upgrade or build new/ mame ? too

[dogtheend]

first off i have been searching for a place like this for days now, awesome site, anyways..

i have this goal more like dream project i want to get started working on now that i have the money.

iam goingto build a mame arcade cabinet playing off a pc. now the games arent going to be too powerful or nothing like that.

games from pacman super mario bros up to morrtal kombat will do. now before i go further let me explain that i am a total noob to all this however i have been doing research on the subject.

my immediate goal is too get mame running very good to handle all the games i will throw at it and also play them flawlessly.

i tested mame on my current system which is a sony vaio pentium 4 cpu 1.80 ghz 1.79ghz 512 mb ram bought in 2002 and which has primarily been used as a family computer internet and school stuff.

now mortal kombat 2 and 3 all suffer from mame slowdown stuttering if you will making it unplayable.

finally to my question (sorry for the long post)
do you all think i would be better off upgrading my current system or building a new one from scratch for the sole purpose of playing mame?

ps: my family is also considering buying a new family computer like a dell and theres no way i would be able to us that for mame

[dogtheend]

also my budget would be less than 700 if thats possible i am not looking to play any new 3d super games on it just to play old ones really well.

another question what do i use to hookup my pc monitor to a regular tv?

thanks for your help

[newbuilder14]

Welcome to the forums. I will be more than happy to help you out here with this. Remember if you want to add something within a reasonable amount of time, you can use the edit button.

With a budget like $700 it is hard to build a good system, but definitely not out of the question.

Here is what I recommend for your mame:

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103637 $81
Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131022 $94
Mem: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145566 $124
HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822135106 $44
Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129155 $50
DVD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106013 $31
VID: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130056 $160

Total comes to around $600, so add what you need. I included such a powerful video card because you could be using a huge monitor I assume. This is probably more than what you need for this gaming center, but it is a good system. You can upgrade to a dual core CPU if you feel the need to.

To answer your question about the TV - you should be able to use the S-Video or HDTV adapter with your video card.


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Hey, you may want to look into Intel as well, possibly just getting a Pentium D 915 until you can afford the "state-of-the-art" Core 2 Duos from Intel.