Dolphin 3.5, Linux, and Settings

[djotaku]

Hey Guys!

A little background: over on my Windows Computer I have Dolphin 4 and a quad core Intel and middle of the road nVidia card and Super Mario Galaxy runs perfectly with default settings. I'm saying perfectly if most of the time it's between 85-100% speed. I know sometimes there's a lot of stuff on the screen and so performance dips a bit.

On my Linux computer I have Dolphin 3.5 from the RPM Fusion Fedora Repository. I've compiled stuff before, but I tend to have a pretty piss-poor success rate at it so I just stick with whatever's in the repos. So I know that 4.0 supposedly has a bunch of speed optimizations (although I don't know if those are OS specific or not), but I'm stuck with 3.5 on Linux. Have been in and out of emulation for the past 20 years, I've had a lot of experience twiddling settings to try and get games to play, but that experience has also taught me that it can be time-consuming and a bit of a waste of time.

So what I was hoping for was a list of the settings I could tweak to make it most likely that Super Mario Galaxy (and games as demanding or less) would play well on the Linux machine. Or to put it another way, rather than play with the 3 dozen or so setting in Dolphin, I was hoping to get an idea of which settings would have the most bang for buck.

I'm perfectly fine playing at native resolution. (If I want 720p or 1080, I'll boot up my Windows computer) I'm using Fedora 19 with the nVidia proprietary drivers. I have a dual core Intel in there, but I can't remember the exact specs at the moment. Most of my Gamecube games (except the most demanding ones like Smash Bros) seem to run well enough - 75-85%.

To try and head off any "why don't you just play it on Windows" replies - my Linux computer is my main computer so it's always on. My Windows computer is for PC gaming and photo editing so I don't always have it on. So I was trying to be able to just kick back and play some Dolphin-supported games without having to boot up another computer - with its associated waste of electricity and so forth. Also, this way I get the bonus of being able to listen to music and Dolphin audio together rather than one or the other.

Thanks for any help.

[Link_to_the_past]

(10-09-2013, 01:53 AM)djotaku Wrote: Hey Guys!

A little background: over on my Windows Computer I have Dolphin 4 and a quad core Intel and middle of the road nVidia card and Super Mario Galaxy runs perfectly with default settings. I'm saying perfectly if most of the time it's between 85-100% speed. I know sometimes there's a lot of stuff on the screen and so performance dips a bit.

On my Linux computer I have Dolphin 3.5 from the RPM Fusion Fedora Repository. I've compiled stuff before, but I tend to have a pretty piss-poor success rate at it so I just stick with whatever's in the repos. So I know that 4.0 supposedly has a bunch of speed optimizations (although I don't know if those are OS specific or not), but I'm stuck with 3.5 on Linux. Have been in and out of emulation for the past 20 years, I've had a lot of experience twiddling settings to try and get games to play, but that experience has also taught me that it can be time-consuming and a bit of a waste of time.

So what I was hoping for was a list of the settings I could tweak to make it most likely that Super Mario Galaxy (and games as demanding or less) would play well on the Linux machine. Or to put it another way, rather than play with the 3 dozen or so setting in Dolphin, I was hoping to get an idea of which settings would have the most bang for buck.

I'm perfectly fine playing at native resolution. (If I want 720p or 1080, I'll boot up my Windows computer) I'm using Fedora 19 with the nVidia proprietary drivers. I have a dual core Intel in there, but I can't remember the exact specs at the moment. Most of my Gamecube games (except the most demanding ones like Smash Bros) seem to run well enough - 75-85%.

To try and head off any "why don't you just play it on Windows" replies - my Linux computer is my main computer so it's always on. My Windows computer is for PC gaming and photo editing so I don't always have it on. So I was trying to be able to just kick back and play some Dolphin-supported games without having to boot up another computer - with its associated waste of electricity and so forth. Also, this way I get the bonus of being able to listen to music and Dolphin audio together rather than one or the other.

Thanks for any help.

You could try using Vertex Streaming Hack for opengl, or even delete / override the default gameini setting folder contents. The first is pretty safe for nvidia gpus while the second will probably speed up stuff in plenty of games at the cost of compatibility (crashes, effects broken etc.). The chase of speed is usually a tradeoff with compatibility, you can rarely have both high speed and equally high compatibility unfortunately.

[djotaku]

(10-09-2013, 06:33 AM)Link_to_the_past Wrote: You could try using Vertex Streaming Hack for opengl, or even delete / override the default gameini setting folder contents. The first is pretty safe for nvidia gpus while the second will probably speed up stuff in plenty of games at the cost of compatibility (crashes, effects broken etc.). The chase of speed is usually a tradeoff with compatibility, you can rarely have both high speed and equally high compatibility unfortunately.

OK, I'll check that out today.

[djotaku]

Hmm, looked through the settings and I couldn't find where to set that

[Shonumi]

(10-09-2013, 11:35 AM)djotaku Wrote: Hmm, looked through the settings and I couldn't find where to set that

Graphics -> Hacks tab -> Under the "Other" Section -> Vertex Streaming Hack. This is usually the only general setting (for me at least) that gives the most "bang for your buck". There is the VBeam Speed Hack, but that only works for certain games (right-click a game in Dolphin, go to Properties). If you have weak hardware, the short end of it is that you won't be able to magically maximize Dolphin's performance through settings. Unlike something like PCSX2, Dolphin doesn't have a lot of speed-hacks. The Dolphin Wiki can often advise you about which settings you should use on a per-game basis; check it out if you have the time. Just so we can better understand your situation, it would be useful to know the exact specs of both your Windows and Linux machines.

About SMG, don't be fooled :p You're probably playing it using HLE audio. HLE audio is not very demanding CPU-wise, but in this game it will cause issues for you eventually down the road (crashes/can't advance in SMG1, music drops eventually in SMG1 and 2). The solution is to use LLE audio, but this is an extremely demanding option, in this game especially. SMG1 or 2 under LLE audio is ridiculously CPU intensive; only OCed CPUs like the 2500K, 3570K, and the 4670K are generally able to handle this game consistently at fullspeed with LLE audio running. You can still get away with HLE audio if you're determined, just read the wiki to get an idea about the kinds of issues you'll run up against (and you may have to switch temporarily to LLE anyways to advance in the game).

Also, the resolution you can play at is determined by your GPU. Without your exact specs, I can only point you to the Minimum GPU Specs thread in this forum: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-minimum-specs-video-card You'll see roughly what your GPU is capable of, although it will vary from game to game. Some games are not the GPU intensive, and you can raise your IR quite high and add Anti-Aliasing to the mix. Others (again, SMG1 and 2) are very stressful on the GPU, and you may have to reduce your IR and AA.

Lastly, Linux rocks :p