Probably the umpthiest thread on this, could really find one though.... A friend of mine is planning on building his own MAME cabinet.... I bet he's pretty handy with wood, but he asked me what I thought of this PC (as it's compact and cheap): ZOTAC Zbox Now, I don't quite follow the PC market, nor am up to date with technical specs & performances, but I'm guessing this PC isn't really up to the task of running MAME in a decent fashion...? (just a hunch) Is is best to just have (insert PC X here) run Windows, or what OS is best used for a PC which is ONLY used for this emulator...? Sorry for the noob questions. Any decent answers are appreciated.
I can't help re: PCs, sorry, but for what it's worth; for years I've been meaning to make an arcade machine (I'm putting it off until I can get a permanent place to live - I have to move about for work, and I hate it). I intend to put my XBox (original XBox, not the Xbox 360) in it, as the XBox has fantastic versions of MAME, Final Burn Alpha, and very good emulators for almost 8 and 16 bit machines you can name (plus 32 and later machines, but those emulators tend to be less compatible or glitchy, as you're coming up against the host XBox's limitations there), plus I'll be putting XBMC in it too, so I can use it as a Jukebox. An Xbox based arcade cabinet would have the following advantages over a PC based cabinet; + The XBox takes almost no time to boot up, + No need to wait for the PC to shut down (why does Windows sometimes take so long?), just turn off your XBox when you're finished with it, + Everything is done via the joypad (or arcade stick, if you have the right one), no need to mess about with a keyboard and mouse at any stage, + Plus it plays XBox games too (not necessarily an advantage, if you just want an arcade console). On the minus side, an XBox (which is basically a cut down 64MB P3-733MHz PC) is *extremely* inferior to even a cheap PC nowadays, so an XBox based cabinet has the following disadvantages; - Due to it's low speed and (very) low memory, there might well be lots of arcade games that run too slow or jerky. Everything I like plays fine, but then I only play the games I played in the arcade, and I don't think any of those are later than around 1990 - If you want to play other (non-arcade) emulators, then anything 32-bit or later will probably be unsatisfactory (or impossible) on an XBox, whereas on a PC there might be a great emulator of that system, - PC based arcade emulators might well have enhancements you like (i.e. better graphical filters, play online, I don't know), that the XBox can't support, - To use an XBox in a cabinet, you have to mod the XBox (soft or hard mod, see xbox-scene.com) and add in a larger hard drive (the standard XBox HD is onlt 10GB or 20GB, remember this is 2001 technology),
It's not going to run any newish games. 3D is out of the question. The Zbox computer is optimized for size, power & quietness. The OS is depends on what type of front-end you like. My buddy uses Hyperspin in his. It looks nice, but it is Windows only. If he's building a full sized cab, space shouldn't be an issue. You'll want at least an Intel i5 processor/AMD FX-6xxx processor, 4-8 gb RAM, a discrete graphics card, maybe a sound card, but built in should be fine. If you decide to go Linux, make sure the hardware you get has good driver support! This would be more than sufficient, but it is only on sale today: http://www.newegg.com/Special/ShellShocker.aspx?cm_sp=ShellShocker-_-1411686-_-08152013_1 FYI: I run an i3 with built in graphics & 8 GB RAM... I can play any game, except some of the newer 3D games.
MAME benefits the most from a faster CPU. AFAIK it even does its 3D rendering in software. Older titles should run on pretty much anything, but for newer titles you want the fastest CPU you can get (and even then, don't expect to run *everything* smoothly). A discrete graphics card isn't necessary at all imho. According to a coworker of mine, a dedicated sound card might give the CPU a bit more breathing room (haven't verified that myself, also might depend on the mainboard), but it's not really necessary. As for RAM, getting enough for your base OS, then adding an extra GB on top should suffice, MAME doesn't need all that much. 8GB is probably overkill, but then again, RAM is cheap, so whatever. About that Zbox: A Celeron, really? Haven't looked into those for a while, but I've had bad experiences with them. Probably not good enough for any new-ish titles. Unless space is an issue (tabletop cab or sth.) I'd recommend thinking again about using that. On the software side, you might want to look into specific MAME versions, or rather Linux distros booting into MAME. Being specialized, they tend to boot way faster than Windows, and take up less resources. On the downside there's the hardware compatibility issue that's already been mentioned.
I don't know that Revo and I'm too lazy to look it up right now tbh, but generally speaking, in a HTPC you usually want a decent dedicated graphics card (for the GPU accelerated video decoding), while a fast CPU is optional. Faster CPU and/or GPU always means more cooling, which makes more noise, which is the last thing I'd want from my HTPC. I think it really boils down to the cab's form factor - If you have the room, just throw some desktop components in there, they're usually faster than their laptop components, and you can up-/downgradegrade later if necessary.
that computer you linked is crap, and how big of a MAME cabinet are we talking here? And honestly, what sort of Arcade games are you looking to run? If you like older games, most anything will do. If you want to get into the 3D games and games that require CHD's (basically harddrives), or even newer games then those, then you want to get a more powerful computer. And never, and I mean, never go with Intel for graphics. Display is important, what sort of screen you going to be using? CRT? LCD? Because remember, until the recent years, most arcade games used CRT's and lower resolutions that usually look crappy on modern LCD's. While I don't mind using like my Wii to play MAME and other emulators, I don't like how I have few options i can really configure for a better experience, while on a PC you can make sure you get the display of the emulator correct for your screen, and the controls setup for whatever you like to use. (I'm a big Tron fan, and I have a Logitech Wingman Warrior joystick I use for it. Have to run Windows 98 for it because it's the only drivers that work with the spinner).
Jesus man, just buy AMD APU CPU and motherboard. It runs almost every possible emulator (N64, PSX, PS2, MAME, Zinc, Demul, Nintendo DS, PSP etc.)out there and doesn't cost much. CPU is 150$(6800K, 4.1GHz, 4.4GHz Turbo) it has AMD Radeon HD 8670D Integrated in the CPU. Then buy some Motherboard (You can find very small ones for it that you can build in HTPC case. Then slap 2-4 gigs of ram and some HDD. (SSD for OS(32gb Kingspec is only ~30$ on ebay) and 1TB HDD for games for example). Shouldn't cost much over 500$ and it is latest technology not some ancient crap like XBOX or some old PC hardware.
14mb write speed is ok for the OS if you just use it for emulators. That is why you have 1TB disc for Roms etc. It starts OS very fast and runs programs because of read speed
Intel i3 Nvidia gpu (like a 550ti) SSD for speed Try to get reference intel board specs so there's never any hardware issues.
Absolute cheapest thing using no pre-existing parts would be a Chromebook with Linux on it. If the new haswells come out at around 250 then that's good and obviously very compact being laptops. You could even get a current used Chromebook for probably around 150 or lower but I don't know how the CPUs in those are. I have a first generation chromebook with an awful awful atom processor that can't even run videos on the web or the OS it was designed for and I can still play up to PSX (not including). I'm assuming a haswell would destroy that. Chromebox or Intel's boxes might be a bit better but are around 500 and at that price you could put together a pc from scratch for about the same amount.
Also, if you want faster boot times you should get Xubuntu. You will have faster boot time and rarely crashes
