Next time don't wrap your response in quote tags. Plus the quote tags have been assigned my name so that might be confusing to anyone reading this in the future. Since you've been doing it properly in every other post except post #37 I'm going to assume that it was just a series of typos or something. Though I'm not sure why you didn't edit it to fix the issue after you saw the post or used post preview to observe the issue before posting. Perhaps you've just been using the automated quote+ button and didn't know how to rewrite the tags in a multi-quote/response post like mine. All you have to do is:
followed by your response to the quote which will obviously not be in quote tags.
Indeed. 2.5x IR is more than enough for 720p.
Xalphenos already made the point that I was going to make but I'll reiterate it here. This contradicts your original statement which implied that all of your games, including SMG, ran at fullspeed all the time. I called you out on this and the incorrect model number and you blew up on me. Now it seems that you agree that I was right about both.
This is all perfectly rational logic. But it does sound like you haven't played a whole lot of the "heavier" games. We get a lot of people on here that build HTPCs with similar specs to your own for the same reasons and some of them end up disappointed by the performance in certain games. This is why we generally recommend that they spend the extra money on an Intel i5. So that they don't have to worry about which games will run fullspeed and which ones won't. And for the record the mario party games are extremely light (they run at fullspeed even on weak hardware) while SMG is pretty heavy (it requires top of the line modern hardware to maintain fullspeed with the options required to complete the game).
All of the benchmarks I've seen either show little difference between the two (in the case of a game that doesn't need a lot of cpu throughput) or a decent sized difference between the two but with both being able to achieve at least 60-90 fps average under the worst case scenario when paired with a fast enough graphics card. This means that for your average pc gamer the A10 should be quite adequate for their needs in regards to cpu performance.
What I find odd about your argument is that you state that you need the i5 3570K for gaming because it has a measurable difference in performance disregarding the fact that an A10, while being slower, is probably still adequate for all of your needs. Yet you turn around and say the exact opposite when talking about the A10. That it has lower performance but that doesn't matter because it's "good enough" for your needs.
The i5 is definitely significantly better for both but the difference is an A10 can run any or nearly any PC game at fullspeed while it cannot run nearly any GC/Wii game at fullspeed. Therefore I along with most people here deem it far more important to have a good cpu on a rig aimed at emulation than a rig aimed at pc gaming.
When framerates drop in dolphin you get slowdowns (as in the game literally runs in slow motion), not stutters. In a 60 fps game dipping below 30 fps should be extremely noticeable. You're running the game at below halfspeed. For most people (myself included) this is unbearable. My old Q6600 rig at 3.2GHz sometimes dropped down to 40 fps in SMG2 and even lower in SMG even with the fastest settings and revisions. And it should have similar performance to your current cpu. Not only did I notice it but I couldn't stand it, which is why I'm amazed that you don't seem to notice or care that much. For all I know we might just be pickier than you.
MOST games. That's the key word. Many people would not be satisfied with the hardware that you are using, myself included. This is why when they ask what to get we recommend an i5 cpu and discrete gpu if they can afford it.
Indeed. At such a low internal resolution the aliasing is pretty bad even on an HDTV.
Technically it did. The GC/Wii GPU has an SSAA option that effectively renders the scene at twice the normal resolution then downscales it before output. Of course there were no games that made use of it that we know of since rendering at such a high resolution with such a poor gpu would have made it very difficult to achieve decent visuals and framerates.
Going back to the discussion about LLE in SMG. LLE is required in SMG to complete grand star levels without crashing and to keep the music looping properly. Thus you cannot complete the game without it. It has a pretty nasty performance hit though. So if you leave it off you can get away with having weaker hardware and still run the game at fullspeed. Using LLE on thread can help reduce the performance hit substantially. I'm pretty sure you're using it since you said "It's not that much more taxing if you have more than 2 cores. I like how
you people assume crap without knowing what you are talking about." Which seems to imply that you were referring to LLE on thread. Although you never directly said so. The problem with LLE on thread is that it can cause many games, including this one, to crash randomly during start-up and after level loading. So of course some people prefer not to use it if they have a cpu that is fast enough to not require it. However even without LLE on thread there is at least a 10-15% performance hit and hardware such as your own no longer becomes sufficient to run the game at fullspeed. This is why we specifically recommend getting an ivy bridge i5 cpu when people mention SMG or SMG2.
Code:
[quote='nameofpersonhere']copy/paste what you're quoting here[/quote]
followed by your response to the quote which will obviously not be in quote tags.
robreavis Wrote:Let me set things straight. On my HTPC we usually play with IR set to
2.5x, but the display resolution is 720p because my 50in samsung plasma
is only 720p. Downsampling to 720p looks a whole let better than playing
on the wii with this tv. Everything seems more crisp.
Indeed. 2.5x IR is more than enough for 720p.
robreavis Wrote:It's not like
everything runs "full speed" but it never slows down enough for it to
get choppy.
Xalphenos already made the point that I was going to make but I'll reiterate it here. This contradicts your original statement which implied that all of your games, including SMG, ran at fullspeed all the time. I called you out on this and the incorrect model number and you blew up on me. Now it seems that you agree that I was right about both.
robreavis Wrote:The reason I use this HTPC quite a bit for emulation is
because I have 2 kids and a wife. We love to sit down in the living room
and pick up 4 wireless 360 controllers and play Mario party (4-7, we
don't like 8or9) and a bunch of other multiplayer games even ps2 games.
My wife loves the Mario Galaxy games a whole lot. We spend a lot of time
progressing through those titles collectively. That is why I built the
HTPC. The sole purpose of it was to play NES all the way through wii in
my living room with my family. As long as it render the game in HD and
doesnt slow down enough to effect gameplay, the HTPC served it's
purpose.
Quote:I don't feel like playing gc/wii games while at the desk, nor do I
feel like swapping that pc between locations.
This is all perfectly rational logic. But it does sound like you haven't played a whole lot of the "heavier" games. We get a lot of people on here that build HTPCs with similar specs to your own for the same reasons and some of them end up disappointed by the performance in certain games. This is why we generally recommend that they spend the extra money on an Intel i5. So that they don't have to worry about which games will run fullspeed and which ones won't. And for the record the mario party games are extremely light (they run at fullspeed even on weak hardware) while SMG is pretty heavy (it requires top of the line modern hardware to maintain fullspeed with the options required to complete the game).
robreavis Wrote:My i5 3570k provides at least 20fps higher than what a
competing AMD would. There are numerous benchmarks on the web that show
this.
All of the benchmarks I've seen either show little difference between the two (in the case of a game that doesn't need a lot of cpu throughput) or a decent sized difference between the two but with both being able to achieve at least 60-90 fps average under the worst case scenario when paired with a fast enough graphics card. This means that for your average pc gamer the A10 should be quite adequate for their needs in regards to cpu performance.
robreavis Wrote:Again i'm not arguing the fact that the A-10 performs as good as the i5,
but to be able to build a pc for less than $400 and be able to handle
720p, you can't go wrong. Anyway I have explained everything exactly how
I see it, so I can't really think of anything else.
What I find odd about your argument is that you state that you need the i5 3570K for gaming because it has a measurable difference in performance disregarding the fact that an A10, while being slower, is probably still adequate for all of your needs. Yet you turn around and say the exact opposite when talking about the A10. That it has lower performance but that doesn't matter because it's "good enough" for your needs.
The i5 is definitely significantly better for both but the difference is an A10 can run any or nearly any PC game at fullspeed while it cannot run nearly any GC/Wii game at fullspeed. Therefore I along with most people here deem it far more important to have a good cpu on a rig aimed at emulation than a rig aimed at pc gaming.
robreavis Wrote:When I refer to slowdown or hiccups, I mean stuttering or chopiness.
When I play games on dolphin, I never show my fps unless it gets choppy
or stutters. Then I turn it on so I can adjust my settings to fix this.
While playing most games, as long as the frames dont dip below 30, its
not really noticeable.
When framerates drop in dolphin you get slowdowns (as in the game literally runs in slow motion), not stutters. In a 60 fps game dipping below 30 fps should be extremely noticeable. You're running the game at below halfspeed. For most people (myself included) this is unbearable. My old Q6600 rig at 3.2GHz sometimes dropped down to 40 fps in SMG2 and even lower in SMG even with the fastest settings and revisions. And it should have similar performance to your current cpu. Not only did I notice it but I couldn't stand it, which is why I'm amazed that you don't seem to notice or care that much. For all I know we might just be pickier than you.
robreavis Wrote:I was trying to stress that these games can be
enjoyable with a budget $400 build that runs the games in a better
resolution than the wii does.
MOST games. That's the key word. Many people would not be satisfied with the hardware that you are using, myself included. This is why when they ask what to get we recommend an i5 cpu and discrete gpu if they can afford it.
robreavis Wrote:Also, in my opinion if you have it on 1x
ir and you turn AA on, it looks way better than it does on the wii.
Indeed. At such a low internal resolution the aliasing is pretty bad even on an HDTV.
robreavis Wrote:It seems like the wii didnt support any AA what so ever.
Technically it did. The GC/Wii GPU has an SSAA option that effectively renders the scene at twice the normal resolution then downscales it before output. Of course there were no games that made use of it that we know of since rendering at such a high resolution with such a poor gpu would have made it very difficult to achieve decent visuals and framerates.
Going back to the discussion about LLE in SMG. LLE is required in SMG to complete grand star levels without crashing and to keep the music looping properly. Thus you cannot complete the game without it. It has a pretty nasty performance hit though. So if you leave it off you can get away with having weaker hardware and still run the game at fullspeed. Using LLE on thread can help reduce the performance hit substantially. I'm pretty sure you're using it since you said "It's not that much more taxing if you have more than 2 cores. I like how
you people assume crap without knowing what you are talking about." Which seems to imply that you were referring to LLE on thread. Although you never directly said so. The problem with LLE on thread is that it can cause many games, including this one, to crash randomly during start-up and after level loading. So of course some people prefer not to use it if they have a cpu that is fast enough to not require it. However even without LLE on thread there is at least a 10-15% performance hit and hardware such as your own no longer becomes sufficient to run the game at fullspeed. This is why we specifically recommend getting an ivy bridge i5 cpu when people mention SMG or SMG2.
"Normally if given a choice between doing something and nothing, I’d choose to do nothing. But I would do something if it helps someone else do nothing. I’d work all night if it meant nothing got done."
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"I shall be a good politician, even if it kills me. Or if it kills anyone else for that matter. "
-Mark Antony
-Ron Swanson
"I shall be a good politician, even if it kills me. Or if it kills anyone else for that matter. "
-Mark Antony