Bad Dolphin performance on Mac OS X — 10 fps max

[knoerifast]

Even after following the performance guide, I still can't seem to get more than 10 fps using Dolphin on my latest-gen MacBook Pro.

I’ve even tried reducing the window dimensions to something very small like 320×240 px, but that didn’t seem to help much.

Am I doing something wrong? Are there some more settings that I could try? Has anyone else managed to get Dolphin running a game smoothly on a Mac?

Specs:

• Processor: 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 processor
• RAM: 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
• Model Name: MacBook Pro
• Model Identifier: MacBookPro6,2
• Processor Name: Intel Core i5
• Processor Speed: 2,53 GHz
• Number Of Processors: 1
• Total Number Of Cores: 2
• L2 Cache (per core): 256 KB
• L3 Cache: 3 MB
• Memory: 8 GB
• System Version: Mac OS X 10.6.5 (10H574)
  

Thanks in advance.

[Bart1975]

What is the video card on that system?
I would also suggest using bootcamp with win7 as Dolphin on OSX runs quite a bit slower than it does on win7.
That is how I do it with my Mac Mini.

[knoerifast]

(12-31-2010, 05:28 AM)Bart1975 Wrote: What is the video card on that system?

There are two video cards. For details, see below:

Intel HD Graphics:

Chipset Model: Intel HD Graphics
Type: GPU
Bus: Built-In
VRAM (Total): 288 MB
Vendor: Intel (0x8086)
Device ID: 0x0046
Revision ID: 0x0012
gMux Version: 1.9.21
Displays:
Display Connector:
Status: No Display Connected

NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M:

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0a29
Revision ID: 0x00a2
ROM Revision: 3560
gMux Version: 1.9.21
Displays:
Color LCD:
Resolution: 1680 x 1050
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Built-In: Yes
Display Connector:
Status: No Display Connected

[SantaC]

One is an integrated video card (worthless for dolphin) and one is a budget video card. And you expect good fps?

[knoerifast]

(12-31-2010, 05:46 AM)SantaC Wrote: One is an integrated video card (worthless for dolphin) and one is a budget video card. And you expect good fps?

Sorry SantaC, I don’t know anything about video card quality really. I didn’t know the NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M was that bad. I guess there’s nothing I can do about this then?

[Bart1975]

That budget video card is pretty good. It is OS X that is causing the biggest slowdown. I can play a good amount of games at a decent frame rate with my system.

[knoerifast]

(12-31-2010, 05:49 AM)Bart1975 Wrote: That budget video card is pretty good. It is OS X that is causing the biggest slowdown. I can play a good amount of games at a decent frame rate with my system.

Are you saying that hypothetically, Dolphin could work around this in the future by optimizing for OS X?

[Bart1975]

Well yeah Dolphin will eventually get better on OS X. I still recommend boot camp with win7 though for best performance.

[NaturalViolence]

Quote:One is an integrated video card (worthless for dolphin) and one is a budget video card. And you expect good fps?

These are not video CARDS since you can't take them out and put them in an expansion card slot. These are graphics processors. Anytime you are talking about a laptop you're talking about graphics processors since laptops don't have expansion slots for video cards.

Sorry, it just bugs the hell out of me when people use the wrong term.

[jeffmr]

I've got a 2008 macbook pro and it runs great in windows 7. Faster than the console even.