Choosing a CPU

[Pilotwings64]

(08-05-2020, 07:32 AM)Lylat1an Wrote: In my experience;  Dolphin cares more about overall CPU speed than how many cores you have, though I'd say 4 cores should be the absolute minimum.


And for what it's worth, I run a 10-core Intel i9-series CPU and watch my system's loads on a second monitor:  I've never seen an application max out all of my CPU's cores, and I have hyper-threading disabled.

Thanks Lylat1an. Your CPU is actually one of the two I'm trying to choose between.

How high does the CPU load go on the cores being used by Dolphin?

[AnyOldName3]

I think the gist of the situation is that either of the CPUs you suggested is capable of running anything that Dolphin can run at a playable speed. There might be a couple of games that don't run at full speed on any hardware yet (due to requiring costly accuracy settings like Interpreter instead of JIT), but other than that, everything will be fine whichever you choose. You should focus on what other software you'll be using needs.

The Ryzen 9 will easily beat the i9 in heavily-multithreaded applications, but the i9 will have an edge in single-threaded ones and ones that can only use a few threads. Other than Dolphin, there's not that much that needs lots of CPU power but only runs on a few threads any more. Games from a few years ago can fit into that category, but they'd have been aiming to run well on lower-end CPUs from a few years ago, so you're probably going to find that you'll be happy with either when running them.

[Lylat1an]

(08-05-2020, 10:19 AM)Pilotwings64 Wrote: Thanks Lylat1an. Your CPU is actually one of the two I'm trying to choose between.

How high does the CPU load go on the cores being used by Dolphin?

Actually, my CPU model ends with an X, not a K.  The main difference is that mine supports 48 PCI Express lanes, the K only does 16.



It's great for a REALLY over-the-top system with lots of add-in cards, but not easy to find.


Getting back to your question, Dolphin's thread usage goes up and down depending on how much there is to do, but I don't think they've maxed out yet.

In Twilight Princess, I'm getting about half to 60% thread usage in Hyrule Field with optimizations.

[Pilotwings64]

Thanks AnyOldName3!

I'm mostly, though not exclusively, interested in the mainstream games when it comes to GC and Wii (Mario, Zelda, Resident Evil, Animal Crossing). I will likely purchase my graphics card months after I build the rest of the computer. As long as my CPU lets my graphics card consistently give me at least 4K internal resolution, 1080P screen resolution at 60 FPS with graphics enhanncements (where the latter two are available) on those kinds of games and something close to that on most others, I'll be happy.

If all I cared about was Dolphin I would get the Intel chip, because I'm pretty sure it will give at least some boost in performance, though it could be negligable.

Outside of Dolphin I'll be doing some photo and video editing, 3 modeling, PC gaming, and running virtual machines. I think all of those will benefit from the Ryzen's much higher core count. The only exception to that I've come accross is that current Intel chips are much better at encoding video, but only for HEVC (or so I've read).

I'm also going to be using a Micro ATX or Mini ITX mobo, and probably the smallest case I can get away with. The Ryzen's much cooler operating temperature, would give me a lot less heat to move away from the rest of the components.

I just want to be reasonably sure that Dolphin performance on my PC will not make me regret getting the R9 3950X, vs the 9-10900K. There's a 0.4 GHz difference in the max clock speed (4.7 vs 5.1). I'm not sure what the difference in IPC is, and I've had trouble finding that info from a source that seems reliable. If I'm looking at a differnce of less than 5% difference in Dolphin performance, I'm good, but it's looking like that might be hard to quantify with the information available to me at this point.

[Pilotwings64]

(08-05-2020, 01:46 PM)Lylat1an Wrote: Actually, my CPU model ends with an X, not a K.  The main difference is that mine supports 48 PCI Express lanes, the K only does 16.



It's great for a REALLY over-the-top system with lots of add-in cards, but not easy to find.


Getting back to your question, Dolphin's thread usage goes up and down depending on how much there is to do, but I don't think they've maxed out yet.

In Twilight Princess, I'm getting about half to 60% thread usage in Hyrule Field with optimizations.

Oops, I must be doing too much multitasking. I think the K will be enough for me. I'm going to use one graphics card. I might add a sound card later, but that's unlikely.

Thanks for the info on your thread usage. That actually gives me a good data point on a game I will definitely be playing. Do you use high internal and screen resolutions, high FPS, and graphical enhancements?

[AnyOldName3]

Console games tend to run at a fixed framerate - they're designed with specific hardware in mind, so the developer knows exactly what it can do in 16.6 ms, and doesn't need to bother making the game run at the same speed no matter the framerate. If your system's fast enough to run a game at its intended speed, that's the speed it'll run at. You can disable the frame limiter, but then everything will move too fast, or you can try playing on a slower machine, but then everything will move too slowly and you'll get audio stuttering. Once you've got enough CPU performance for Dolphin, it doesn't care in the slightest about how much you've got spare. If everything else you want to do would run better on the Ryzen, that's what you should go for.

[Lylat1an]

(08-05-2020, 02:29 PM)Pilotwings64 Wrote: Oops, I must be doing too much multitasking. I think the K will be enough for me. I'm going to use one graphics card. I might add a sound card later, but that's unlikely.

Thanks for the info on your thread usage. That actually gives me a good data point on a game I will definitely be playing. Do you use high internal and screen resolutions, high FPS, and graphical enhancements?

I'm playing TP at 8x internal resolution with 4x anti-aliasing.  I could probably go higher, but it still looks beautiful at 4.  The game only runs at 30 FPS.

If you're only using a K, avoid any other PCI Express SSDs or add-in cards aside from your video card.

I use a Sound Blaster X3 external USB 7.1 surround sound card, no complaints at all on that.

[Pilotwings64]

Thanks AnyOldName3. I'm going with the Ryzen

[Pilotwings64]

(08-06-2020, 02:22 AM)Lylat1an Wrote: I'm playing TP at 8x internal resolution with 4x anti-aliasing.  I could probably go higher, but it still looks beautiful at 4.  The game only runs at 30 FPS.

If you're only using a K, avoid any other PCI Express SSDs or add-in cards aside from your video card.

I use a Sound Blaster X3 external USB 7.1 surround sound card, no complaints at all on that.

Thanks for the info, Lylat1an!

I ended up getting the Ryzen 9 3950X. I'll look into that sound card.

[Anton007]

I just have to say that Intel has higher single core performance and that is what you might. Want in Emulation science since no emulator can use your 90000 cores properly

Just keep this in mind