Dolphin only using about 20% of each CPU core

[JosJuice]

(07-23-2019, 07:39 AM)mimimi Wrote: Slightly offtopic: Why do you have progressive scan enabled? As far as i understand it, it can have bad side effects, while Dolphin cheats to achieve its supposed effect by default. If i understand it correctly, Dolphin renders and displays all lines even in interlaced mode, and only very few games, if any at all, use weird tricks that make this behavior fail.

Enabling progressive scan shouldn't have any negative consequences.

[OverMighty]

Alright, I think the bottleneck was my GPU.

I also got 35 FPS while playing Mario Kart Wii using Dolphin 5.0 on Windows, and after using the OverDrive feature in AMD Radeon Settings on Windows to push my GPU's clock speed from 400 MHz to 700 MHz and my GPU's memory clock speed from 666 MHz to 900 MHz, my 35 FPS in Mario Kart Wii turned into a steady framerate of 60 FPS.
I guess overclocking my GPU on Linux will fix my framerate issues on Linux too.

Now my GPU's temperature hits 88°C while playing Mario Kart Wii. Since my GPU has no fan and just a heatsink, I think I should buy a fan and stick it to my GPU somehow.

[AnyOldName3]

88°C is within tolerance for most GPUs, so I wouldn't stress too much, even if it isn't ideal. Messing around with cooling is probably more trouble than it's worth for an HD 5450 - you might be able to pick up something second hand that's faster for about the same money as a fan.

[OverMighty]

What kind of cheap GPU could I get?

[AnyOldName3]

Just as an example, the HD 6450 is a chunk faster (percentage-wise - it's still slow), and is also so old that used ones go for next to nothing.

[JonnyH]

(07-24-2019, 02:55 AM)OverMighty Wrote: What kind of cheap GPU could I get?

It really depends on what your price range is and what the market is like in your location. Also you should be aware of any increased power requirements, as well as any size restrictions for whatever case you have.

Like here I can get a second hand radeon 7770 for ~$35, which is a newer architecture (GCN) that still gets support and new API compatibility (vulkan and dx12, as well as a much better supported linux driver, which may be more relevant here), which the 6000 and below series do not, while being a *lot* faster in nearly everything, but may struggle at higher IRs above 1080p.

Or I can get a radeon rx550 new for $85 or so if you don't want to risk used hardware (but that will also be a fair bit faster than the 7700 example above while using less power).

Or the equivalent nvidia cards: a 750ti (approx the same speed as the radeon rx 550 above) seems to be going for ~$50-60 second hand.

But local prices may be different, and while $40 may not seem that much to me, I overspend on "enthusiast" hardware all the time - and don't mind my machine looking like the monolith from 2001.