Is my rig good enough to run Dolphin (bare minimum)?

[McGeek]

Specs Below:


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OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Home

Version 10.0.10586 Build 10586

Other OS Description Not Available

OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation

System Name *****-PC

System Manufacturer To Be Filled By O.E.M.

System Model To Be Filled By O.E.M.

System Type X86-based PC

System SKU To Be Filled By O.E.M.

Processor Intel® Core™2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz, 2128 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)

BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. P1.00, 3/31/2014

SMBIOS Version 2.5

Embedded Controller Version 255.255

BIOS Mode Legacy

BaseBoard Manufacturer ASRock

BaseBoard Model Not Available

BaseBoard Name Base Board

Platform Role Desktop

Secure Boot State Unsupported

PCR7 Configuration Binding Not Possible

Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS

System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32

Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1

Locale ****** ******

Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "10.0.10586.420"

User Name *****-PC\*****

Time Zone Central Daylight Time

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB

Total Physical Memory 3.50 GB

Available Physical Memory 2.07 GB

Total Virtual Memory 4.12 GB

Available Virtual Memory 2.26 GB

Page File Space 640 MB

Page File C:\pagefile.sys

Hyper-V - VM Monitor Mode Extensions Yes

Hyper-V - Second Level Address Translation Extensions No

Hyper-V - Virtualization Enabled in Firmware Yes

Hyper-V - Data Execution Protection Yes


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Many Thanks,
McGeek

[McGeek]

(07-07-2016, 07:44 AM)McGeek Wrote: Specs Below:


---


OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Home

Version 10.0.10586 Build 10586

Other OS Description Not Available

OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation

System Name *****-PC

System Manufacturer To Be Filled By O.E.M.

System Model To Be Filled By O.E.M.

System Type X86-based PC

System SKU To Be Filled By O.E.M.

Processor Intel® Core™2 CPU          6400  @ 2.13GHz, 2128 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)

BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. P1.00, 3/31/2014

SMBIOS Version 2.5

Embedded Controller Version 255.255

BIOS Mode Legacy

BaseBoard Manufacturer ASRock

BaseBoard Model Not Available

BaseBoard Name Base Board

Platform Role Desktop

Secure Boot State Unsupported

PCR7 Configuration Binding Not Possible

Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS

System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32

Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1

Locale ****** ******

Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "10.0.10586.420"

User Name *****-PC\*****

Time Zone Central Daylight Time

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB

Total Physical Memory 3.50 GB

Available Physical Memory 2.07 GB

Total Virtual Memory 4.12 GB

Available Virtual Memory 2.26 GB

Page File Space 640 MB

Page File C:\pagefile.sys

Hyper-V - VM Monitor Mode Extensions Yes

Hyper-V - Second Level Address Translation Extensions No

Hyper-V - Virtualization Enabled in Firmware Yes

Hyper-V - Data Execution Protection Yes


---


Many Thanks,
McGeek

EDIT: I Will only be playing GameCube Games

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

The CPU will be too slow; it seems Dolphin 5.0 actually quite likes the Core 2 CPUs (faster than Ivy Bridge but not Haswell or newer) but the clockrate of that particular CPU is very much on the low side.

Also you did not include any information regarding the GPU; please run dxdiag or, alternatively, download GPU-Z and run it. Dolphin isn't particularly GPU-heavy, but it still needs something decently good - a 10 year old Intel 965GMA isn't exactly going to cut it.



Regarding GameCube vs Wii games, what system the game doesn't really make much of a difference - it's much more dependent on just the game itself.

[McGeek]

(07-07-2016, 08:37 AM)Nintendo Maniac 64 Wrote: The CPU will be too slow; it seems Dolphin 5.0 actually quite likes the Core 2 CPUs (faster than Ivy Bridge but not Haswell or newer) but the clockrate of that particular CPU is very much on the low side.

Also you did not include any information regarding the GPU; please run dxdiag or, alternatively, download GPU-Z and run it.  Dolphin isn't particularly GPU-heavy, but it still needs something decently good - a 10 year old Intel 965GMA isn't exactly going to cut it.



Regarding GameCube vs Wii games, what system the game doesn't really make much of a difference - it's much more dependent on just the game itself.

Thank you for the insight; As far the game in question that I'm looking to play the most is Need For Speed: Carbon

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

(07-07-2016, 08:46 AM)McGeek Wrote: As far the game in question that I'm looking to play the most is Need For Speed: Carbon

That game had a native PC version; is there a particular reason why you are trying to run the GameCube version instead?

EDIT: And again, what is your GPU? This is very important since, even if you had a 4GHz CPU, your GPU could very well prevent your CPU from "stretching its legs".

[McGeek]

(07-07-2016, 08:59 AM)Nintendo Maniac 64 Wrote: That game had a native PC version; is there a particular reason why you are trying to run the GameCube version instead?

EDIT: And again, what is your GPU?  This is very important since, even if you had a 4GHz CPU, your GPU could very well prevent your CPU from "stretching its legs".

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 SE

Manufacturer: NVIDIA

Chip type: GeForce GTX 560 SE

DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC

Device Type: Full Device

Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1208&SUBSYS_14643842&REV_A1

Display Memory: 2769 MB

Dedicated Memory: 977 MB

Shared Memory: 1791 MB

Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)

(Sorry for the wait)

[Helios]

Between a Core 2 Duo and that GPU, you might be able to run some games alright? The GPU is fine for Dolphin. The CPU is going to kill you. But some games will probably run fine.

Easy to emulate in Dolphin: Animal Crossing, Melee, Brawl (And project M)

Those above are worth a shot.

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

If you're willing to spend around $15 USD and your motherboard is compatible, you could always get yourself a used Core 2 Duo E8600 from somewhere like ebay which should be around 60% faster than your current CPU before doing any overclocking.

For reference, due to the large L2 cache, an E8600 should actually be faster per-GHz than even Ivy Bridge.

[Helios]

One odd result from a 5500U/2600k in your benchmark is hardly enough to start telling users that they'll get more performance in Dolphin by using an 8 year old processor.

Especially considering how unreliable users can be with getting reliable tests.

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

(07-07-2016, 02:16 PM)Helios Wrote: One odd result from a 5500U/2600k in your benchmark is hardly enough to start telling users that they'll get more performance in Dolphin by using an 8 year old processor.

Even if all Core 2 CPUs were the slowest thing on Earth, a Core 2 Duo Wolfdale would still be faster for Dolphin and would overclock better than a Core 2 Quad.

Besides, a large reason why I mentioned it is because said CPUs are only around 15 bucks with shipping anyway - I imagine cost would be very important because otherwise OP would likely not be using the PC parts that they are currently using. If such a CPU cost 50 bucks then yeah screw that.


Regardless, it's not just the 2600k showing slower performance - there's also an i5 520M (Westmere) and an i3 3110M (Ivy Bridge). For reference, I plan to do more performance comparisons in coming days and weeks with the previous benchmarks (povray and Wind Waker) in Dolphin 5.0 to see if this behavior is in fact consistent.

Also, I'm not sure I trust that 5500U (Broadwell) result when the Haswell results are much faster per clock...that's arguably even weirder than Core 2 being faster than Ivy Bridge. But unlike the Core 2 results, there's not really any reason for a Haswell desktop owner to upgrade to Broadwell when the 4790k exists, so that performance discrepancy shouldn't really be of any real-world concern anyway.