Are my laptop specs too weak for Dolphin?

[thelanceleader]

I just started playing F Zero GX and went straight to a practice race to test out my settings. I started with pretty low settings: 2x IR, 2x AA, 16x AF, and per-pixel lighting. Full screen display is 1920x1080. I was getting 40-ish FPS so I had to lower my settings until I was left with only 2xIR, in which case I finally got 60FPS more or less. I thought my computer would be able to handle it better than it did, after all there isn't much visual flourish in this game (as far as I can tell, anyways). These are my specs:

Intel Core i7 3630QM (4 cores @ 2.4 GHz) with Turbo Boost (I know turbo boost isn't much help here but still)
Nvidia GeForce GTX 670MX 3GB (with a slight overclock to core and memory)
8GB RAM
And the games are running off HDD not SSD (I dont have SSD but just wanted to make clear)

So, is my laptop too weak to run games at higher settings? It runs PCSX2 just fine at higher settings.

[Shonumi]

Yup, your specs are too weak. Specifically, your CPU is clocked far too low for this game. F-Zero GX is a very demanding game in Dolphin (and some points are very intense, like Sand Ocean). Turbo Boost would actually make a noticeable difference in your case, though it would not give you fullspeed. You should be able to Turbo Boost on 2 cores; see this guide (Part 1) to setup ThrottleStop: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-unofficial-laptop-performance-guide

thelanceleader Wrote:It runs PCSX2 just fine at higher settings.

But Dolphin isn't PCSX2 (as you've found out the hard way :p)

[mbc07]

That CPU goes to 3.2-3.4GHz with Turbo Boost (as long as it doesn't get too hot). It can handle some demanding games fine, but I'm afraid this isn't the case for F-Zero GX (I don't have that game, so I can't say for sure)...