Dolphin PC buying guide

[Mequa]

Hi, is this setup fast enough to play most Wii games on Dolphin at 1080p and 60FPS?

Intel Core i7-2600 3.4GHz (quad core)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti
6GB RAM
Windows 7 Professional x64

I've already achieved spectacular results with Super Smash Bros. Brawl at 1080p in the recent x64-r7689 build. It runs solidly at 60FPS with Vsync in full HD. The "Final Destination" environment at 1080p/60FPS (with full anti-aliasing and per-pixel lighting) is some truly stunning emulation, it is hard to believe this is an emulated game - or for that matter, a Wii game as opposed to 360 or PS3 or native PC.

Somehow, I doubt the Wii U will do much better for original Wii games than Dolphin (if it also supports enhancing them to HD).

[vortextk]

With overclocks probably for the tougher games as I think people shoot for well over 4ghz to truly play anything, and 60fps is not always standard. Realize some games play at 30fps and -must- be played at their regular framerate for regular speed.

[Mequa]

(08-04-2011, 04:35 PM)vortextk Wrote: Realize some games play at 30fps and -must- be played at their regular framerate for regular speed.

That is also the case when emulating other gaming platforms (unless the emulator can work at double speed with turbo gameplay, preferably with Vsync - maybe this will be possible with Dolphin if/when we see 8GHz systems).

P.S. I get smoother emulation with x64-r7689 build than with version 3.0 (x64), I can even enable full anti-aliasing and Brawl doesn't slow down.

The only small slowdowns I get seem to be related to hard drive as opposed to CPU performance (defrag helps on Windows 7 - I use Auslogics).
I've still to try more demanding games though.

[obscured]

(08-04-2011, 04:41 PM)Mequa Wrote:

(08-04-2011, 04:35 PM)vortextk Wrote: Realize some games play at 30fps and -must- be played at their regular framerate for regular speed.

That is also the case when emulating other gaming platforms (unless the emulator can work at double speed with turbo gameplay, preferably with Vsync - maybe this will be possible with Dolphin if/when we see 8GHz systems).

P.S. I get smoother emulation with x64-r7689 build than with version 3.0 (x64), I can even enable full anti-aliasing and Brawl doesn't slow down.

The only small slowdowns I get seem to be related to hard drive as opposed to CPU performance (defrag helps on Windows 7 - I use Auslogics).
I've still to try more demanding games though.

[vortextk]

Well anti aliasing is graphics card based, it's not really hitting your processor..so yeah. Try smg 1 & 2, though presumably it seems you might not play those at full speed without some overclocks and I think the K series processors kind of beast the regular numbered entries. I have yet to read about HD performance affecting much outside of like dinosaur hard drives. I'm glad it runs for you, but if you have a question ask it, rather than state how amazing brawl plays? lol

[setya5785]

2500k or 2600K should do just fine on SMG 1 and 2 at stock clock, even on LLE DSP.

[Mequa]

I'm not sure why my last account got deleted.

I tried SMG 1 and 2, and got almost consistent 60FPS after fiddling with the settings (and disabling anti-aliasing). I got occasional slowdown on SMG 1 at 1080p (to around 55fps when things got very busy), but haven't tried overclocks yet. I don't think it would need much of a boost.
I need to query whether my PC's warranty would be affected, although it currently runs very cool indeed (when idle, 19C for CPU, 25C for motherboard, thanks to the new power-efficient i7s and some powerful fans), and includes software to overclock.

I got some crashes with SMG 2, but other than that, performance was as good as SMG 1.

As a demonstration I do prefer the "Final Destination" stage from Brawl though - set up a 5 minute CPU vs CPU battle on that stage between e.g. Mario and Pikachu, in 1080p, and you have something which can really show off Dolphin's capabilities. (Even if SMG 1 and 2 are technically superior.)

Mequa

[Mequa]

OC'ing to 4GHz was a success - no more slowdown in SMG1, and the CPU temperature stays below 55C.

The only issue so far seems to be with games incompatible with the "Dual Core" speedup (which lock up or crash). Even at 4GHz, it seems to struggle to emulate everything on one core without a small amount of slowdown.

[Anti-Ultimate]

What Cooler do you use ?

[7heBoss]

Alright, I finally have the parts for my computer. It took me a while waiting for all the right deals, but would dolphin be able to run at full speed?

Asus P8P67 Pro
Intel Core i5-2500K
XFX Radeon HD 6850 1GB
G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600
2x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB in RAID 0

Got all this for $588 total. I'll probably get a Corsair A50 CPU cooler before putting it together.