Effects of operating systems and plugins on games

[thepumaman]

First of all, i'm on a mac with snow leopard v 10.6.8 and using Dolphin 3.5 (basic release, not a further revision) for mac (duh)

Alright, i've already complained about bugs with this game (timesplitters 3: future perfect), but i suspect fraud in some gameplay videos i've seen. Someone posted this on youtube claiming it was a dolphin run http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAP6V-fD8uY Ok, as far as i can tell it's not brand new, and i can't replicate this performance on my version (3.5 stable release) no matter what i do. My questions are these:

1) are there any plugins for lighting or graphics or anything else that can get this game to run this smooth (and are they compatible with mac)

2) can the operating system really affect the compatibility this much? (i believe the video is from windows 7) is there any way around this?

3) lastly, is there any chance that the video was attained in any other way and is thus fake... in this case, why? that's just mean

thnks

EDIT: ok i checked the thread for this game... according to some people, it doesn't work at all. according to others, they can get it to run at full speed with "MMU" but there are still crashes. I'm somewhere in between. I get ingame but i also get crashes (consistently in certain places, making the game unplayable). I also get slowness and serious lighting bugs. so, anyway:

4) what is "MMU" and how do i enable it for mac? i'll try and look this up on my own in a moment.

[admin89]

You should install windows 7/8 64bit via bootcamp
Most Mac users in this forum do the same as i tell you. Mac OSX - OpenGL is slower than Windows x64 - Direct3D9 backend
Nvidia GPU - Lighting bugs via OSX are known issue -> Install Windows to fix

Quote:Can the operating system really affect the compatibility this much?

Of course , it does

Quote: I also get slowness

Because your CPU is slow , GPU is not fast either
Core 2 duo is just too old...
http://dolphin-emu.org/docs/faq/#what-cpu-do-i-need-emulate-games-dolphin

Quote:lastly, is there any chance that the video was attained in any other way and is thus fake... in this case, why? that's just mean

I don't think so . He have a quad core i5 760 @ 2.8GHz Turbo Boost -> 3.33GHz
His CPU is much faster and he run dolphin via Windows

[thepumaman]

thnks for the info. I can run some games with high graphics (like mp2 via dolphin or sc2) with only slight slowness if any, but i'll assume that other games won't just magically speed up. I'll consider getting windows, but i just hate the price tag just for a disc. Man, to think that 2.66 GHz wouldn't be enough. The highest i'm seeing for ANY macbook is 2.9GHz... the highest i'm seeing for any intel processor is 4 GHz, but that's for desktops obviously.

[RachelB]

Spoiler: (Show Spoiler)

People pay for windows?

2.9 ghz, especially on an old cpu is not even close to enough to run most games in dolphin. I've got a 2500k @ 4.3 ghz, and it's still not quite enough for a lot of games.

[ShadowFlash]

First - you just can't expect all games running at full speed when it comes to such complex system and emulator. It's nothing like hmm... CPS-2, where all games use similar amount of resources so you can say - get any 600+ MHz CPU and 256 megs of RAM and you will run all games at full speed, at least with no video filters or just with bilinear. interpolation.

Second. Yeah D3D9 is simplier and faster than OGL/DX11 in most cases. BUT... Some games will run at full speed with OpenGL in Windows/Linux and will have speed problems with D3D9.
Same with gfx bugs. Some games run just fine with all backends, some - broken in one or two.

For Macs - well, not the best choice for gaming. Not because of OS itself, wine/CrossOver has compatibility similar to linux (except for some video card drivers issues) but hardware itself. It's just not so powerful when it comes to laptops/iMacs. And when it comes to Dolphin, OS X build got a lot more problems.

And most important. If you want to play CPU-heavy games in Dolphin - get a desktop. Normal tower case with at least two fans. My wife had to glue three 120mm fans to a piece of plastic and put next to laptop just to play NSMB and not the most demanding PC game - Dishonored without overheating. And sometimes playing demanding games can simply kill your laptop,especially if it's built using lead-free solder (that stupid RoHS directive helps to produce more toxic electronic waste, instead of reducing it by increasing rate of equipment failure by at least three times).

[thepumaman]

well, i appreciate the feedback... the thing that puzzled me about this is that these are, frankly, old gamecube games. i can play sc2 on high graphics without lag. I'd think that'd be harder to work through.... BUT, emulation and code workarounds do take up their own amount of processing. I'll get a new laptop when i get into college. what would anyone recommend? something more powerful probably

[admin89]

PC gaming != Emulation
Believe me , your laptop is too weak for emulation . 3 years later , with latest version your speed will stay the same or even worse
Dolphin focus on accuracy . Accuracy sometime does hurt performance

Quote: I'll get a new laptop when i get into college. what would anyone recommend? something more powerful probably

Gaming laptop with dual fansink on the back . Intel Core i7 3630QM + Nvidia GT 650M/660M
For example : ASUS G55VW or ASUS G75VW
MacBook is multi-media laptop . Overheating is possible with high-end CPU + GPU . Stay away from MacBook if you want performance
Otherwise you have to fork out 2200$ for MacBook Retina 15" with slower CPU & GPU + install windows 7/8 64bit via bootcamp and hope it does not overheat with Dolphin
Or if you could wait 6 months , you will be able to get the nextgen CPU - Haswell

[AnyOldName3]

Alternatively, buy a desktop PC, which will be cheaper and much more powerful, and use your current laptop for college.

[thepumaman]

anyoldname3, i like that idea a lot... very practical. Just as well, thank you admin89 for the spec advice. I'll get it worked around eventually. In any case, I still have great faith in this project. seriously, i can play metroid prime 1 and 2 via controller with like NO graphics glitches and decent speed even on this sluggish laptop! dolphin impresses.