Hardware Discussion Thread

garrlker · 02-24-2015, 01:02 PM **#861**

Like I said my laptop generally gets a pretty good battery life, and it's only on tuesdays and thursdays when my classes last long enough to almost kill it(classes from 9AM to 4PM).
Monday and wednesdays are pretty fair hour wise,but with a windows tablet having 8-10 hours of battery life I feel like that'd last me the whole day and then some.

**Link_to_the_past** · 02-24-2015, 01:35 PM **#862**

(02-24-2015, 12:19 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote: That is an assumption based on tests done with PC games. You cannot say that for sure until you actually test it.

kirbypuff Wrote:The real test is: can it handle 8xIR / 5K res? (the R9 270 failed the test with 57/60 fps)

Which games did you test? Which settings? Which build? Which scenes? How did you record the framerate? Did you leave the camera still during the tests? And so on. Those numbers seem high for a 270 but since I have no idea what sort of tests you ran you may have tested a less demanding game/scene for all I know.

You do this a lot. You pull numbers out of thin air with no context and treat them as universal fact. It annoys me greatly. If you do not so much as list your testing parameters then your data becomes totally useless. The difference in gpu requirements can easily vary by more than 10 fold from game to game. And just as much from scene to scene.

I would wait to let him test before stating how fast the 960 is in dolphin.

Ok i will post results. As for what he was testing i bet it was nsmb wii using efb to ram which is a bad way to test a video card since that setting is not only gpu dependent. I will try efb to texture with smg2 increasing ir until i get a framedrop, with my previous card i got a few fps drop even at 3x ir compared to 2x. Then i will test until how high ir it can keep 60 fps in a tough spot. I find the first test more important though since it shows how high you can go before the card start becoming a bottleneck in dolphin performance.

garrlker · 02-24-2015, 03:25 PM **#863**

Also NV, do you have a Windows tablet?

**Link_to_the_past** · (This post was last modified: 02-25-2015, 11:50 PM by Link_to_the_past.)

OK, got my 960, seems to handle up to 4x (QHD) without a single fps drop in SMG 2 and even at 6x (4K) stuff are playable but with the maximum fps dropping compared to 4x. So yeah it can handle 4K gaming in dolphin paired with a decent cpu. QHD gaming should be optimal even when paired with a bad cpu, the gpu will not be a bottleneck at all.

**NaturalViolence** · 02-26-2015, 05:55 AM **#865**

@garrlker

No. I have been looking at them these last few months though.

@Link_to_the_past

More tests please. With lists of settings, build, games, and framerates.

kirbypuff · (This post was last modified: 02-28-2015, 05:44 AM by kirbypuff.)

(02-24-2015, 01:35 PM)Link_to_the_past Wrote: i bet it was nsmb using efb to ram which is a bad way to test a video card.

No, that's not an optimal test for GPUs. nsmb w2-4 @6xIR is a combined (CPU, RAM and GPU) stress test.
SMG1/2 is a better test (with EFB2Texture and CPU->EFB access turned off), but still far from being GPU-ntensive.

The most demanding GPU test (w/ EFB to Texture) is dkcr w8-6 and dkcr w8-1, paused at the most demanding spot with the lowest framerate.
Pausing the scene makes it even more demanding with an extra alpha blending / transparency layer on top.
Light on the CPU, but stresses the GPU almost like the popular Furmark Smile

Try it and see if your GPU can handle 6xIR or 8xIR (eats memory bandwidth for breakfast, a card with >128GB/s is recommended)

**Anti-Ultimate** · 03-01-2015, 06:33 PM **#867**

I'm gonna get another GTX970 for birthday and I'm really gonna push it with my 550 Watt PSU Tongue

**Link_to_the_past** · (This post was last modified: 03-01-2015, 08:29 PM by Link_to_the_past.)

(03-01-2015, 06:33 PM)Anti-Ultimate Wrote: I'm gonna get another GTX970 for birthday and I'm really gonna push it with my 550 Watt PSU

Then buy a psu too, if you have 2 gtx 970 and a haswell in your system can't see how a psu can be a problem to afford. The official suggestions are a 500w psu just for one card. http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-970/specifications

**Anti-Ultimate** · 03-01-2015, 08:32 PM **#869**

550 Watt should be plenty considering my system rarely uses more than 300 Watt under full load now

**Link_to_the_past** · (This post was last modified: 03-01-2015, 08:44 PM by Link_to_the_past.)

(03-01-2015, 08:32 PM)Anti-Ultimate Wrote: 550 Watt should be plenty considering my system rarely uses more than 300 Watt under full load now

How efficient is your psu? With a typical 80% efficiency that is down more than 100 watts sitting in a bit less than 450 watt, it is definitely not plenty. If anything it is borderline.