At this point is it safe to say that using Dolphin is far better than the console?

[DrHouse64]

I use both, they don't serve the same purpose for me. My Wii and GameCube are still wired to my CRT tv (aka the only tv you need for these consoles) with master-race RGB SCART cables and it looks and feels glorious, zero input lag. Also, being able to play Seiken Densetsu 3 on a CRT is awesome, thanks to homebrew emulators.

[Slottedpig]

(11-14-2016, 09:05 PM)Admentus Wrote: Define "stutters like crazy". I agree there might be some hicups, but generally I could play through a lot of my games without having stutters at all. In case it does, I just have to decrease the anit-aliasing or tweak the CPU Clock Override. For texture packs I generally use the Prefetch to RAM option, through the Ocarina of Time / Majora's Mask texture pack plays very smoothly without prefetching it. The texture pack for Super Mario 64 does need to be prefetched through or I just cripple my performance at 10-20 FPS every time I turn the camera, Keep in mind that emulation is more intensive on the CPU than the GPU, unlike native PC gaming where a stronger GPU serves you better. Your GTX 1050 Ti should be more than enough for Dolphin. It might not be the best GPU out there, but for Dolphin it should be enough for 3x Native resolution (1080p).

If you experience slowdowns, you should try to disable anti-aliasing, ensure you are using HLE audio, the JIT recompiler, Dual Core is activated, that Store EFB Copies to Texture only is enabled (as long the game work remains playable, certain games such as Super Mario Sunshine must Store EFB Copies to Texture Only disabled), the Texture Cache is set to Fast (the same reason as with Store EFB Copies to Texture Only) and well... your settings are set to default. You should also compare which backend is the fastest for which game. Certain backends behave differently with different games.

You should also disable the CPU Clock Override if that demands too much of your system, an option which is mostly useful when trying to increase the quality of the game through codes such as increased FPS. Otherwise this option might also be useful to maintain a stable framerate in demanding games such as the Last Story, provided you have the hardware to support it.

Well... Regarding stutters and shaders. A lot of the stutters might occurs because of the shaders being compiled. This is just an one-time process. Every effect seen in a game has to compiled into shaders. Once that effect has been compiled, the same effect should not cause any slowdown anymore. That is until you update Dolphin, your GPU or your GPU driver, which in that case resets the shaders, causing these effects to compile all over again. The longer you play a game, the less stutters you will notice. Just drive one lap in Mario Kart Wii for example and you can notice the second or third lap goes a lot smoother.

Right thats what Im saying regarding stutter and shaders, while it compiling the games are jumping all over the place.  My point is does this really constitute replacing the actual console?  Just weighing in,  I friggin love this emulator and it fits perfectly into my emulation machine which has a core i5 skylake with the 1050 ti in it.  I just wish they could finish and release the uber shader patch, which would solve most if not all the shader compiling issues.

[Admentus]

(11-15-2016, 12:02 AM)Slottedpig Wrote: Right thats what Im saying regarding stutter and shaders, while it compiling the games are jumping all over the place.  My point is does this really constitute replacing the actual console?  Just weighing in,  I friggin love this emulator and it fits perfectly into my emulation machine which has a core i5 skylake with the 1050 ti in it.  I just wish they could finish and release the uber shader patch, which would solve most if not all the shader compiling issues.

Well depending on your hardware it might. If your hardware is sufficient and if using the proper settings (and the latest official build of course) you might not have that many issues with shaders and stutters. Personally for me (with my given hardware) I can play almost every game in my libary without having my experience halted by shader compilations. So yes, I would see that Dolphin works as a replacement of the actual console, provided you do have the hardware.

Maybe in a few years from now or with ubershaders the system load will be lower on Dolphin. Even if Dolphin will not receive any speed performance optimizations anymore, our hardware will continue to improve over the years. It is the same as with N64 emulation, almost every modern system can run Project64 all maxed out without any loss of framerate where a few years ago systems could still struggle with it. I remember the day that when The Elder Scrolls IV came out for Windows my PC could barely run on Medium settings. Nowadays I could just as well throw a Ultra texture pack mod against and it would still not go below 60 FPS. All I am saying that is Ubershaders might not even be needed anymore in the future. Since the Wii is still a fairly new system (it is newer than the NES, SNES and N64) it is obvious it demands more raw CPU power. Emulation drastically demands more of your system's resources than if you would you play your games natively on the console itself, such is the nature of emulation. In years (perhaps in many years) from now even a new toaster would be able run Dolphin at fullspeed all maxed out.

All that matters in the end is accuracy. You could throw as much CPU power against it as you like, but that would not make the game bug-free. Yeah... Higher accuracy demands more CPU power. You would be thankful if an emulator valued accuracy above performance in the long run. Performance is easy to solve, accuracy is not.

[Slottedpig]

(11-15-2016, 12:34 AM)Admentus Wrote: Well depending on your hardware it might. If your hardware is sufficient and if using the proper settings (and the latest official build of course) you might not have that many issues with shaders and stutters. Personally for me (with my given hardware) I can play almost every game in my libary without having my experience halted by shader compilations. So yes, I would see that Dolphin works as a replacement of the actual console, provided you do have the hardware.

Maybe in a few years from now or with ubershaders the system load will be lower on Dolphin. Even if Dolphin will not receive any speed performance optimizations anymore, our hardware will continue to improve over the years. It is the same as with N64 emulation, almost every modern system can run Project64 all maxed out without any loss of framerate where a few years ago systems could still struggle with it. I remember the day that when The Elder Scrolls IV came out for Windows my PC could barely run on Medium settings. Nowadays I could just as well throw a Ultra texture pack mod against and it would still not go below 60 FPS. All I am saying that is Ubershaders might not even be needed anymore in the future. Since the Wii is still a fairly new system (it is newer than the NES, SNES and N64) it is obvious it demands more raw CPU power. Emulation drastically demands more of your system's resources than if you would you play your games natively on the console itself, such is the nature of emulation. In years (perhaps in many years) from now even a new toaster would be able run Dolphin at fullspeed all maxed out.

All that matters in the end is accuracy. You could throw as much CPU power against it as you like, but that would not make the game bug-free. Yeah... Higher accuracy demands more CPU power. You would be thankful if an emulator valued accuracy above performance in the long run. Performance is easy to solve, accuracy is not.

I agree with your last statement about accuracy.  The machine I'm running this on plays these games as a for instance Mario Kart wii, at 60fps constantly with an occasional frame drop for a split second, which I'm guessing is shader compilation.  Its a core i5 skylake 3.4Ghz and 8GB ddr4 memory and the 1050 ti.  Even on cube games, its just the shader compilation.  Im just anal about perfection.  I finally got my n64 emulator working great, not pj64 though because for whatever reason it says 60fps but its choppy.  Im using retroarch for nes, snes, gen, and n64.  Then I have dolphin for cube and wii.  Overall I'm extremely happy with dolphin, I'm comfortable enough with it that I am going to run through super mario sunshine on it to christen it.  Im not using and texture packs or anything either, the only thing I'm doing is 3x native for 1080p everything else is turned off.

[nursejoy]

(11-15-2016, 12:02 AM)Slottedpig Wrote: Right thats what Im saying regarding stutter and shaders, while it compiling the games are jumping all over the place.  My point is does this really constitute replacing the actual console?  Just weighing in,  I friggin love this emulator and it fits perfectly into my emulation machine which has a core i5 skylake with the 1050 ti in it.  I just wish they could finish and release the uber shader patch, which would solve most if not all the shader compiling issues.

Get a better graphics card. i5 skylake doesnt mean anything what model? i5 6400K, 6500K, 6600K? also thats a you problem because I can run Dolphin maxed settings on my machine and have no stutters specs listed in my signature

[nursejoy]

Like do not blame the emulator for you PC stuttering because at most you have an "alright build." You do not get to see Dolphin at its maximum performance. Especially the fact that it is CPU heavy that could be a huge reason for your stutter. I do not get any stutter so I know there is no issues with Dolphin on my end.

[JosJuice]

(11-15-2016, 07:14 AM)nursejoy Wrote: Like do not blame the emulator for you PC stuttering because at most you have an "alright build." You do not get to see Dolphin at its maximum performance. Especially the fact that it is CPU heavy that could be a huge reason for your stutter. I do not get any stutter so I know there is no issues with Dolphin on my end.

There's nothing wrong with wishing the ubershader patch would be finished.

[nursejoy]

(11-15-2016, 07:21 AM)JosJuice Wrote: There's nothing wrong with wishing the ubershader patch would be finished.

I get that but outright blaming the emulator and saying its completely its fault for an issue that is not really the emulators problem. Its misinformation that the user spreads when he does that.

[JosJuice]

(11-15-2016, 07:40 AM)nursejoy Wrote: I get that but outright blaming the emulator and saying its completely its fault for an issue that is not really the emulators problem. Its misinformation that the user spreads when he does that.

I can't see them blaming the emulator like that anywhere. I guess the "worst" would be "Does anyone care that the emulator stutters like crazy?", but on the other hand, there are also statements like "It is very impresssive" and "I friggin love this emulator" in the posts...

Besides, that it's "not really the emulator's problem" is arguable.

[Slottedpig]

(11-15-2016, 07:49 AM)JosJuice Wrote: I can't see them blaming the emulator like that anywhere. I guess the "worst" would be "Does anyone care that the emulator stutters like crazy?", but on the other hand, there are also statements like "It is very impresssive" and "I friggin love this emulator" in the posts...

Besides, that it's "not really the emulator's problem" is arguable.

Jeez, I was simply just wishing the patch would bring flawless results.  I think for $700 build which does more than just dolphin such as nes,snes,gen,n64 through retroarch Im making out like a bandit.  I mean after using it for a day or two in this system the stuttering is at a minimum now because it has already generated those shaders.  Im not going to build a beast of a machine for emulation, thats why I was inquiring about the patch.  Anyone who uses dolphin it seems are using a midrange system which is what I have.  Even on my actual gaming system though it does stutter a bit as well.  Im just really trying to condense my entertainment center and still have access to all these "systems".  As I said this is probably the most polished emulator out there that ive seen and with ubershader it makes it perfect for the regular person like me who isnt trying to play imports or anything just basic like super mario sunshine and mario golf and tennis and mario partys with the wife and kids.  I built this into a mini-itx build and im getting great results so far.  In one of my other posts i wanted to donate but sadly the devs arent taking donations.  Im a huge fan of game preservation and this piece of software protects 2 generations of games!  Kudos to the devs and everyone involved, but still give me my ubershader lol!! .