Dolphin: normal vs optimized builds - PAL vs. NTSC

[mans]

Two quick questions:

What is the difference between normal builds and optimized ones? Should I get better performance with the latter? Are all optimized builds the same? In other words, does who make the build matter?

Is there any difference between a PAL and a NTSC (U) game from an emulation point of view?
I know that they have difference characteristics, but I'm concerned whether Dolphin works better with one of them.
Thanks.

[shawnanastasio]

i havent been here in a while, but from what i remember optimized builds take advantage of cpu features like SSE3 and stuff, for me it dosent give a HUGE performance bump-up but it does help

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and most games run the same in pal vs ntsc on dolphin, just different default resolution and pal renders at 5o fps vs ntsc 60 fps

[NaturalViolence]

Quote:Is there any difference between a PAL and a NTSC (U) game from an emulation point of view?

25/50 fps is fullspeed for PAL games while 30/60 fps is fullspeed for NTSC games. That's the only difference as far as the emulator is concerned.

Quote:What is the difference between normal builds and optimized ones? Should I get better performance with the latter? Are all optimized builds the same? In other words, does who make the build matter?

Optimized builds are built using compilers that supposedly better optimize the machine code by using specific chip instructions. Sometimes they run a little faster, sometimes they don't. Optimized builds will only work with certain cpus while unoptimized builds will work with any cpu that supports sse2 or higher (basically every cpu since 2004). And no it should not make a difference who builds it.

[Link_to_the_past]

From my testing SSE 4.2, 4.1, 3 etc. optimized builds can sometimes make games go faster and others even slower than a normal build. It is game dependent really. Some people have said that if dolphin was written with such optimizations in mind it would be even faster, but then again it would make a lot of users with old cpu's (or even more recent AMD ones) unable to use dolphin.

[Anti-Ultimate]

hmm i don't optimize my builds to be fully compatible.
also when using optimations to the opengl plugin, it's too unstable and lags.

[mans]

I guess I'll try an optimized build when one gets updated, I could get some benefit since I have a SSSE3 CPU.
As for PAL vs. NTSC, if the only difference is the max FPS then I'm fine with whatever game I find at the games shop.
Thanks for the answers.