MAME, 60-1, or ???

SuperSprint

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I bought an old empty MK/JAMMA cabinet some years ago and converted it to MAME with a J-PAQ. The monitor is a WG25k7197 mounted vert. Audio is courtesy of PC speakers sitting inside the cabinet. CP is two sticks, 2 buttons per player. It all works great, including the coin mechs.

BUT... the unit has never been quite "right" if you know what I mean. For example, under DOS MAME game play is excellent but the sound doesn't work at all (SB PCI). Under AdvMame I have sound, but there are some slight "stammers" in audio and game play periodically that detract from the experience. Also, it's purely personal, but I just don't like AdvMenu as well as I do ArcadeOS.

I've been told that a windows version of MAME will help the audio, but the PC is only a 1.0Ghz/1GB, and from what I read that's just not sufficient for newer versions of MAME. So there is an additional investment to be made there and I'm not sure it's the best investment of limited hobby $. That's and I'm not sure I want to deal with the hassles of Windows and an arcade monitor.

Since I've only got two machines at present, the "multi" is a important piece because it keeps mom and the kids interested in my hobby, which helps with time and $$$ invested. So I'm wondering what you guys would do in my shoes. Would you leave it as is and just accept the quirks? Upgrade to Windows and newer PC? Put in a 60-1 and move on?
 
Do you have the DOS drivers loaded for your sound card? There *may* be something out there you can use, otherwise you might try an older sound card with available DOS drivers. If you don't mind tinkering, Linux may be a good option as well.

All of that said, I have been considering my options, as well. I have seen the 60's in action, and I think that would be the best for me. Fewer choices mean less time spent trying to remember which version of the galaga romset has my high score. And it still wows people at parties.
 
Yes, DOS drivers are loaded and tested with SB tools. That works fine. but MAME locks up anytime sound is selected. AdvMAME uses the DOS drivers fine, it's just not as smooth as MAME for play and audio.
 
There is one other option that will be free but possibly a little work... Get an older version of MAME and roll back your ROM sets with a utility like clrmamepro.

If you just want to run Golden Age to early 90's stuff, old Windows versions of MAME are much faster and work fine. My bartop cabinet is a Pentium 3/933 with 512 meg of RAM. I'm running .84 on it with no complaints. Even newer stuff like Mars Matrix and the CPS2 games run great on it.
 
That was the original plan, but I wasn't able to get audio working on .87
 
Gotta say, if you're OK with the limited number of games that it plays, going with a 60-in-1 card is definitely less of a pain to work with/troubleshoot.

The alternative to that would be to go with one of the "xxxx in 1" units, which is basically a stripped down PC running a version of MAME and preloaded with a bunch of games.
 
I have some P4 motherboards with CPU (need memory) but work, cover shipping and you can have one of those, at least will make a windows build of MAME much better, I have .136 rom set but does weigh in at 250gb (that is mainly CHD's) if u wanted those??? offer is there, if you go that route
 
That was the original plan, but I wasn't able to get audio working on .87

Trying to run the DOS version not the Windows Command Line version right?

You need the Windows Command Line version. There was always some confusion with the DOS and Windows Command Line versions. If you're running the Windows version, Windows is controlling your audio.

Get one of the older Windows Binary versions from here and try running it.
http://mamedev.org/oldrel.html

If you'd like to just try it, put it in a separate folder along with a couple of older ROM's.
Say you make a folder called C:\mametest
Install it there, put a couple of games in the c:\mametest\roms folder then go into that directory and simply run a rom manually by typing mame and the ROM name:

mame robotron

Since I'm using that as an example, .99 fixed the Robotron speed issue (ran too fast in old versions), that is the newest version I'd recommend running on your hardware. They started changing the sound and stuff in the versions after .1 and it'll be too slow on your hardware. Sound stutters are the classic symptom of too slow hardware.

I know your hardware will work, your issues are with the newest version of MAME and DOS drivers. The SBLive PCI was one of the last cards to have DOS drivers.
 
Personally I would go Linux Mame or an xxxx in 1(yes I know I'm biased on the xxxx in 1, but if you are motivated....go Linux there's some really cool stuff)
 
Gotta say, if you're OK with the limited number of games that it plays, going with a 60-in-1 card is definitely less of a pain to work with/troubleshoot.

The alternative to that would be to go with one of the "xxxx in 1" units

I'm definitely in for quality over quantity. All I'm after are the 80's classics, so I'd take a 10-1 board if the gameplay and audio/visuals were authentic.

I have some P4 motherboards with CPU (need memory) but work, cover shipping and you can have one of those, at least will make a windows build of MAME much better, I have .136 rom set but does weigh in at 250gb (that is mainly CHD's) if u wanted those??? offer is there, if you go that route

Wow, that's very generous! What type of memory do they need?

Trying to run the DOS version not the Windows Command Line version right?

You need the Windows Command Line version. There was always some confusion with the DOS and Windows Command Line versions. If you're running the Windows version, Windows is controlling your audio.

I'm running the DOS that shipped with Win98. I believe it's windows command line, but may be the last release of DOS. Being in IT since the DOS days, I should know this. Unfortunately, the info is way up on the top shelf of synapses, near the back, and covered with years of dust.

I'll verify DOS, MAME, and ADV MAME versions tonight.

I know your hardware will work, your issues are with the newest version of MAME and DOS drivers. The SBLive PCI was one of the last cards to have DOS drivers.

I'm running a PCI SB card with DOS drivers, but I don't recall which flavor. I have DOS drivers and they work when the SBtest and advmame, just not under plain MAME.
 
okay I got a 2.8Ghz CPU with motherboard and actually has 256mb Memory, was pulled from a working MAME machine, has AGP slot for ArcadeVGA or any other Video card, its clean, CPU fan is clean, PM me if you want it
 
If you have already, I'd try a 60-in-1 before buying. The latency is pretty bad, but it doesn't bother everyone.
 
If you have already, I'd try a 60-in-1 before buying. The latency is pretty bad, but it doesn't bother everyone.

I'll definitely have to try it. Authenticity is a big thing with me.

FWIW, I pulled the specs on my mame machine.

DOS = Command line Windows. Specifically Win98 v4.10.222
AdvMame = v106.1
SB drivers = SB16 emulator v5.0
PC = AMB Athlon 1.0ghz/100mhz/BUSS 256Mb RAM.

As TOK suggested my Mame ver >> my CPU speed. I took Mick up on his hugely generous offer and will soon upgrade the CPU to 2.8Ghz. That should help a good deal.
 
I'll definitely have to try it. Authenticity is a big thing with me.

FWIW, I pulled the specs on my mame machine.

DOS = Command line Windows. Specifically Win98 v4.10.222
AdvMame = v106.1
SB drivers = SB16 emulator v5.0
PC = AMB Athlon 1.0ghz/100mhz/BUSS 256Mb RAM.

As TOK suggested my Mame ver >> my CPU speed. I took Mick up on his hugely generous offer and will soon upgrade the CPU to 2.8Ghz. That should help a good deal.

First thing I tried with a 60-in-1 is Galaga. Move the joystick to the side and wait for the ship to move. Is way worse than most Windows Mame machines. The problem that I have with all Mame machines that I've tried is that the audio is latent. I can detect the input/video latency, but it isn't nearly as bad as the audio latency. On 60-in-1, both are terrible. If you are latency sensitive, I'd try to stick with DOS as much as possible, or possibly Linux. I've done a bit of work to try to get lower latency on Windows and gave up.
 
First thing I tried with a 60-in-1 is Galaga. Move the joystick to the side and wait for the ship to move. Is way worse than most Windows Mame machines. The problem that I have with all Mame machines that I've tried is that the audio is latent. I can detect the input/video latency, but it isn't nearly as bad as the audio latency. On 60-in-1, both are terrible. If you are latency sensitive, I'd try to stick with DOS as much as possible, or possibly Linux. I've done a bit of work to try to get lower latency on Windows and gave up.

That totally rules out 60-1 for me. I have been sticking with DOS because of latency issue, and will likely stay there. What the source of the audio latency, and what can I throw at it to minimize the issue? Obviously multicore is useless. Is disk speed an issue? If so, does unzipping ROM sets help or hinder? How does RAM play in?

In a nutshell, I'd like my emulated gameplay to pass the arcade equivalent of a Turing test.

have you tried just loading up puppyarcade?

Not yet, but I will definitely try it.
 
That totally rules out 60-1 for me. I have been sticking with DOS because of latency issue, and will likely stay there. What the source of the audio latency, and what can I throw at it to minimize the issue? Obviously multicore is useless. Is disk speed an issue? If so, does unzipping ROM sets help or hinder? How does RAM play in?

In a nutshell, I'd like my emulated gameplay to pass the arcade equivalent of a Turing test.



Not yet, but I will definitely try it.

Someone needs to port modern Mame with advmame features to DOS. :) I'd do it, but that feels too much like work.

The next thing that I was going to try before giving up is to port Mame to run on the ASIO interface that music production programs use. I would think that would give far less latency.

I've resorted to buying arcade boards and running them with jamma adapters for the machines that I don't have dedicated machines for. I think the future is a board like on http://fpgaarcade.com when something like that gets done. It'll take a while for all the game boards to get ported over to that though.
 
Another thing. . I hear that the arcadeshop board has less latency than the 60-in-1, but I haven't tried it myself.

That totally rules out 60-1 for me. I have been sticking with DOS because of latency issue, and will likely stay there. What the source of the audio latency, and what can I throw at it to minimize the issue? Obviously multicore is useless. Is disk speed an issue? If so, does unzipping ROM sets help or hinder? How does RAM play in?

In a nutshell, I'd like my emulated gameplay to pass the arcade equivalent of a Turing test.



Not yet, but I will definitely try it.
 
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