Does my CPU suck that badly?

[Terranigma Freak]

Ok, after a lot of testing, I'm more confused than ever. First here are my specs.

Win 7 64x
Athlon II x2 215 2.7Ghz
3 GB of RAM
8800GS
SSE3

Now I'm not expecting miracles because I know the CPU is the lowest end of the Athlon II family, but from my research, it's also on-par if not a bit faster than the fastest Athlon 1 chips. I recall people saying they ran dolphin nicely with a Athlon 6000+.

The problem is I can run very few games at max speed. I've tried a few relatively slow (as in slow paced) games like Baten Kaitos. The game uses pre-rendered backgrounds, but whenever I exit the first house, my frame rate drops to 25fps. Even more ridiculous is that I can't run Blaster Master WiiWare at max speed, but I can run Muramasa at perfect 60fps. I can run Rune Factory Frontier nicely, but I can't run Melee at a steady 60fps. Hell, I'd be happy if I can get 80% speed when 4 characters are on screen.

I've tested the SSE3 supported builds and the regular builds. I see 0 difference in speed. I can't overclock my CPU since it's a pre-built by HP.

Now am I doing something wrong that I can't even run a 2D sprite based WiiWare game well, or is my only option a CPU upgrade?

[Vlad]

It doesent suck too much, but i would recommend you to use xp sp3 x64 till u upgrade your hardware

[Terranigma Freak]

It doesent suck too much, but i would recommend you to use xp sp3 x64 till u upgrade your hardware

XP SP 3? How do I do that?

[Xtreme2damax]

His hardware is fine, Windows 7 is the best choice for him especially for Dolphin if he is using the 64-bit builds...

[Terranigma Freak]

His hardware is fine, Windows 7 is the best choice for him especially for Dolphin if he is using the 64-bit builds...

Really? My hardware is fine? That's actually good to know. I'm aware that Dolphin still has ways to go in terms of optimization, but it just baffles me how I can't even run a sprite based WiiWare title at full speed. I guess I'll just sit tight and wait for new revisions and future optimizations then.

Oh yeah, the "glitch" where the game speeds up in your turn on the overlay stats works for Sengoku Basara 3 for me. That's the only speed up that works so far, but it also only works on Basara 3.

[Xtreme2damax]

Well for Windows 7 it is, I don't know about Dolphin. Although there are people with similar specifications that are able to run Dolphin just fine. Isn't your CPU based on the Phenom architecture, it should be fine if so.

[Terranigma Freak]

Yeah, it is based on the phenom architecture.

I run dolphin... fine... depending on the game. Just some of the weirder ones that baffles me, like Baten Kaitos. Some games slow down when there are more characters on screen, but Baten Kaitos saves polygons because of the pre-rendered backgrounds. That's what really gets me. Rune Factory Frontier is smooth as butter though, and that uses tons of polygons.

What about my SSE3 weirdness? Isn't SSE3 suppose to give me a boost compared to the non-SSE3 versions? I've tried both and I saw no boosts at all. I know I downloaded the correct version. I always double check because there's the annoying SSSE3 that you might miss the extra S if you're not paying attention.

[NaturalViolence]

I run dolphin... fine... depending on the game. Just some of the weirder ones that baffles me, like Baten Kaitos. Some games slow down when there are more characters on screen, but Baten Kaitos saves polygons because of the pre-rendered backgrounds. That's what really gets me. Rune Factory Frontier is smooth as butter though, and that uses tons of polygons.

Remember that we are emulating these games. Performance has nothing to do with how high end the games graphics are. It's about how hard it is to recompile everything properly in real time. Some games look bad and run bad, some games look great and run great. If your used to playing pc games then you have the mind set that high end = slower. But in emulation it doesn't matter. A high end game is just as likely to perform well or crappy as a low end game.

What about my SSE3 weirdness? Isn't SSE3 suppose to give me a boost compared to the non-SSE3 versions? I've tried both and I saw no boosts at all. I know I downloaded the correct version. I always double check because there's the annoying SSSE3 that you might miss the extra S if you're not paying attention.

It can give you a boost. It doesn't always, especially with AMD cpus (compilers tend to discriminate against amd cpus even if it's using the same instructions).

Your hardware is fine for dolphin and you should stick with win 7 x64 since you have enough ram and dolphin will run faster with in win 7 x64 than in win xp x64.

[admin89]

SSSE3 is only for Intel.You might O.C your CPU to 3.0-3.5ghz ,i'm pretty sure you'll get good speed with it
My Dual CoreO.Ced 3.4Ghz run SB3 in incredible speed

[NaturalViolence]

SSSE3 is only for Intel

He knows. Reread this part of his post:

I know I downloaded the correct version. I always double check because there's the annoying SSSE3 that you might miss the extra S if you're not paying attention.