Can the ASUS X200MA run dolphin well?

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

(05-08-2018, 02:00 PM)KHg8m3r Wrote: If you want a 2-in-1 Acer, look at the newer Acer Spin 5. It has an 8th gen i5-8250U, Intel HD 620, 8 GB RAM, 1080p screen, and a 256 GB SSD for $740. Way better than the R14, but also more expensive.

I'm not so sure about "way" better as its biggest benefit, the quad core CPU, isn't really going to have much if any improvement for Dolphin.  However, being a quad core could very well mean that it would be better at keeping clocks up for lightly-threaded loads like Dolphin.

However, if one is willing to buy from a 3rd party seller on Newegg and is also willing to not stick with Acer, then this Dell Inspiron 5379 2-in-1 with an i7-8550U for $676 seems like the deal to get.

I also checked if there were any Ryzen models since Ryzen does well at keeping clocks boosted for extended periods, but oddly enough the 2500U models seem to be more expensive than those with an i5 (not to mention the general slim pickings of Ryzen laptops being available at all).

[DBurns]

Thanks guys, these are excellent suggestions, but I really can't afford to spend any more than 450 $. The only reason I'm even considering the Aspire r14 is because Acer currently has a great sale and it's in for 400$ instead if 750. And by the way, I'm not just looking for an Acer laptop but anything powerful for such a low price point. However, if anyone knows of a better laptop for that price point, or a better deal, I am completely open to that.

[admin89]

Daysky D-book Pro has Nvidia GT 940M and a Celeron SOC @ 2.2GHz for only $450 . Not sure if it can run Xenoblade but it will be much better than your current laptop since it does have a removable graphic card (MXM form factor) , 6GB of Ram and 128GB SSD

Otherwise just get a real gaming laptop , the Acer Aspire E15 $600 (i5 8250U + Nvidia MX150) , this one will run pretty much all games at full speed if you remove ulv i5's power limit via Intel XTU

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

(05-09-2018, 09:13 AM)admin89 Wrote: Daysky D-book Pro has Nvidia GT 940M and a Celeron SOC @ 2.2GHz for only $450 . Not sure if it can run Xenoblade but it will be much better than your current laptop since it does have a removable graphic card (MXM form factor) , 6GB of Ram and 128GB SSD

The Celeron in that is an N3450 which is also an Atom design, so in reality it shouldn't be all that much faster if at all.

(05-09-2018, 09:13 AM)admin89 Wrote: Otherwise just get a real gaming laptop , the Acer Aspire E15 $600 (i5 8250U + Nvidia MX150) , this one will run pretty much all games at full speed if you remove ulv i5's power limit via Intel XTU

If we're including 15" laptops, then something like the Acer Aspire 3 A315-41-R0GH with a Ryzen 2200U would actually be in OP's budget (why are there no 13 to 14" laptops with this CPU?! seriously...). However, the dumb thing only comes with a single 4GB stick of RAM (no idea if that specific laptop can support 2x4GB RAM), a 768p screen, and no SSD.

At least in terms of the processor itself, the Ryzen 2200U should only be a bit slower CPU-wise if at all (since 4c/8t mobile Ryzen already turbos quite well, and this is a 2c/4t part which is fine for Dolphin) while the GPU would likely be around Intel UHD 630 level at worst but maybe more like ~30% faster than Intel UHD 630 on average (assuming that both are using the same memory configuration of course).

[mstreurman]

(05-09-2018, 09:13 AM)admin89 Wrote: Daysky D-book Pro has Nvidia GT 940M and a Celeron SOC @ 2.2GHz for only $450 . Not sure if it can run Xenoblade but it will be much better than your current laptop since it does have a removable graphic card (MXM form factor) , 6GB of Ram and 128GB SSD

Otherwise just get a real gaming laptop , the Acer Aspire E15 $600 (i5 8250U + Nvidia MX150) , this one will run pretty much all games at full speed if you remove ulv i5's power limit via Intel XTU

Except maybe for the fastest Celeron currently available, the G3900 which is based on the Desktop Skylake architecture, current Celerons will have big issues running games in Dolphin. The Celeron SOC in the D-book Pro is the N3450, which is 1.1GHz base clock and has a turbo of up to 2.2GHz, and is based on Apollo Lake, which is also user for Intel's Atom line. (https://ark.intel.com/products/95596/Intel-Celeron-Processor-N3450-2M-Cache-up-to-2_2-GHz)

I have the Celeron N3350 1.1GHz (with turbo up to 2.4GHz) in my day2day laptop: New Super Mario Bros Wii (maybe the easiest game to emulate) is never running close to 60FPS and has very frequent slowdowns into the low 10's at 1x IR. (https://ark.intel.com/products/95598/Intel-Celeron-Processor-N3350-2M-Cache-up-to-2_4-GHz)

TL;DR: Don't buy a Celeron if you plan on Emulating anything that can use 3D graphics.

Edit: Quite strange how the Intel Celeron naming scheme works... It appears that a lower number has better specs...

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

Protip: Celerons and Pentiums with turbo are always Atom-based designs; Celerons and Pentiums without turbo are almost always* mainline Intel-based designs (Haswell, Skylake, etc).

*the only exceptions being some 5-year old Atom-based models

(05-09-2018, 09:39 AM)mstreurman Wrote: TL;DR: Don't buy a Celeron if you plan on Emulating anything that can use 3D graphics.

Mobile Core 2 Duo levels of performance is plenty for PS1 and N64 HLE emulation.

[admin89]

Quote: I have the Celeron N3350 1.1GHz (with turbo up to 2.4GHz) in my day2day laptop: New Super Mario Bros Wii (maybe the easiest game to emulate) is never running close to 60FPS and has very frequent slowdowns into the low 10's at 1x IR. (https://ark.intel.com/products/95598/Intel-Celeron-Processor-N3350-2M-Cache-up-to-2_4-GHz)

I believe Dolphin graphic requirement has increased recently

The main selling point of Dansky laptop is the removable graphic card . Normal Celeron laptops do not have any graphic card , Intel HD of SOC Celeron isn't fast enough for anything , not even 1xIR while GT 940M can handle 2.5xIR with ease . Not mentioning Intel HD will eat up system Ram and make your laptop run slower when you use it . Celeron laptops usually come with 4GB of Ram which is barely enough for Dolphin , now it also has to share memory with Intel HD

[mstreurman]

(05-09-2018, 10:09 AM)admin89 Wrote: I believe Dolphin graphic requirement has increased recently

The main selling point of Dansky laptop is the removable graphic card . Normal Celeron laptops do not have any graphic card , Intel HD of SOC Celeron isn't fast enough for anything , not even 1xIR while GT 940M can handle 2.5xIR with ease . Not mentioning Intel HD will eat up system Ram and make your laptop run slower when you use it . Celeron laptops usually come with 4GB of Ram which is barely enough for Dolphin , now it also has to share memory with Intel HD

How is 4GB's of ram barely enough for Dolphin? Dolphin uses about 512MB of RAM or 768MB on a bad day... Windows 10 x64 uses around 2GB of RAM on my 4GB day2day laptop and around 1.5GB on my 2GB RAM Atom Z3735F Tablet. That roughly leaves 1.2-2GB of RAM for the Intel HD 500.

The Intel HD 500 is roughly as fast as the Intel HD 4400 (this is interpolated, I could only find a few tests between the HD 500 and the HD 610 which show that the HD 610 is about 55% faster than the HD 500 and about 60% faster than the HD 4400) And the Intel HD 4400 is able to run 1x IR in NSMBU without much issues, so having taken out the iGPU as the culprit of low performance on my day2day laptop we only have the CPU left.

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

(05-09-2018, 10:09 AM)admin89 Wrote: GT 940M can handle 2.5xIR with ease

But what good is a GPU that can do 3x IR at 60fps if the CPU is only capable of running Dolphin at 20fps?

[DBurns]

Hello again! I've taken all these great suggestions into consideration and made somewhat of a choice. See, what I've really beeen looking for is a 1080p display, solid performance and reasonable price. So I've narrowed it down to the following four:

Aspire R 14 R5-471T-34L1
https://us-store.acer.com/offers/special-deals/aspire-r-14-laptop-r5-471t-34l1

Aspire E - E5-523-93FV
https://us-store.acer.com/offers/special-deals/aspire-e-laptop-e5-523-93fv

Aspire 3 - A315-41-R0GH
https://us-store.acer.com/laptops/classic/aspire-3-laptop-a315-41-r0gh

Acer Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM
https://www.amazon.com/Acer-E5-575-33BM-15-6-Inch-Notebook-Generation/dp/B01K1IO3QW

Edit: I know two of them do not have 1080p display but I'm willing to sacrifice that if it means better performance