Windows Mame versus PiPlay- What is the difference for the power demand?

dman777

I asked on Mame forums and they said that I would need about an Intel I5 to run Mame and 16 bit games. What I don't understand is... since PiPlay uses a Mame version that is not even close to be as demanding, what are the differences between Mame and the PiPlay fork? Does Mame do upscaling for a 1080p or something?

mholgatem

piplay is just the frontend. we use the mame4all-pi source code. it's based on a much older version of mame and customized to run on the ARM processor that the raspberry pi uses.

dman777

I used to play mame port on Xbox original on a CRT and was pretty happy with the game play. What would be the difference between the much older version of mame and the current Windows mame? Trying to understand what I would be missing by not having a intel I5 system that would run the modern version of Mame. The only thing that that I could think of is the graphics to be up scaled and look good on a blown up 1080p TV.

mholgatem

Yeah, I'm probably not the guy to ask, since I don't play much on the MAME emulators (mostly snes and genesis for me). But I imagine that it is probably scaling, and I know that sometimes there are some sound issues. but most things seem to run pretty well.

englischdude

interesting thread.

i have had a bartop arcade cab running mame for several years now, but it is loud, power hungry, bloody heavy...
i am currently changing the inner workings to a rpi2. i have a fan already installed on the back panel just to keep some airflow in there, this I will modify to run off the powered usb hub.

the older technology pc components will run mame no problem, the i5 comment you mention is completely unrealistic. my old cab components were 1ghz single core 512mb ram with basic onboard video!! this is a great advantage of linux OS generally, that it will run on old "outdated" hardware very very well!

mholgatem

yeah, I don't know why they would suggest an I5, I can't imagine anything that they throw at it needing that much power.

mholgatem

I have been quite happy with the number of roms that I am able to run just using the pi.

Nitrogen_Widget

i5 would be for some of the 3d games like Gauntlet legends & NFL Blitz.

I don't know off-hand which games specifically have issues in mame4all or advmame.
I can just say every game i've tried on mame4all runs full speed on the RPI 1B.

advmame is more useable on the rpi2 and performance seems to match an older 1.4 ghz p4 that I have on advmame .106 which means games like mortal kombat still won't run. :)

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