Question regarding PC specs for running Big Box...

[FormulaFox]

Okay, so, I made an arcade cabinet(or rather, modded an Arcade1up to suit my goals). Everything's functioning - got 99.9% of the games working in Launchbox(only ONE of the nonfunctional games is NOT a MAME game ), joysticks and buttons registering properly on both sides, so now it's time for me to plonk down the money for a premium license to get Big Box going!

...Or is it?

You see, I've got a small issue specs-wise. Specifically, I'm not sure if I should get Big Box NOW, or get a small upgrade for the PC running it all first. I'm not just running MAME games, I'm also running console games up to PS2 era tht lend themselves well to arcade controls, as well as some Steam games, and the performance of this box is VERY sketchy at this level.

All of the games I've got run okay - as long as nothing else is running. Even on performance settings, many PS2 games struggle a bit if Launchbox is active. The Steam games I'm running all run fine at lowest settings, but can stutter while loading. (for reference's sake, the game I usually test with is BlazBlue Chronophantasma Extend - I'm not looking to run Street Fighter V on this thing)

I've never been clear about how much more resource-hungry Big Box is over LaunchBox, so I'm looking to find out just how on the edge I am so I can direct my financial resources more intelligently - I see no point in buying the license before my PC is ready to handle it.

So, you'll want specs to be able to answer this question I'm sure.

The computer is a HP Compaq Elite 8000 SFF(got it on the cheap refurbished through Newegg). 80GB SSD(plus a 1TB USB HD for the ROMs), 4GB DDR3 RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo 8500 3.1GHz CPU, Nvidia GeForce GT610 GPU.

I am looking to add another 4GB of RAM and a better GPU in the future - I suspect the RAM plus a GT1030 should alleviate the issues I have. Am I correct about this, or should I be putting my money into just replacing this thing? More immediately, will this handle Big Box okay, or would I need the upgrades first? If I'm good to go with Big Box, I wouldn't mind grabbing it to get the full functionality right away and just wait a bit longer to do the upgrades.

Or, if the CPU is just too hopeless for this task, some advice on a cheap PC build that would adequately handle the level of gaming I desire of it would be nice.

Thanks in advance for any advice that can be provided!

Edited March 26, 2020 by FormulaFox

[C-Beats]

Your RAM is kinda low simply because Big Box is a WPF application that loads quite a few resources into memory and so you could be hard pressed with 4GB. I have an Alienware Alpha I reformatted which has a i3-4130T in it and I have no issues running Big Box and games with it so would think the CPU is fine. As long as their isn't any known issues with that card/driver with WPF I would assume it would be fine.

There are far more hardware-centric people who are far more knowledgeably than I am in that department but I don't see any red flags, but may be worth waiting a few hours to see if anyone else chimes in.

[FormulaFox]

52 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

Your RAM is kinda low simply because Big Box is a WPF application that loads quite a few resources into memory and so you could be hard pressed with 4GB. I have an Alienware Alpha I reformatted which has a i3-4130T in it and I have no issues running Big Box and games with it so would think the CPU is fine. As long as their isn't any known issues with that card/driver with WPF I would assume it would be fine.

There are far more hardware-centric people who are far more knowledgeably than I am in that department but I don't see any red flags, but may be worth waiting a few hours to see if anyone else chimes in.

That certainly sounds like an additional 4GB of RAM and a GT 1030 should be enough, though the Core 2 Duo 8500 is a much older CPU than the i3-4130T.