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Has anyone tried compared 64bit MAME with 2GB vs. more RAM?
#254807 - 05/17/11 10:26 PM
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I'm considering going to Windows 7 64 bit on my MAME machine, but don't want to buy more RAM. I only have two slots and would not be able to use my existing 1 GB RAM sticks, if I want to increase.
Based on previous experiences with internet "common knowledge", I'm skeptical that adding 4GB of RAM will make much difference vs. just using 2GB, but would prefer confirmation from someone who has actually tested it on MAME 64 bit and Windows 7.
Heck, if anybody has such a setup with 4GB of RAM and would be willing to take two off and compare mace with 2GB vs 4GB, that would be terrific. You could run from the command line and use the following parameter to ensure consistent testing and look at the resulting average frame percentage:
-seconds_to_run 90
Just throwing it out there, in case anyone would volunteer.
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| FatTrucker |
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Randomly pressing buttons in hope of success.
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Re: Has anyone tried compared 64bit MAME with 2GB vs. more RAM?
[Re: "The Manuel"]
#254809 - 05/17/11 10:37 PM
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> I'm considering going to Windows 7 64 bit on my MAME machine, but don't want to buy
> more RAM. I only have two slots and would not be able to use my existing 1 GB RAM
> sticks, if I want to increase.
>
> Based on previous experiences with internet "common knowledge", I'm skeptical that
> adding 4GB of RAM will make much difference vs. just using 2GB, but would prefer
> confirmation from someone who has actually tested it on MAME 64 bit and Windows 7.
>
> Heck, if anybody has such a setup with 4GB of RAM and would be willing to take two
> off and compare mace with 2GB vs 4GB, that would be terrific. You could run from the
> command line and use the following parameter to ensure consistent testing and look at
> the resulting average frame percentage:
> -seconds_to_run 90
>
> Just throwing it out there, in case anyone would volunteer.
I think its more to do with the amount of Ram Windows 7 is chewing on before Mame gets a look at what's left. In my experience running 2GB on Windows 7 won't leave a lot for mame to play with. Its worth the upgrade though, 64Bit makes a noticable difference and Win7 is a great OS.
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Re: Has anyone tried compared 64bit MAME with 2GB vs. more RAM?
[Re: FatTrucker]
#254810 - 05/17/11 10:47 PM
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> I think its more to do with the amount of Ram Windows 7 is chewing on before Mame
> gets a look at what's left. In my experience running 2GB on Windows 7 won't leave a
> lot for mame to play with. Its worth the upgrade though, 64Bit makes a noticable
> difference and Win7 is a great OS.
But that's the thing. Common knowledge seems to indicate so but, in practice, if I'm running only MAME and a frontend in the background, not a lot of memory is being used. This is why I'm interested in this little experiment.
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| Sune |
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Connected
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Re: Has anyone tried compared 64bit MAME with 2GB vs. more RAM?
[Re: "The Manuel"]
#254816 - 05/18/11 12:05 AM
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> > I think its more to do with the amount of Ram Windows 7 is chewing on before Mame
> > gets a look at what's left. In my experience running 2GB on Windows 7 won't leave a
> > lot for mame to play with. Its worth the upgrade though, 64Bit makes a noticable
> > difference and Win7 is a great OS.
>
> But that's the thing. Common knowledge seems to indicate so but, in practice, if I'm
> running only MAME and a frontend in the background, not a lot of memory is being
> used. This is why I'm interested in this little experiment.
If you are low on RAM and stuff has to be swapped out, MAME will just take longer time to load each game.
Metal Slug 3 eats up around 400MB RAM, there are probably very few games that use more than that.
S
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Re: Has anyone tried compared 64bit MAME with 2GB vs. more RAM?
[Re: Sune]
#254883 - 05/18/11 03:05 PM
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I'm running MameUI 64 bit under win7 pro x64 with 2 gb of ram and have no issues. If we are going to use Metal Slug 3 as a benchmark It works perfectly fine on my machine.
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Re: Has anyone tried compared 64bit MAME with 2GB vs. more RAM?
[Re: "The Manuel"]
#254886 - 05/18/11 03:58 PM
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> But that's the thing. Common knowledge seems to indicate so but, in practice, if I'm
> running only MAME and a frontend in the background, not a lot of memory is being
> used. This is why I'm interested in this little experiment.
In practice, Windows 7 with 1 GB on 32-bit or 2 GB on 64-bit is nearly unusable just running a browser or something, especially if your HDD is 5400 RPM (e.g. a laptop). Fact, not common knowledge. I've personally experienced this.
Also, you're asking the wrong question. Where insufficient RAM hurts you on MAME is start-up time, not runtime. The framerate will be the same, it's just a matter of "mame mace" appearing right away vs. grinding the disk for 45 seconds first.
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Re: Has anyone tried compared 64bit MAME with 2GB vs. more RAM?
[Re: R. Belmont]
#254888 - 05/18/11 04:11 PM
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> Also, you're asking the wrong question. Where insufficient RAM hurts you on MAME is
> start-up time, not runtime. The framerate will be the same, it's just a matter of
> "mame mace" appearing right away vs. grinding the disk for 45 seconds first.
The runtime part is what concerned me. I don't mind waiting a little for the game to load and I plan to have a minimal amount of programs running in the background, so I hope to minimize this issue.
Thanks everyone for the feedback. Overall, I'm encouraged to try. Also, I'll have the opportunity to test this out myself, as I plan to buy a laptop for non-arcade machine use, so I'll be able to play around with putting memory on and off and see what happens to my framerate, before deciding to migrate the arcade machine to w7 x64.
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| Naoki |
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Re: Has anyone tried compared 64bit MAME with 2GB vs. more RAM?
[Re: R. Belmont]
#254901 - 05/18/11 08:02 PM
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2GB on 32-bit Win 7 is barely useable in my case. Maybe it's because i'm using failing parts 
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