 15khz drivers really shines with it's much more flexible hardware.



And on a side note, I REALLY hope I'm not coming across as an expert on this at all (which I'm not, whatsoever) - it took me 3x tries to get the 1600px tweak to work and quasi-perfected (ok, probably more like 4+ tries lol), and I'm certainly not up to date on everything everybody is doing - all I know is this 1600px tweak I've been talking about, and seem to have really good results with (or at least acceptable to my picky self), is the same tweak that all the Pi2SCART and RetroTINK guys seem to be using (those are the two most popular RGB outputting boards for the Pi 3). Like this Raspberry Pi and MAME is all that I've been playing for months now on my CRT's I love it so much! (bought 4x fightsticks for 4-player games even!)

[schadenfreude]

You initially posted about "R-Type with its 384x256 resolution at ~55Hz". 15khz sets are 60hz, right? (NTSC at least...this kind of stuff I'm nowhere near 100% on admittedly), so that game isn't going to run at exactly 55Hz through a Raspberry Pi to my knowledge – and I don't know if GroovyMame will do that either, or if you have the GroovyMame drivers setup so it knows the monitor is a 15khz/60hz and it'll only stick to resolutions/timings/etc. which it knows that monitor can display (which I know PVM's can do NTSC 60 and PAL 50, but don't know if it'll do 55hz for example).

Oh okay, I see what you're saying. I'm guessing the RPi forces everything to ~60Hz to stick with the NTSC standard. Can you try out R-Type for me? Perhaps you have the PCB handy so you can compare resolution and speed with the real deal? I'm going to guess the game is sped up slightly on the RPi.

Basically, what I’m doing on my Pi is setting it to 320x240

What happens when you play a game in MAME that's, say, 256x224? Are you saying that everything is forced into 320x240 to give it a 4:3 aspect ratio on the screen?

Right now I can switch from any one of my 6 consoles (NES, SNES, Genesis, PS1, PS2, Xbox) where the image on my monitors is decently centered with just a little bit of overscan on most/all of the systems (well, the best it can be with all those varied resolutions), and immediately switch to the Raspberry Pi 3 running RetroPie. 224 is pretty perfect. 240 is cut off a little bit, with the option to shift the image up or down quickly (to not cut off a life meter or whatnot) - and you only tweak that once and save the setting and it'll be like that the next time you play it.

I get slightly different image centering with my consoles on my PVM too, and from what I've read about GroovyMAME, I don't think you can configure your monitor to get perfect image centering across all arcade games. I read there's some software solution you can do to tweak things on an individual game basis. Really, I've never concerned myself with these things because I tend to play at most two games at a time, meaning I don't mind having to tweak the picture slightly on the PVM if I switch from, say, a Super Famicom to a Mega Drive game. I know this isn't very exciting when you have friends over who want to plow through several games, and I imagine that's why you live with the cut-off image.

[schadenfreude]

you can use a small external one as well. Currently my favorite MiniATX case with integrated PSU is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab0U-eJOpfg&t=291s (Inwin Chopin). Compared to any other MiniATX which (which would allow you to integrate an additional video card, it's really small.

Wow, that's a really compact and slick case, but the cost is pretty high. I was thinking about something more ghetto but portable like this: https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/26 ... nt-3560366. I also wish AMD made boards similar to Intel's Thin Mini-ITX, which have a lower Z-height and an on-board power supply adapter.

[donluca]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like that topic you linked to (translated from French by Google Chrome), is talking about the same kind of 1600 tweak I've been talking about, and which I use in RetroPie (I personally don't use Recalbox...and in fact haven't ever met anybody in real life in 3x gaming clubs I'm in who uses Recalbox either...). I honestly don't have hours to read all 683 posts....but did read about 50 down and skipped to the end...

I remember I read through the entire topic (yes, I had a couple of slow days at work) and IIRC they managed to defeat the issue and use perfect resolutions. Someone made a custom JAMMA adapter based upon this work here: http://www.neo-arcadia.com/forum/viewto ... 14&t=54733

Another similar project aimed at CRT users based upon the discoveries of that thread here: http://www.rgb-pi.com/

When I have time I'll go through that entire thread (again) and point out where they managed to get perfect resolution output.

[Dochartaigh]

When I have time I'll go through that entire thread (again) and point out where they managed to get perfect resolution output.

That would be great - please let me know! I'm always down to learn a better way to do things.

And you can get near perfect 1:1 resolution on most any system or game you want, pretty easily actually - the trick is how to get that on all these different games and all these different systems - easily, and quickly (i.e. no having to write files and reboot in-between).

You also have to be aware that there's ALWAYS still going to be the Raspberry Pi 3's pixel clock limitation - which no matter what programming tricks those guys have, no matter what hacks of the software, you simply can't bypass that hardware limitation no matter what you can do. Like I still don't think it's possible to get an exact horizontal frequency of 15.734khz, and a vertical frequency 59.939Hz to the NTSC standard with the Pi's built-in hardware (close, but never absolutely perfect).

[Figbash]

I have recently bought one of these RGB-Pi cables, and R-Type seems to work very smoothly on my PVM 2530 with basically no setup at all. Retroarch menu is reporting 55hz and I don't see any stuttering on the scrolling whatsoever.

Unfortunately since I have a 2530 with no OSD, I can't change the geometry for R-Type's weird refresh and resolution without opening it up, but it is definitely working!

They provide a recalbox image they have been putting together, and it has all the separate timings and wide resolutions already set up for you, and automatically switches based on the game. This is the file:
https://github.com/mortaca/RGB-Pi/blob/ ... imings.txt

I'm not going to claim it's a replacement for GroovyMAME but for ~$90 (Pi, RGB-Pi, SD Card) and like 5 minutes setup it's very nice, and works far better than I thought it would.

[mikechi2]

I'm one of the makers of a Raspberry Pi to 240p boards: http://www.retrotink.com/ (and maybe one of the originators of the 1600 px tweak ).

I think the best solution right now is to use an ultrawide resolution of 2048 x 240. 2048 is the maximum possible output that the Pi currently supports. The idea is that you don't need the mode switching between games since you can use almost any subset of the 2048 pixels since there's enough horizontal resolution to hide non-integer scaling artifacts. All you need to do is go into the video settings and shift around the viewport until it looks good on your screen and save the configuration overrides on a per game or per core basis. Some people I'm working with are also working on the exact settings that match the physical console. My 2048 x 240 timing is derived directly from the NES/SNES PPU specifications, scaled up by a factor of 8.

You can get my customized copy of Lakka from my website. If you want to use it with the VGA666, all you need to do is edit the config.txt. I'm also going to upload a revised version for RetroPie as well as add modes for 240p 120 Hz, 480p and 720p. Personally I prefer Lakka since it's cleaner, simpler to configure and the RGUI looks good on CRTs and scales nicely to the ultra-wide resolution, although I hear dispmanx now reduces lag on RetroPie.

[elvis]

I have multiple setups of both (two Linux+GroovyMAME cabinets, several RPi setups and cabinets.

It's a tough comparison, because the Pi's low power means you're sometimes choosing older or specifically less accurate emulators to deal with the speed difference. For pure MAME use on a dedicated cabinet in my own house, I prefer GroovyMAME because I can throw chunkier hardware at it and the maturity of the project is already there from the decade of work done on Linux with custom modelines (way back to "EasyMAMECab" website days).

But you can't argue with the Pi's portability, ease of use, and reliability (the latter is why I use Pis exclusively in gifts for friends, as troubleshooting PC issues remotely is painful). Plus, the community is working on improving it almost daily (see the comments above about the Pi now doing dynamic modeline changes).

It'll mostly come down to the individual games you want to play, and their specific performance. There's some stuff the Pi just will not play, and there's some stuff you need to try different emulators (Final Burn Alpha, etc) to get the performance out of other games.

[mdd45]

I'm looking for the "best", "most portable" solution for playing MAME on a CRT, consumer TV or arcade monitor or otherwise. I've settled on either building a small form-factor desktop machine with a mini-ITX motherboard and an ATI card, or buying an older small laptop with an ATI card in it, and throwing Windows 7 / GroovyMAME / CRT Emudriver on them — or getting a Raspberry Pi plus a PI2SCART or Gert VGA 666 to output a 15khz signal over SCART or VGA.

Has anyone tried both of these methods with a CRT and can comment on the experience? This gentleman has done both and claims there's a slight audio lag with the RPi setup, probably because it's not using PortAudio for sound. Little things like that I might be able to deal with, but most important to me is the ability to get the resolutions and refresh rates correct: GroovyMAME handles this for you, but the RPi setup requires setting up custom values for each game. How well does this work, and how much of a pain is it to configure?

Overall, GroovyMAME seems to be better, but the size and weight of the RPi are so small that I wonder if I could tolerate the deficiencies. I'd be okay with not being able to run 3D or recent 2D games, like Cave games, but if the system has trouble running, for example, R-Type with its 384x256 resolution at ~55Hz, I'd be pretty sad.

I may have left out some other good portable solution for pairing MAME with a CRT. Please let me know if so!

Please check this: https://www.reddit.com/r/RGB_Pi/comment ... lution_of/

For me the screen on RGB-PI is like using Groovymame on the same tv (control and audio lag depends on the emulation)

[mdd45]

For R-type on RGB-Pi, please check this: https://www.reddit.com/r/RGB_Pi/comment ... lution_of/

For me the screen on RGB-PI is like using Groovymame on the same tv (control and audio lag depends on the emulation) after this edit.

[Leandro]

I'm one of the makers of a Raspberry Pi to 240p boards: http://www.retrotink.com/ (and maybe one of the originators of the 1600 px tweak ).

I think the best solution right now is to use an ultrawide resolution of 2048 x 240. 2048 is the maximum possible output that the Pi currently supports. The idea is that you don't need the mode switching between games since you can use almost any subset of the 2048 pixels since there's enough horizontal resolution to hide non-integer scaling artifacts. All you need to do is go into the video settings and shift around the viewport until it looks good on your screen and save the configuration overrides on a per game or per core basis. Some people I'm working with are also working on the exact settings that match the physical console. My 2048 x 240 timing is derived directly from the NES/SNES PPU specifications, scaled up by a factor of 8.

You can get my customized copy of Lakka from my website. If you want to use it with the VGA666, all you need to do is edit the config.txt. I'm also going to upload a revised version for RetroPie as well as add modes for 240p 120 Hz, 480p and 720p. Personally I prefer Lakka since it's cleaner, simpler to configure and the RGUI looks good on CRTs and scales nicely to the ultra-wide resolution, although I hear dispmanx now reduces lag on RetroPie.

does this work with the composite output?

[mikechi2]

Unfortunately, the Pi's built in output is locked to a horizontal resolution of 720p. I think if you turn on bilinear filtering, it hides most of the scaling artifacts.

[Jockel]

Should this be good for CRT_Emudriver?
http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/QC5000M-ITXPH/

[Fudoh]

When I look at the compatibility list of CRT Emudriver 2.0, I would say that you could do a lot better. The CPU on this one is rather weak and by going for something stronger you would certainly add support for more demanding MAME titles.

[Jockel]

Can you suggest one? I can't find the one mentioned above for sale in Germany and I'm looking for something similar.

[Fudoh]

Just by looking at what's available: maybe an ASRock A68M as the mainboard with FM2 socket and an A6-7400K CPU (rather strong dual core). Uses a R5 GPU core, which is listed here http://geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/v ... php?id=295 as compatible with CRT Emudriver 2.0.

That's 100-110 EUR for the board incl CPU.

[Xyga]

A6-7400K CPU (rather strong dual core)

1571 STP according to passmark, that's more than enough for most things but it will certainly choke on cv1k and 3D games (personally I could care less but...)

[Fudoh]

but it will certainly choke on cv1k and 3D games

really? What's the highest stock stp you can get on any processor ? Something like 2200 on a 3.8/3.9GHz i3 I guess, but you pay accordingly.

[Xyga]

MAME being all about thread muscle unfortunately, yes, for the more demanding emulated hardwares (and the poor performing drivers such as cv1k) it is better to have something that can deliver close to 2000 if not more.

The G3258 has been so popular for being easily overclockable to that level with a number of cheap mobos like the H81M-P33. It is still one of the best solutions today but since it has been discontinued the little stock remaining is sold at abusive prices (80~100 where I am). The newer G4560 is cheaper under 70 eur and flirts with 2000 STP but is not overclockable 'in case' (should deliver enough though), and I dont know about the budget mobo options for it. Of course going the Intel route means less convenience requiring to do the OC at the beginning (for the g3258) and also to buy a compatible AMD GPU separately.

Anyway this is to consider only for those interested in cv1k and other heavy stuff in MAME, otherwise f* it yes those APU solutions are indeed the simplest.