Laptop good enough for games?

12-08-2013, 05:39 PM #1

Hey, I was wondering if my laptop could handle playing games like wind waker (pretty much the only game I want to play).
My specs are as following:
Dell Inspiron 15 3521
CPU: Intel i7-3517U @ 1.9Ghz (dual-core, 2 threads each = 4 processors, boosts up to 3.2Ghz)
RAM: 4GB OEM
HDD: 1TB OEM
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 8730M 2GB DDR3 VRAM + Intel HD 4000
Dolphin version: 4.0.1
I've tried playing it but it lags on detailed scenes - I think it's because my laptop won't run Dolphin with my dedicated GPU, but with the integrated one. Or is it just my crappy GPU? (I can play Metro:LL at medium graphics, I have no idea why a 10+ year old console emulator won't)

**admin89** · 12-08-2013, 06:22 PM #2

Quote:I can play Metro:LL at medium graphics, I have no idea why a 10+ year old console emulator won't

Welcome to emulation where the requirement is insanely high
PC games are optimized and coded for PC while Emulator try to make your PC look like a console . With that said , even if your laptop run Crysis xxx , it doesn't mean anything
Have you ever run Windows or PC games on a virtual machine yet ? Did you think that would be as fast as real hardware ? No , not even close

For most Wii/GC games , your CPU is weak . Zelda WW uses LLE backend as default , LLE is very demanding on CPU side . You need a top of the line OCed quad core (i5 4670k @ 4.2GHz for example) to run most games full speed with LLE

PC games doesn't need a very good CPU to begin with . In Japan , we have a low-end Pentium Ivy Bridge mobile CPU paired with top of the line Nvidia GTX 680M (used to be top of the line GPU LOL ) . I know that CPU sure bottleneck GPU in BF3 but it shouldn't matter much as the strong GPU will cover it

On the other hand , Dolphin CPU requirement will make your pocket cry (by alot lol)

Dolphin doesn't care about Hyperthreading and Ultra low voltage CPUs are much weaker than a normal CPU . Zelda WW is a light-weight game , even Intel HD 3000 can run it just fine . You certainly have CPU bottleneck here

If you want Zelda WW to run faster then choose HLE backend instead (via Audio settings)

Btw , i5 3517U turbo boost :
_2.8GHz (2 cores active)
_3.0GHz (only 1 core)

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i7-3517U-Notebook-Processor.74462.0.html

Ultra low voltage CPU performance is a hit and a miss . If your laptop run hot , the CPU will downclock itself
I always advise Dolphin users to stay away from those ULV CPU . Anyway , just follow the performance guide and see if you can raise your CPU clock speed at max (2.8GHz)