Best modern mid-range GPU for Dolphin?

[rikame]

Hey all, I had posted a thread a while back about a build I was doing, although it's irrelevant now because my build ended up being rather different and less budget. This question shouldn't depend to much on my own specs and is more general, but maybe it will provide some useful information for my own build (probably not).

I had searched the forum for anything that might answer this question, but I couldn't find anything conclusive. I mean, it probably exists and I just couldn't find it, but here we go. The options for "mid-range" GPUs seem to be the following:

• RX 470 4gb vram
• RX 470 8gb vram
• RX 480 4gb vram
• RX 480 8gb vram
• GTX 1050 Ti 4gb vram
• GTX 1060 3gb vram
• GTX 1060 6gb vram
  

Now, when it comes to general gaming, the sensible choices are the RX 470 4gb, the RX 480 8gb, and the GTX 1060 6gb. When it comes to Dolphin, though, what I'm not sure of is basically these three things and I was hoping to have these questions in particular answered:

1. Do NVIDIA cards out-perform AMD cards in emulation in a manner similar to how Intel CPUs outperform AMD CPUs, or does emulation capability scale about the same as general gaming capability?
2. How much does vram matter? Is there ever any reason to get more than 4gb for Dolphin? Would 4gb be plenty for something like that high-resolution Twilight Princess project?
3. If vram does matter then, to give an example, assuming that an RX 470 8gb and an RX 480 4gb cost the same, which would be better for Dolphin?
   

Any help or insight is appreciated!

Relevant part builds just in case:

• ASUS Z170i ITX Motherboard
• Intel Core i5-6600K
• Cryorig H7 - Expecting to clock to 4.0-4.2GHz, 4.5 might be attainable
• 2x4gb 2400mhz C16 RAM - I'll upgrade next time I find a Team Dark deal because I keep missing those
  

[Ivybridge11]

Dolphin's GPU requirements aren't really very high, unless you want to run it at very high Internal Resolutions or with SSAA Even then, even a 1050 would likely be enough for some games.
The cards are more equal than the processors, but NVIDIA has a faster OpenGL driver, wheras the OpenGL backend on AMD cards can be pretty slow.
Other than that, there are also some driver issues that show up in AMD cards and can cause glitches in Dolphin.
Just a user here, but that's my view on it at the moment.

[Helios]

all of those GPUs could run Dolphin flawlessly.

damn bare minimum would probably be Intel HD 3000, as that one probably can't even handle 1x in most games, midrange would probably be HD 4600 or skylake's equivalent. Probably pull 2x relatively okay in the popular games. High tier is.... Almost everything stronger than that.

[admin89]

Agree . GTX 1050 2GB will more than enough for 1080p unless SSAA involves .
Because if you use too much SSAA(like 8x or 9x SSAA) , a GTX 1080 may not even be enough ...
My GTX 750Ti can handle 4x native + FXAA just fine (or 3x native + FXAA in demanding games)

Quote:Do NVIDIA cards out-perform AMD cards in emulation in a manner similar to how Intel CPUs outperform AMD CPUs

No , Nvidia usually has better compatibility (except the well-known buggy GPU : Nvidia GT 240) . Base on reports from many AMD users , current AMD GPU is not good for emulators like Dolphin (crash a lot) and Cemu (much slower than Nvidia counter part even though they use the same CPU)
And hold your horse there . Did you know AMD Ryzen is coming ? It might be on par with latest Intel CPU for less money (8c/16t for like $320 , 6c/12t for like $259) . Quad Core will probably be obsolete soon ...

Quote:How much does vram matter?

VRAM doesn't matter with Dolphin (If you're talking about PC game then it's a different story). I could run game at 1080p with just 512MB from my old 9800GT
However , memory bandwidth does matter a lot

[rikame]

(02-19-2017, 10:43 AM)Helios Wrote: all of those GPUs could run Dolphin flawlessly.

damn bare minimum would probably be Intel HD 3000, as that one probably can't even handle 1x in most games, midrange would probably be HD 4600 or skylake's equivalent. Probably pull 2x relatively okay in the popular games. High tier is.... Almost everything stronger than that.

Whoops sorry, I should have clarified, I am looking to run at high settings. Decent AA, and 6 IR, ideally.

Also @admin89 yeah I know about Ryzen haha, I simply got too impatient. Thing is, I've been trying to build this computer for more than a month. Didn't expect that I would have to go through two different motherboard RMAs but by now I have everything except the GPU.

Edit: Part of why I'm asking in general is that because of rebates and all, I can basically pay the same amount of money and have my choice between the RX 470 4GB or the 8GB or the RX 480 4GB, so I'm choosing between the latter too. It's really hard to say what the best answer is for PC gaming in general and I have even less idea of how it would translate to Dolphin, although if I had to pull a guess out of thin air I'd think that the RX 480 with less vRAM is preferred, based on what you said.

[Helios]

IMO you shouldn't ever need to justify when you're buying a new PC. There's ALWAYS something new around the corner.

Anyways yeah. Any of those GPUs will run Dolphin at high settings. even the RX 460 probably.

Just note that if you go with an AMD GPU, as good as Dolphin's OpenGL backend is, it is NOT recommended for AMD GPUs as it is very slow there. Direct3D 11 or Vulkan is the better option for that. Direct3D 12 being okay as well but not recommended because it is no longer maintained.

[Gregtastic]

I know that people say the AMD cards crash more in emulation.....but I haven't had a problem with my 480.....and for the budget of these cards I'd really recommend a 470 or 480.....probably a 470....especially if you decide to use the PC for more modern games.

[Guilherme]

Even my GTX 650 can run games at 1080p with no troubles, GTX 1050 is at least 3x more powerful than my card, so you could even try 4K on this. But between these cards, I rather RX 470, better price/performance.