Having trouble finding the "best" Dolphin version

[Explosive Llama]

I don't know... I used to try the latest dev versions about a month ago for Brawl, but it ended up crashing when I tried Wi-Fi. But since Wi-Fi is gone, that won't affect me now.

At the moment I use version 4.0-1403, I don't really know why, it's been reliable for me, but I'm wondering what builds I could try for a better speed?

I tried to play Mario Kart Wii on 2 player on 4.0-1403 recently, and got around 80-90% speed, which I find weird since I get 100% on Brawl on 4 player with lots of FX, mainly from items.

But I done a bit of research which made me try something around 3.5 for MKW and got better speed, around 90-95% overall. I am using a laptop but I feel that I might be able to get 100%.

I don't understand how the new backend system works since it changed or something recently with newer versions, but I use Direct3D over OpenGL even with a Nvidia GPU which apparently I should be using OpenGL with. But Direct3D ends up being faster.

So what builds should I be trying to get the best speed with? I find it weird that MK worked better with 3.5 over what I use currently.

You can check my laptop specs when choosing, I just don't want to waste my time checking loads of builds.

If it helps, the games I am playing currently are MK Wii and New Super Mario Bros (which gets horribly low FPS and poor sound quality when collecting the star coins and using the invincibility star, any fix for this?)

[Link_to_the_past]

MK Wii has more compatible settings enforced by default in the most recent version, and that might explain the drop in performance you noticed. Use the latest dev version, it should be a bit faster than what you use.

[Explosive Llama]

(06-20-2014, 10:18 PM)Link_to_the_past Wrote: MK Wii has more compatible settings enforced by default in the most recent version, and that might explain the drop in performance you noticed. Use the latest dev version, it should be a bit faster than what you use.

I just selected the latest dev version, will get back to you when I test every part of it.

[Explosive Llama]

So it's more than just the version which affected MK Wii.

Open AL sound caused massive audio problems, mainly massive skipping

Open GL backend worked better at full speed, Direct3D was choppy even at 100%

I found out, Intel Turbo Boost works every time Dolphin is playing, but not when it's open. This increases my CPU clock speed from 2.3 to a crazy 3.1, considering it's a laptop and Dolphin can overclock it. This gives me 100% speed now.

Compared to 4.0-1403, the dev version doesn't slow down a lot when loading the start of the gameplay on MK.

And last but not least, when checking the properties of the ISO, the disk transfer rate ticked, and synchronise GPU thread upped my speed massively. I guess the conclusion is that my CPU doesn't like working with my GPU at all.

I will try this with other games too.