I'm looking into the Acer Aspire 5

[James-Money]

Hi, so I'm looking into getting a laptop that can do light gaming, and there are all sorts of different versions available. What I was wondering was if there was a certain model that I should be looking at that supports full speed GameCube/Wii playback, even if it's 480p. Sorry the specs are on a different link, but on the second page of the manual is where all the specs are, so what do you recommend as the minium? I'm looking to play games like Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Mario Galaxy. I think this laptop is okay, but I'm not the best with specs, I've built my own super cheap rig, but that doesn't mean I exactly know how to get the best performance of everything.


Link to product sheet, Specs cited on page 2
https://plasico.bg/resources/aspire-5.pdf

[DJBarry004]

Any of those processors will start slowing themselves down once they accumulate enough heat. They´re all meant to save as much energy as possible and Dolphin is fairly demanding CPU-wise.

That said, Melee will run good for sure (for it being one of the easiest to emulate). SMG is another story though, will run good at first but will start suffering slowdowns for how intensive it is (and the energy-saving CPUs not helping much).

[James-Money]

(11-09-2018, 01:47 AM)DJBarry004 Wrote: Any of those processors will start slowing themselves down once they accumulate enough heat. They´re all meant to save as much energy as possible and Dolphin is fairly demanding CPU-wise.

That said, Melee will run good for sure (for it being one of the easiest to emulate). SMG is another story though, will run good at first but will start suffering slowdowns for how intensive it is (and the energy-saving CPUs not helping much).

Okay thank you, but what model do you think should I pick?

[mbc07]

My brother owns the variant with the i7-8550U and GeForce MX150 and while it gets hot under load, the sustained performance is quite stable and it rarely throttles its clocks down, and that results are observed on the typically hot climate of my country. You should be fine for Dolphin (and for nearly all GC/Wii games) as long as you get one of variants with an 8th gen CPU and preferably with the GeForce MX150 so you can crank the IR up...

[James-Money]

(11-09-2018, 11:25 AM)mbc07 Wrote: My brother owns the variant with the i7-8550U and GeForce MX150 and while it gets hot under load, the sustained performance is quite stable and it rarely throttles its clocks down, and that results are observed on the typically hot climate of my country. You should be fine for Dolphin (and for nearly all GC/Wii games) as long as you get one of variants with an 8th gen CPU and preferably with the GeForce MX150 so you can crank the IR up...

Thank you for your input, this is going to be my first laptop and I saw some videos of it doing light gaming, thanks for helping my decision!

[sirdaniel]

I have aspire f5 573g i5 7200u and 940mx and i im not disapointed. It is doing its job right. DJBarry004 probably wanted to warn about U models, but it was the case years ago. Nowadays intel mark almost all cpu U models, and they are not throttling.
From my point of view, i would still get core i5 model, but slightly better card, like mx150. Probably you dont need core i7, its waste in laptop, especially since core 8xxx gen. You will do more than lightweigth gaming.

[DJBarry004]

(11-11-2018, 09:02 AM)sirdaniel Wrote: I have aspire f5 573g i5 7200u and 940mx and i im not disapointed. It is doing its job right. DJBarry004 probably wanted to warn about U models, but it was the case years ago. Nowadays intel mark almost all cpu U models, and they are not throttling.
From  my point of view, i would still get core i5 model, but slightly better card,  like mx150. Probably you dont need core i7, its waste in laptop, especially since core 8xxx gen. You will do more than lightweigth gaming.

Even if the U series have improved in performance (and specially in Dolphin), I´d personally stay away as much as I can from processors that are not really designed for heavy duty.

[Helios]

The U series can range from fine to terrible because it's almost entirely dependent on cooling systems at that point as their thermal ranges to throttle are a lot lower.

The reason we don't recommend them is because it's hard to say if various laptop cooling systems are up to scratch because we can't tell. I had a U series Broadwell CPU that ran Dolphin perfectly. It also had a surprisingly good cooling system. Forum users will report that various U series CPUs throttle like crazy for them.

[mbc07]

Personally I would recommend U series only from the 8th gen and onwards since the i5's and i7's are finally quad core again. Previous U generations always were dual-core chips (even the i7's) and I usually saw them as scam, especially after accounting the premium price manufacturers were asking for laptops with them here in my country...

[James-Money]

Alright, that sounds good. I think this bid a good laptop with a $500-600 price range I might get for the upcoming season.