Mario Kart Slow - Investing in Hardware

Gonetz · Oct 31, 2003

my 3 kopecks to this discussion:

1) Duron 1,16 GHz is more then enough for most of N64 games, including MK64 of course. With this CPU you must be able to run Conker perfectly. Most of N64 games run flawless on my much more slow PC. Of course, I'm using fastest video plugin in the world

, but when your CPU is above 1ghz, plugin's speed is not so important.

2) I agree that the reason of your sound problems is your AC97 OnBoard. Without proper sound card you may have such problems even with hi-end CPU. For example, Athlon 800 + SoundBlaster 16 + Voodoo3 runs any game (except Conker) flawless, while with AthlonXP 2600 + AC97 + GeForce4 I often have jerky sound. This depends on how AC97 is implemented. Clements is lucky to have good one, you are not.

3) If you going to bye Nforce2-based motherboard, it will solve all problems - these mb have very good on-board sound. But bying new sound card would be much cheaper solution.

Noelen · Oct 31, 2003

Gonetz said:
my 3 kopecks to this discussion:

1) Duron 1,16 GHz is more then enough for most of N64 games, including MK64 of course. With this CPU you must be able to run Conker perfectly. Most of N64 games run flawless on my much more slow PC. Of course, I'm using fastest video plugin in the world , but when your CPU is above 1ghz, plugin's speed is not so important.

2) I agree that the reason of your sound problems is your AC97 OnBoard. Without proper sound card you may have such problems even with hi-end CPU. For example, Athlon 800 + SoundBlaster 16 + Voodoo3 runs any game (except Conker) flawless, while with AthlonXP 2600 + AC97 + GeForce4 I often have jerky sound. This depends on how AC97 is implemented. Clements is lucky to have good one, you are not.

3) If you going to bye Nforce2-based motherboard, it will solve all problems - these mb have very good on-board sound. But bying new sound card would be much cheaper solution.

Sounds good to me, so I just went to my local dealer and bought an Creative Labs Soundblaster Live 5.1 Player. Installed it...Drivers...AND......Did not solve the problem, although this soundcard is not wasted money.

Sad but true I have to invest in faster hardware :-(

Doomulation · Oct 31, 2003

Gonetz said:
1) Duron 1,16 GHz is more then enough for most of N64 games, including MK64 of course. With this CPU you must be able to run Conker perfectly. Most of N64 games run flawless on my much more slow PC. Of course, I'm using fastest video plugin in the world , but when your CPU is above 1ghz, plugin's speed is not so important.

Methinks that you can buy the cheapest athlon you can find...to prepare for the future, that is. Athlon is a little better than Duron and is better for games.

Noelen · Nov 2, 2003

Doomulation said:
Methinks that you can buy the cheapest athlon you can find...to prepare for the future, that is. Athlon is a little better than Duron and is better for games.

Hi there again!

At last we have a solution! Maybe other people with the same performance issues can read this:

1. I my case it was no Soundcard related problem (AC97 is sufficient).
2. Also the Graphics card (GF4 MX 440 SE) is fast enough.
3. All you need for emulation is a very fast processor (even 1 Ghz seems to be too slow for N64 emulation) - 3DFX Users seem to be lucky - there plugins are faster!

So, I am now a happy owner of a new PC (you can read the specs in my profile).

Thank you all for your help!

cooliscool · Nov 2, 2003

Hmm.. It doesn't seem necessary to get such hardware to run an n64 emu flawlessly. My system runs 1964, nemu, and PJ64 at flawless speeds with flawless sound.

olimar · Nov 3, 2003

I know some good hardware to invest in. It's called a Nintendo 64. It emulates games perfectly! No slowdown at all! It's fantastic!

Sorry...

Noelen · Nov 3, 2003

olimar said:
I know some good hardware to invest in. It's called a Nintendo 64. It emulates games perfectly! No slowdown at all! It's fantastic!

Sorry...

Oh, then you are in the false thread. Did you notice that this is all about EMULATION? But got your point. Very usefull!

Doomulation · Nov 4, 2003

I have an other solution for those who wanna play oot. Get a gamecube! It emulates oot perfecly and many other games as well

Ok ok j/k. Those specs are more than enuff for emulation; but hey, what about other games in mind? He's preparing for the future games!

Noelen · Nov 4, 2003

Doomulation said:
I have an other solution for those who wanna play oot. Get a gamecube! It emulates oot perfecly and many other games as well
Ok ok j/k. Those specs are more than enuff for emulation; but hey, what about other games in mind? He's preparing for the future games!

Right! Does anyone really believe that I spend that money just to play N64 games on an emulator? It is in fact a sideeffect - but a very pleasent one...

olimar · Nov 4, 2003

Doomulation said:
I have an other solution for those who wanna play oot. Get a gamecube! It emulates oot perfecly and many other games as well
Ok ok j/k. Those specs are more than enuff for emulation; but hey, what about other games in mind? He's preparing for the future games!

No... The Gamecube Oot isn't as good as on the n64. The controller gives me some problems. Playing the ocarina is a pain in the ass.

Clements · Nov 4, 2003

I use the C-Stick for the Ocarina, not too bad and once you get used to it, you can play songs faster than you could on the N64 (with its C-Buttons).

All this talk of upgrading is making me want to upgrade...

That student loan of mine is just sitting there, and if I get the go ahead my crappy almost defunct Gigabyte GA-7DXE motherboard and CPU will be replaced with a much better Gigabyte GA-7N400-L1 with nforce2 Ultra400 chipset (...and you get Norton Internet Security 2003 free- my NIS 2002 ran out!)

...and my not too shabby Athlon XP 1800+ will be replaced with a powerful 2800+ Athlon XP (Barton) CPU (3000+ is overpriced!)... Fingers crossed- hopefully my PC will be a Frankenstein monster of powerful parts (at a cheap price)!

The upgrade will be for educational purposes of course! Not too costly either, a fraction of the cost of buying a completely new PC, and you get all the stuff you want! Might be able to sell on the spare parts to gullible relatives to recoup the losses! I'll calm down now :blush:

Doomulation · Nov 5, 2003

olimar said:
No... The Gamecube Oot isn't as good as on the n64. The controller gives me some problems. Playing the ocarina is a pain in the ass.

Well, since I've played zelda ww, that isn't a pain in the ass. But then again, I never got the bonus cd with oot on, and I don't care either...

Xade · Nov 5, 2003

Doomulation said:
Well, since I've played zelda ww, that isn't a pain in the ass. But then again, I never got the bonus cd with oot on, and I don't care either...

What's the deal with not getting the bonus disc? I'm in England and I got the thing. They're still selling Wind Waker with the disc bundled...

Incidentally, that Ura-Zelda isn't all it's cracked up to be... fairly pointless, in fact. If they'd added another dungeon or something, maybe, but...

Doomulation · Nov 6, 2003

I don't know...I imported the thing and it seems that you get the bonus disc if you buy it locally...but as I said, I don'r care. Oot was no good anyway.

loleoc · Nov 8, 2003

I thinking of to replace my pentium 3 by a Duron 1.3 ghz ( I don´t have much money) but I don´t know if Duron is better than my pentium 3. Help.

Duron 1.3 ghz is sufficient to play Perfect Dark on pj64 at fuuulll speed?
And Conker at full speed??

Clements · Nov 8, 2003

The Duron 1.3 GHz is marginally faster than Pentium 3 800 MHz as the following handy diagram of all CPUs up to 3.06GHz put in order shows (Taken from Tom's Hardware Guide, Oh no!!!11).

You'll probably get fullspeed in Conker, and you'll possibly get fullspeed with PD. Might need to use 1964 for PD, but it'll be faster. As you probably know already, it is mostly the power of your CPU that determines the framerate in N64 emulation.

loleoc · Nov 9, 2003

Thanks Clements.
Duron 1300 mhz = 126.9
Pentium 3 800EB mhz = 121

It´s almost equal!!!
Then, why don´t I get full speed in pd with 1964?? If Duron 1.3 do it, Pentium 800 can do it!! :down:

Note: In pd with 1964 (jabo + azimer 0.30) I get 45-55 fps :getlost:

loleoc · Nov 9, 2003

Is my AC97 integrated sound card?? (I have a Soyo 7vba 133)
I saw an image of Perfect Dark running on an Athlon 900 mhz + Geforce 3 at 60 vi/s!!! And my p3 800 + Geforce 3??

Trotterwatch · Nov 9, 2003

I saw an image of Perfect Dark running on an Athlon 900 mhz + Geforce 3 at 60 vi/s!!! And my p3 800 + Geforce 3??

That'd be my pic, and it was taken with the unreleased beta version of 1964 - hence the speed.

You can't take Quake 3 benchmarks too seriously btw, they were slightly biased towards the P3,

james.miller · Nov 9, 2003

Clements said:
...and my not too shabby Athlon XP 1800+ will be replaced with a powerful 2800+ Athlon XP (Barton) CPU (3000+ is overpriced!)... Fingers crossed- hopefully my PC will be a Frankenstein monster of powerful parts (at a cheap price)!

ARRH don't do it! id hate it if my cheap xp1700 @ 2.4ghz was outperforming your xp2800 at over twice the price.

use the money to get yourself an abit nf7-s and xp1700 instead. that'll kill a barton xp2800 and your motherboard dead

Mario Kart Slow - Investing in Hardware

Plugin Developer (GlideN64)

New member

?????????????????????????

New member

Nintendo Zealot

New member

New member

?????????????????????????

New member

New member

Active member

?????????????????????????

Irrelevant Insight

?????????????????????????

New member

Active member

New member

New member

Active member

HELL YES. IT'S ME!