5 replies to this topic

[el guapo]

Howdy - I built a mame cabinet some time ago, well, I'll be honest its always a work in progress. I've tried to get some tables running but I think my system is way too underpowered to run the vp9 tables.

Can someone please help me out with what I should look for in a machine to run tables in vp9 cleanly? I would love to add Terminator 2 and some of the other high end tables to my machine. I have some side buttons for flippers, just need to get a better CPU and graphic card setup I think.

Thanks a ton

Here's my cab

[TheMcD]

Per se, VP doesn't have system requirements. Safe to say, to play high end tables you'll need a really powerful machine. 1GB of video memory is definitely what you want, or even more if you've got the dosh. Processor should be a good dual core, although VP doesn't tax the CPU as much as the GPU, you still want to be on the safe side. Ask around - there are tons of guys that have cabinets that will be able to help you better than I can.

The McD

[BFG Brutal]

Well alot depends on if your going to run fullscreen cabinet tables or desktop. But either way i think a minimal setup( based on my dedicated cabinet) for a good 99% stutter free system is...
Minimum athlon 2 x2 dual core 3ghz or better or equal intel cpu
gts250 1gb memory gpu
2gb ram( 4gb if running W7)

This is very similar to my cab, but I'm running xp with 3gb ram. I belive from my testing that VP seems to do best with raw horsepower. I actually got better fps with my gts250 than my GTX285! I believe its due to the fact my 250 is clocked at 720ghz core as opposed to the 285's stock 650core, also the memory is clocked faster than the 285. But the 285 has more memory bandwidth, and higher number of cores, but VP is a 2d program and doesn't take full advantage of 3d hardware. I believe a few members use 100$ Ati cards with good results, mainly because Ati cards usually have higher clock rates. So I in my opinion there's a point where you can go overkill and not see a return on your hardware. Good luck!

Edited by BFG Brutal, 24 August 2011 - 04:49 PM.

[Arcade4]

Well alot depends on if your going to run fullscreen cabinet tables or desktop. But either way i think a minimal setup( based on my dedicated cabinet) for a good 99% stutter free system is...
Minimum athlon 2 x2 dual core 3ghz or better or equal intel cpu
gts250 1gb memory gpu
2gb ram( 4gb if running W7)

This is very similar to my cab, but I'm running xp with 3gb ram. I belive from my testing that VP seems to do best with raw horsepower. I actually got better fps with my gts250 than my GTX285! I believe its due to the fact my 250 is clocked at 720ghz core as opposed to the 285's stock 650core, also the memory is clocked faster than the 285. But the 285 has more memory bandwidth, and higher number of cores, but VP is a 2d program and doesn't take full advantage of 3d hardware. I believe a few members use 100$ Ati cards with good results, mainly because Ati cards usually have higher clock rates. So I in my opinion there's a point where you can go overkill and not see a return on your hardware. Good luck!

Correct.
I use a $100 ATI 5670 that churns throught VP FS tables like butter.
Also running a second monitor for backglass and DMD on the same card with no problems.

[BFG Brutal]

Yeah it seems like the "horrors" of the Ati cards are a thing of the past. But it definitely.surprised me that the gts250 which is a mid range card was much faster the the gtx285, which was the top of line card 1.5 years ago! Which is why I started testing, and came to the raw clock speed being the deciding factor.

[el guapo]

Thanks for all the replies. I think I need to replace the crap machine I have in there which right now is just using onboard video, and get one with a real dedicated GPU and more memory. I just don't want to spend the cash. So far, it plays everything I've been doing in MAME no issue, but the pinball is a different story.