I think i found a 300$ dolphin playing laptop.

[piccolo289]

http://www.cnet.com/products/hp-15-r131wm-15-6-pentium-n3540-windows-8-1-64-bit-4-gb-ram-500-gb-hdd/specs/

The specs are listed above, now i know that Intel graphics cards are bleh, especially for gaming, but my understanding is that the cpu does all the heavy lifting in dolphin, something i think this quad core pentium can do.

The real kicker is the price, which currently goes for under 300 bucks on walmart, which is basically a steal.

I know this isnt a gaming laptop, so realtemp may be nessecary, but for the under the hood stuff i think this may be able to do it, with the pretty stuff turned off and turboboost turned on.

P.S this isnt for me, its for a friend who wants an upgrade from his craptop

[NKF98]

i don't know how that pentium does on dolphin, but it seems like it would work fine so long as you don't melt your laptop

[admin89]

That Quad Core Pentium is actually an ARM chip (System on chip) like Snapdragon 800 , Apple A8 . It's weaker than any real Pentium and on par with an Atom

[lybxlpsv]

Pentium or Celeron N-series is mostly bay trail and silvermont which has low single core performance.

get the U-series or M-series, like Celeron 1007u (ivy bridge, 1.5ghz, 6EU GPU, OGL 4.0, DX11) or 2955u (haswell, 1.4ghz, 10EU GPU, OGL 4.3, DX12) or Pentium 3558u/3556u (haswell, 1.7ghz, 10EU GPU, OGL 4.3, DX12). or wait for broadwell or skylake pentiums and celerons.

[admin89]

I woun't recommend getting any chip that have low clock speed though
i5 4300M (@ 3.2GHz downclock to 2.0Hz) run games poorly ! Ivybridge is 30% slower than Haswell , Ivy is even worse
If you want to run most games full speed , an i5 Haswell mobile CPU @ 3.0GHz or faster CPUs are recommended

[lybxlpsv]

(08-07-2015, 02:14 AM)admin89 Wrote: I woun't recommend getting any chip that have low clock speed though
i5 4300M (@ 3.2GHz downclock to 2.0Hz) run games poorly ! Ivybridge is 30% slower than Haswell , Ivy is even worse
If you want to run most games full speed , an i5 Haswell mobile CPU @ 3.0GHz or faster CPUs are recommended

well OP said under $300. and also it depends on what OP going to play.
My 1.9ghz ivy bridge netbook plays most light wii games just fine at 100% speed like Mario Kart Wii, Xenoblade (24fps version), and Wind Waker.
ofcourse it runs very slow for heavy games such as The Last Story which ran around 10-20fps (50% speed or lower) on the city. some small area ran at 100% (custom build with hacks from the last story thread).

[admin89]

Quote:My 1.9ghz ivy bridge netbook plays most light wii games just fine at 100% speed like Mario Kart Wii, Xenoblade, and Wind Waker.

your ivy chip must be made from gold , not even my a10 6790k @ 4.0GHz can run these games 100% without lag
Mario Kart Wii is graphic intensive game , no way in hell it would run full speed on an igpu , not even apu can do that
Ofcourse , changing default settings to have more speed and more bugs does not count

[lybxlpsv]

(08-07-2015, 03:38 AM)admin89 Wrote:

Quote:My 1.9ghz ivy bridge netbook plays most light wii games just fine at 100% speed like Mario Kart Wii, Xenoblade, and Wind Waker.

your ivy chip must be made from gold , not even my a10 6790k @ 4.0GHz can run these games 100% without lag
Mario Kart Wii is graphic intensive game , no way in hell it would run full speed on an igpu , not even apu can do that
Ofcourse , changing default settings to have more speed and more bugs does not count

well, I changed TPL in ThrottleStop to allow higher TDP. 17w for CPU and GPU is not enough lol so I make it 35watt. from what I measured the maximum usage for cpu is 17watt for cpu and 10 watt for gpu. (tested on csgo, averages 60-100 on dust 2 when tdp 35w, at 17w its 60fps or below. 720p)

now I just tested to limit maximum TDP at 17w (manufacturer default), its enough if at 1x native for MKWii, some drops to 80%-ish.

Spoiler: (Show Spoiler)

at 35w TDP limit, The Last Story at 2x Native (to try get maximum gpu usage&wattage consumption on dolphin-emu). but then again it drops to 20fps when battle begins due to CPU Bottlenecking :/. gpu wattage went down to around 4watt when cpu bottlenecking happens. (have to downclock to get playable framerate during huge battle with lots of npc.)
yes I know about the high temps, fan was on silent mode.

Spoiler: (Show Spoiler)

also tried mario kart wii 1xnative at 1.5ghz it's also able to play but with drops to around 60-70%, can be 100% if you're 1st or on less intensive areas.

[piccolo289]

^Can i see what laptop you have and see if my friend likes it or not, i was just looking around when i found that laptop on walmart, it doesnt represent a real budget.

[NKF98]

if you provide a budget we can help you find a good dolphin laptop