Buying a new laptop

[Sativa]

i've been looking at an Asus laptop and a HP laptop.

Will any of these run the dolphin emulator?

Asus specs:
Intel Core i5 480M Processor
4 GB ram
ATI mobility Radeon HD 6370M gfx 1 GB


HP specs:
AMD Phenom II 960 Quad Core processor
6 GB ram
ATI mobility Radeon HD 6650 gfx 1 GB


im a huge fan of n64, and always wanted to play the GC games aswell.. im no pc expert when it comes to specs, especially processor specs, but hope one of those is good enough for the dolphin emulator ..

(oh, i tried looking around if there was a thread for "ask if ur pc specs are good enough", but didnt find one, so sry in advance if there is one )

[LordVador]

It should be enough to play GC games yes

[synce]

The Asus is decent if you're fine with native res.

[dannzen]

i stopped at "Buying a new laptop" and "Will any of these run the dolphin emulator?"

go and buy an normal rig

[Sativa]

i stopped at "Buying a new laptop" and "Will any of these run the dolphin emulator?"

go and buy an normal rig

hah, well .. my old laptop died on me, and as im studying, i need a laptop, even though i really prefer a stationary pc. Managed to save up some money in the summer holidays, but this is sadly my budget.

Anyway, what processor is "better" for dolphin? one is duo, other is quad, right?

I'm aware the laptop most likely wont run WII games, but will it run gamecube games flawlessly? I actually prefer the native res for some reason.

[HawaiianPunch]

Get the Asus with the i5. No, it won't run GC games flawlessly but it depends on the game. Most GC games will be perfectly playable, and easy ones (Pikmin, Double Dash!!) will be fullspeed.

[synce]

Intel is always better clock for clock. Ideally you want 3GHz for good results, over 4GHz for best. My mobile i7 runs at 2.6GHz and I get over 90% speed in Metroid Prime and PN03, 100% in the RE games. Wii games get similar results, very very playable.

EDIT: Scratch that. I get over 100% speed in MP and PN03. Turns out I had my CPU throttled at 2GHz

All you need is a dual core but who knows, there might be quad support in the future. Recently a PCSX2 dev shocked everyone with a revision that increased support from 2 cores to 3. Many games saw a 20% FPS improvement on my laptop

Anyway here's a shopping tip. When looking at Intel's turbo boost speeds use google to check the speed you get when all cores are being used, which is typically lower than the one they advertise.

[HawaiianPunch]

It's usually 200Mhz lower, to be exact, for the conversion from 1 core speeds to 2 core speeds.

[admin89]

I5 4xxm is the only type CPU can max turbo on 2 core if it's not overheating , you should buy a good laptop cooler as well
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_i5/In...-480M.html
Compare to the other :
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_i5/In...119AE.html
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_i5/In...2410M.html

AMD Phenom N960 @ 1.8Ghz is hell slow , it's not worth for gaming

[Sativa]

thanks for all the replies!

last question.
just found another laptop with Intel i7-740QM(1.73GHz) processor.

For the dolphin emulator only, would the i5 be faster than the i7?