It should not be this slow!!

[Rainbo]

I literally bought this computer so I could run better games than I had previously (I needed a hobby, damn it). It's not the best, maybe a mid-range computer but seriously? Seriously? I still can't run Dolphin?! I researched heavily before getting this thing. It should be able to run Dolphin, at least without too many issues... but I try to run Shadow the Hedgehog (don't judge me) and it's like.... LOL NOPE. FPS drops to zero, audio sounds like a slow motion nightmare scape. Simply refuses to run.

I need my cheesy vidya fix, man. Halp!

Computer Specs:
HP EliteBook 8460P Intel Core i5 2520M (2.50 GHz) 8 GB Memory 240 GB SSD Intel HD Graphics 3000 Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit

[Admentus]

Your PC is actually not that great, it is more low-range targeted. It seems it is a Laptop type, which are more expensive than Desktop PC's when aiming for high performance. Personally I have a i5-4430 and while it is able to run all games at fullspeed so far, even this CPU may struggle sometimes (looking at you EFB to RAM).

Your RAM does not much so much, but if you want to preload hi-res texture packs it becomes an issue. Your GPU might be an issue too. NVidia cards just work for the best. Besides for a newly bought PC, you would expect Windows 10 (which supports D3D12).

[Rainbo]

(07-09-2016, 06:34 AM)Admentus Wrote: Your PC is actually not that great, it is more low-range targeted.

Shhhhh, let me pretend my poor people computer is not as sh***y as it probably is. XD

But seriously, I figured it would at least run Dolphin with enough tweaks in place. ...maybe? This site claims Core i5 isn't that bad...and I looked into my graphics card and read that it wouldn't be too much of a problem. Low end but still usable, essentially. Not from what I'm seeing! Dolphin's site needs to be honest, if it's really THAT demanding, and just be like "You need the absolute best of the best, 2000 dollar gaming rig or this will not work", otherwise I wasted my time and probably so did a lot of other people. Juuust saying.

[Admentus]

Well... You ask for help if your PC can handle Dolphin. I hate to be that guy, but I am just being honest here. There is only so much Dolphin can do before you need a better pc. Besides my PC costed about 500 dollar. You don't need to spend 2000 dollar on a pc, but Dolphin is well known for it's high requirements within th emulation scene. If you want something easy to run, use Project64 (not with the GlideN64 plugin of course), Snes9x or mGBA.

[Rainbo]

(07-09-2016, 06:40 AM)Admentus Wrote: Well... You ask for help if your PC can handle Dolphin. I hate to be that guy, but I am just being honest here.

Nah I appreciate the honesty. Kinda sad others weren't "that guy" before I wasted this much time fiddling with it, though. Arghh.

This site needs to seriously update its list of system reqs...don't even bother listing things that make it appear a computer like mine might run Dolphin when clearly it can't. That's a serious bummer.

[Admentus]

The issue is that Dolphin is a emulator and not your average PC game. Emulators don't really showcase their requirements as you expect. What you basically need is a powerful CPU, a GPU is less important, althrough it is still needed for video display and the backend (such as D3D12). Well that would an entirely different discussion how an emulator works.

The basic fact is that an GPU exists out of hundreds of underpowered CPU's. They each calculate what is coming next. But in the emulation world that is an issue, it hard hard to actually know that. So it all comes down on the CPU itself. Most emulators are only therefore single core or dual core (Dolphin can only use two cores). Having more cores is useless (well... it may decreased the load from background applications). A powerful dual core is best to have, but in today's world I would place your money on a quad core CPU as a lot of modern native PC games supports more than two cores. Having a CPU with 8 cores is more powerful, but only if those 8 cores are supported. So you see the issue here, lots of CPU but only a handful being worthwhile. The Wii has three chips: CPU, GPU, DSP. Each chip can be emulated on a separate thread parallel. Dolphin used to have an option for LLE DPS on a separate thread. But that got removed a while ago.

[JosJuice]

(07-09-2016, 06:50 AM)Admentus Wrote: Dolphin used to have an option for LLE DPS on a separate thread. But that got removed a while ago.

Only the option got removed. DSP LLE on a separate thread is still in Dolphin and will get enabled automatically when appropriate. It's generally a better idea to use DSP HLE, though.

[Admentus]

Ohh I didn't know that. I thought the third thread was completely gone because it was unstable? Ugh, I lack reading skills... Don't worry through, I always used DSP HLE since the big rewrite (which I should have mentioned yes, stupid of me). I remember those days that Paper Mario for the GC did not sound at all on DSP HLE, cracking sound and such in a nutshell. Even worse the music would stop in a lot of games after one loop round. The horrors my (older) CPU had to endure with DSP LLE. Well it was just experimental at that time. It wasn't until last year (especially the last 6 months) that Dolphin became so good and fast that I decided to let my Wii be placed back into it's sealing box again gathering dust somewhere safe (only to unnecessary use it again for silly reasons every once in a while...).

But I am getting off-topic here. Sorry. A few things to keep in mind. Use DSP HLE as JosJuice mentioned, use the JIT Recompiler. Enable Dual Core and Idle Skipping. You have to test yourself if OpenGL or D3D11 works better (D3D12 is Win10 exclusive). Try using an internal resolution of 1x. Disable Anti-Aliasing (Anisotropic Filtering does not matter that much these days with moderns GPU's in terms of performance hits). Disable Per-Pixel Lighting. Enable Store EFB Copies to Texture Only. Disable the Eternal Frame Buffer (XFB). Enable Ignore Format Changes, Fast Depth Calculation and Disabling Bounding Box. Don't use Load Custom Textures. If you're using PAL games disable PAL60 mode (so that games run at 50 or 25 FPS instead of 60 or 30 FPS). Disable CPU Clock Override. Well... That is mostly all you can done (which are mostly the basic settings Dolphin installs with).

[Helios]

Alright, lets try a few things.

It sounds like you've really screwed with your settings. Lets fix that.

Close Dolphin. Go to Documents > Dolphin Emulator > Config > Delete dolphin.ini and gfx.ini

Now with your settings (excluding controller) reset, lets check power.

Control Panel > Power Options > Activate High Performance mode.

Open Dolphin.

Add your ISO directory.

Boot your game WITHOUT changing any settings. Your GPU sucks. You're going to be playing games at 1x internal resolution. You'll just have to live with that.

Does your game run better now?

[Rainbo]

Deleted dolphin.ini and gfx.ini. Started up the game.
Results:
- No audio whatsoever
- FPS rate drops to between 0 and 15 while in actual gameplay (beginning cut scene runs perfectly)
- Paused gameplay, saved state for any further tests (to skip useless cut scenes)

I get that my GPU sucks, but even with that in mind this is a pretty surprising level of suck. Even my old computer could run it better than this (which is to say, not at all, but I still had audio and FPS was more like a consistent 10-20 range).

Oh well. At least I tried.

Thanks for the tips.

(07-09-2016, 08:17 AM)Helios Wrote: Alright, lets try a few things.

It sounds like you've really screwed with your settings. Lets fix that.

Close Dolphin. Go to Documents > Dolphin Emulator > Config > Delete dolphin.ini and gfx.ini

Now with your settings (excluding controller) reset, lets check power.

Control Panel > Power Options > Activate High Performance mode.

Open Dolphin.

Add your ISO directory.

Boot your game WITHOUT changing any settings. Your GPU sucks. You're going to be playing games at 1x internal resolution. You'll just have to live with that.

Does your game run better now?