PC Operating System Comparison

Introduction

Back in the day, MAME was developed to run from DOS and users had to use a Windows frontend or Mame32 to get it running in Windows. From MAME v0.37b15 onwards, Windows became the MAME developers' platform of choice.

Running an older version of MAME from pure DOS will allow you to run a large number of games at a higher speed than would be possible on the same computer running Windows.

These days, a DOS system can take a lot of work to set up correctly, due to the lack of software support from motherboard and device manufacturers. For these users, a Linux install makes a lot of sense.

Each of these three operating systems has advantages and disadvantages.

DOS

Advantages:

Boots to your Front-End faster

Stable, does not crash

Can display on an arcade monitor without special hardware

Using batch files (.bat) a high degree of customization is available (including menu creation)

Low cost

Disadvantages:

Newer hardware may not work under DOS (such as TV - Out and USB)

Nobody seems to understand DOS anymore

Linux

Advantages:

Free

Open Source

More likely to support newer technology than DOS

Disadvantages:

Lower market share

Can be complicated to set up

Windows

Advantages:

Huge market share advantage

Software generally is developed primarily for Windows (MAME and most front ends included)

Much larger selection of software

Disadvantages:

Is difficult to display on arcade monitor without special hardware

Longer boot time

Security holes

Frequent operating system patches needed

Higher cost

Relevant Links

Purple MAME - a good (but outdated) site on getting DOS Mame running on a cab.

Dos Mame Support - another good site on getting DOS Mame running on a DOS cab, including getting sound cards working and memory management.

How to make DOS Menus - a site showing how you can create menus in DOS (great for boot menus).

TODO: add FreeDOS add links to some Linux distros