Dolphin 4.0.2 x86 and Windows 7 - Direct3D failing to initialize

[PokemonHacker95]

Hello all,
I'm having problems getting Dolphin x86 4.0.2 to work properly on my computer. The PC that I'm trying this on is a Dell Dimension E510. It has a Pentium D @ 2.66 GHz (dual core), 3 GB of RAM, and ATI Radeon X300/X550/X1050 graphics, and running Windows 7 Professional (32-bit). I am unable to use the Direct3D 11 or OpenGL backends. Choosing OpenGL results in the emulator spamming tons of message boxes about my card not supporting OpenGL 3.0, and choosing Direct3D 11 gives this message: "Failed to initialize Direct3D. Make sure your video card supports at least D3D 10.0". The emulator then crashes. Direct3D 9 is the only option that doesn't result in a crash, but it only displays a black screen on Super Smash Bros. Melee, and the background colors of the title credits on Super Monkey Ball. Is my video card really unable to run Dolphin?

I've attached the output of DxDiag. It doesn't seem to find any problems.

[Aleron Ives]

The Radeon X300 - X600 series is 10 years old and only supports D3D 9 and OGL 2, meaning that Dolphin is correct: you can only use D3D9 on your hardware. Quite simply, your hardware is too old to take advantage of what Windows 7 has to offer, and your CPU is far too old to run Dolphin at full speed, even if you manage to bypass the black screen problem. The Core 2 series is too old to get good performance in Dolphin, and your CPU is even older than that. It's also worth noting that Dolphin has progressed a lot since 4.0.2, but you can't use any of the new development builds, either, as you need a 64-bit OS to run them. You're going to have to build an entirely new PC if you want to use Dolphin, but on the bright side, a Haswell Pentium CPU and 750 Ti GPU are pretty cheap and also well suited to the task.

[KHg8m3r]

Yeah, your video card is too old to play Dolphin, and even if you got a new GPU, your CPU would prevent you from playing at anywhere near fullspeed

It's time to get a new computer.

[mimimi]

Your cpu is way too slow to play games at a proper speed. I have a Core 2 Duo @3.2 Ghz, which is like 50% faster than yours, and i have trouble getting games to play at full speed. A Pentium D is really bad, and its performance per Ghz is lower than the performance from a Pentium 3(yes 3!), Pentium M or Core something.

Edit: If you want to update cheap, you could consider the Pentium Anniversary Editon (G3258), it should be the cpu with the best bang for the buck in general and for Dolphin. Better would be a quad core i5 of course, but those are much more expensive. And then install Windows in 64 bit...
Edit2: If you want to update, consider that you don't need an ultra fast GPU for gaming. People who will tell you that only the GPU matters for games, have no idea at all. Some mid range GPU will play all games just fine, but you might need to lower the settings on the latest titles. But that's all, no newer game requires a really fast GPU, a slower GPU will only be limit the settings you can choose. The CPU on the other can can be a nasty limiting factor, because there's no way around it, like changing settings, it's either overlock or upgrade.

[PokemonHacker95]

I'm running the emulator from a USB flash drive in portable mode, which enables me to try it on different computers. I do disagree that the CPU is too slow for Dolphin. I have a laptop with a Core i3 @ 2.3 GHz, and Smash Bros. Melee, Super Monkey Ball, and Pikmin run perfectly fine on it with no lag at all (using the same exact version of Dolphin, and also running Windows 7 32-bit). Performance really does depend greatly on the game that's running. I'd expect similar performance from the Pentium D @ 2.6 GHz. The card does support D3D9, so I tend to think that this may be a bug in the (deprecated, yeah, I know) D3D9 backend. I've even tried running Dolphin on an Asus Eee PC that has Windows XP and crappy i915 integrated graphics, and Dolphin's graphics worked, albeit incredibly slow.

I don't plan on getting a new computer any time soon.

[KHg8m3r]

The Pentium D is vastly slower than the i3, and the pc with the i915 probably has a core 2 duo, which is still faster than the Pentium D.
I also had a similar Dell with the X3000 series of GPU, and it really sucks. It no longer meets the minimum requirements for Dolphin because it is missing so many instructions and is so old and slow.

[mimimi]

Lol, a Core i3 @ 2.3 Ghz is about 75% faster than a Pentium D @2.66 Ghz:
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Pentium-D-805-vs-Intel-Core-i3-2350M
(single core performance is the important one, especially for Dolphin)

So any game that runs at 105 fps on the Core i3 might work on the Pentium D.

If you think that benchmark is garbage, run the offical povray benchmark and provide your results.

[Xtreme2damax]

I used to own a computer with an AMD64 x2 3800+ which was faster than the Pentium 4/Pentium D. I got 10fps -13fps with Zelda Windwaker in Ye old revisions, probably much slower nowadays given improvements to the emulator. Most other games were not much better except for a select few. If you download older builds you may have luck with very few titles however if you run into issues you are on your own as those builds are no longer supported. Your processor has very low IPC and single threaded performance, disagree as you wish but facts are facts. You are going to need a far better system, Core2Duo minimum but i3,i5,i7 first gen and up recommended with a modern 64-bit operating system.

With a Core2Duo you still won't be able to run the more demanding games with decent performance but there would be several other games that would run fine. With my OC'd i7 I can run nearly every game in my library fine. Emulators are very cpu demanding especially when it comes to emulating hardware from the PS2/GC era and newer. You are going to need quite a beefy system to run games and achieve decent performance unless running games at a slideshow pace is your thing.

Btw when I tested Windwaker on my old AMD system that was long before audio improvements, improved accuracy and other improvements/features that would negatively impact performance. I also never extensively tested the game but the general fps I got in a few areas incl. outside the forbidden fortress was 10fps - 13fps. You might if you are lucky run games like Super Smash Bros Melee, Sonic Adventure to work decent enough on an older rev. of the emulator that would run on such a system.