Mame on a laptop?

Diabollokus · Post by **Diabollokus** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 9:54 pm

I'm thinking about buying a laptop for uni next year, what sort of spec would I need to run mame and emulators really well?

marcus12024 · Post by **marcus12024** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 10:17 pm

Personally I'd say that any decent laptop would be fine. "Decent" meaning either a P4 processor (non-Celeron), or an AMD-Mobile, or AMD64.

Most definitely go with 512 MB of ram, minimum.

Also make sure you get a good vid card, I hear the mobile Radeon 9700's are swell.

Other than that it shouldn't really matter, I'm sure it'll perform fairly well.

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 10:23 pm

I run on a 1.6ghz intel and most stuff plays just fine.

SheSaidDutch · Post by **SheSaidDutch** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 10:32 pm

Landshark is that while on battery power?

My laptop cant play anything while on battery power

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 12:12 am

http://forum.shmups.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=511

Post by **nZero** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 12:28 am

If getting a new laptop, skip the Pentium 4-M, the Athlon XP-M, and the mobile Celerons if at all possible. Stick with the Pentium M (Intel Centrino Platform) or Mobile Athlon 64 (forthcoming AMD Turion Platform) for best performance to battery life ratio.

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 2:10 am

LCD response time is a factor that's hard to accurately convey with specs on paper. You might want to do a hands on test with some 60fps shmups on the laptop before investing your hard earned cash. Checking for excess ghosting that makes bullets appear to leave long blurry trails behind them.

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 3:04 am

SheSaidDutch wrote:Landshark is that while on battery power?

My laptop cant play anything while on battery power

Nope, plugged in

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 5:48 am

Hell, my desktop is a 850 Mhz Athlon and it runs most stuff in MAME just fine. The only one that's been kind of slow is Dragon Blaze, but it's because I'm using an old version of MAME... for some reason some of the newer versions don't run as well on my machine :\

Damocles · Post by **Damocles** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 6:38 am

Honestly, any laptop they sell on the market today will work well for Mame and most other emulators. Up until this summer I was running Mame full-speed on my 766Mhz comp. The only games that won't run full speed are games such as the Cruisin' series, which really won't be complete until 10Ghz comps.......or so they tell me. *shrug* Also, the graphics card won't matter unless you want to emulate newer consoles such as the PSX, in which case, any half-decent card will work for that.

My advice, get a decent comp, though not necesarily top-of-the-line, and spend the cash you saved on a CRT monitor. Best of both worlds there. Also, laptops kick ass in college. Library, class, union, anywhere.

Diabollokus · Post by **Diabollokus** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 11:49 am

My plan would have been top buy a half decent laptop, download loads of mame onto it and connect it up to that PC version of the sega saturn pad and shmup to the max during lectures with headphones on.

Its a good few months down the line.

Thanks thunderforce on the advice, I'll try and get it running on a few laptops to check how the screen handles bullets in terms of refresh rate.

I don't really want a tabletop PC as space on desk is rather limited, but I'll read up on the specs. Memory needs a big chunk.

SheSaidDutch · Post by **SheSaidDutch** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 12:00 pm

landshark wrote:
SheSaidDutch wrote:Landshark is that while on battery power?

My laptop cant play anything while on battery power
Nope, plugged in

I was wondering about that landshark

super laptop

My specs are

1.2ghz
Celeron M
Radeon 92000
256mb ram
30gig hardrive
Diamond view screen (lovely image quality)

Runs mame like a dream,

I bought a laptop since I no longer play PC games (besides it will get me from the evil pc upgrade cycle)

Diabollokus · Post by **Diabollokus** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 4:45 pm

Thats the kind of set up I'm talking about

SheSaidDutch · Post by **SheSaidDutch** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 9:28 pm

Diabollokus wrote:Thats the kind of set up I'm talking about

I bought mine before christmas for £699 with a free printer,

you should be able to get a superiour laptop than mine for the same price now

When did you say you were going to get one?

Have alook around and make sure you can test them
make sure you get a laptop from a store with a good rep and return policly
If you dont like it you can take it back in the allowed number of days.

Diabollokus · Post by **Diabollokus** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 11:20 am

I'll be buying a laptop last week in september, not looking to spend loads of cash, after something thats depreciated like a stone but will run stuff great.

Not after Doom 3 standard graphics lol.