core i7 and my Dolphin game speed

[ziotoo4]

Hello everybody!
Before everything else: i struggled for about 2 minutes between "support" and "general discussion"-in the end i chose the latter to open this thread, wich will surely be in the wrong section ^_^

Anyway...my question is fairly trivial: i recently upgraded my old core2 laptop to a brand new HP pavillion dv6 with a core i7 Q720 processor, 4 GB of RAM and an ATI mobility radeon 5650 with 1GB video memory.

Now, here is the point: i do see some improvements on the overall game speed (namely-zelda WW passed from 60 to 90%), but i am still struggling with some games. For example, Mario Kart Double Dash refuses to play at 100% speed-it reaches 90% but also tends to drop down to 65-75% when there is a lot of stuff on screen.

Now, i am not a programmer nor a hardware expert-i bought this laptop mainly to work (3d stuff and graphics), but i thought that Dolphin would be the icing on the cake. Core i7 was supposed to be the cream of the crop, yet some games (like the aforementioned Mario Kart DD) cannot yet reach 100%.

What am i missing here? Is there any magical setting i have forgotten to apply, or are we still far from 100% speed on some games? Or, even worse, core i7 was not the best laptop processor around, and i have been deceived by the evil PC shop salesman?

Thanks in advance,
Fede

[obscured]

Even tho it is a I7 it still have a low overall clock speed.

[anthonyda]

Plus it's the mobile chip, so it's crap too.

[Ocean]

(07-25-2010, 06:24 AM)anthonyda Wrote: Plus it's the mobile chip, so it's crap too.

tbh mobile i7's are monsters too, turbo boost will put it to 2.6-2.9ghz anyways & they beat most equivalent high-end core 2 quad desktop processors in benchmarks. If games are slow it's not his rigs fault.

Clock frequency is not the only determining factor of processor speed. See the article on megahertz myth.

Quote:The megahertz myth, or less commonly the gigahertz myth, refers to the misconception of only using clock rate to compare the performance of different microprocessors. While clock rates are a valid way of comparing the performance of different speeds of the same model and type of processor, other factors such as pipeline depth and instruction sets can greatly affect the performance when considering different processors. For example, one processor may take one clock cycle to add two numbers and another clock cycle to multiply by a third number, whereas another processor may do the same calculation in one clock cycle.

ziotoo4 Wrote:What am i missing here? Is there any magical setting i have forgotten to apply, or are we still far from 100% speed on some games?

Mario Kart has never been the fastest game on dolphin even with fast computers. Even the countdown clock before races can appear to be even 2-3 seconds slower than normal despite the fps being full.

Mobility radeon 5650 and mobile i7 720qm will practically give full fps or very near to it, in all games. You just didn't configure dolphin properly. Here is a good guide on how to set up various configs. http://www.dolphin-emu.org/configuration-explanation.html

[shade3134]

Ocean, just out of curiosity, why did you overclock your card that much? I've been looking at overclocking my i7 920, but I fear at wearing it's life thin if I do so. If playing games at roughly 3.0ghz does it, why go for more?

[Ocean]

Tbh, only for smg/smg2. It's the heaviest emulated game I've encountered so far, and was putting the cpu to a crawl in some places with lots of enemies even at past 3.5ghz.
Generally smg runs good even at lower freqs though. It wasn't a problem but just annoying

Quote:I've been looking at overclocking my i7 920, but I fear at wearing it's life thin if I do so. If playing games at roughly 3.0ghz does it

Yes, most games (I dare say 90%) will in fact even run good on your stock 2.67ghz. There are some exceptions though, you will notice them the more games you play.
Especially a few japanese games are *really* taxing on cpu power, not so much the graphics card. You will probably feel compelled to oc

[obscured]

Of course cpu architectures design is a factor but if the clock is still low the through put will be low no matter how effecient of a design. I essence his cpu is weaker then a 3ghz c2d easily. So you point doesn't matter. Especially on cisc type of cpu.

(07-25-2010, 06:43 AM)Ocean Wrote:

(07-25-2010, 06:24 AM)anthonyda Wrote: Plus it's the mobile chip, so it's crap too.

tbh mobile i7's are monsters too, turbo boost will put it to 2.6-2.9ghz anyways & they beat most equivalent high-end core 2 quad desktop processors in benchmarks. If games are slow it's not his rigs fault.

Clock frequency is not the only determining factor of processor speed. See the article on megahertz myth.

Quote:The megahertz myth, or less commonly the gigahertz myth, refers to the misconception of only using clock rate to compare the performance of different microprocessors. While clock rates are a valid way of comparing the performance of different speeds of the same model and type of processor, other factors such as pipeline depth and instruction sets can greatly affect the performance when considering different processors. For example, one processor may take one clock cycle to add two numbers and another clock cycle to multiply by a third number, whereas another processor may do the same calculation in one clock cycle.

ziotoo4 Wrote:What am i missing here? Is there any magical setting i have forgotten to apply, or are we still far from 100% speed on some games?

Mario Kart has never been the fastest game on dolphin even with fast computers. Even the countdown clock before races can appear to be even 2-3 seconds slower than normal despite the fps being full.

Mobility radeon 5650 and mobile i7 720qm will practically give full fps or very near to it, in all games. You just didn't configure dolphin properly. Here is a good guide on how to set up various configs. http://www.dolphin-emu.org/configuration-explanation.html

[ziotoo4]

(07-25-2010, 06:43 AM)Ocean Wrote: Mario Kart has never been the fastest game on dolphin even with fast computers. Even the countdown clock before races can appear to be even 2-3 seconds slower than normal despite the fps being full.

Mobility radeon 5650 and mobile i7 720qm will practically give full fps or very near to it, in all games. You just didn't configure dolphin properly. Here is a good guide on how to set up various configs. http://www.dolphin-emu.org/configuration-explanation.html

thank you for the useful info! I will check out the configuration, then!
Can someone also point out a game (wii or GC) where i am sure to get 100% speed? (to test out the configuration...)

(07-25-2010, 09:08 AM)Ocean Wrote: Tbh, only for smg/smg2. It's the heaviest emulated game I've encountered so far, and was putting the cpu to a crawl in some places with lots of enemies even at past 3.5ghz.

wow...then i assume that playing Mario Galaxy on my laptop at decent speeds is a dream ^_^


Also, a less dolphin-related question: my pc-shop salesman talked about a technology called Turbo-boost, that should give more power to my CPU. To me it seems like the old graphic card trick (like: 128 mb dedicated, can get an additional 384mb from RAM-->declare "512 mb") but maybe i am wrong.
Does it automatically turn on, or should i have to fiddle with some config???

Let me know, and thanks in advance ^_^

Fede

[admin89]

"Muramasa the demon blade"(120-150 FPS ingame) ,"New Super Mario Bros"(80-100 FPS ingame) are the best game you can test with 200% speed
I'm not sure for you but i can run "Sonic and the black knight"which is a super heavy game fullspeed no need overclocking anything over than 3Ghz .Beside don't overclock your laptop,it will overheat and die soon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lor7saanAkc

[obscured]

oh why did you delete your post ocean? hahahaha Faster then a 5ghz c2d laff.