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Minimum specs - video card [UNOFFICIAL]
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Minimum specs - video card [UNOFFICIAL]
08-07-2011, 04:19 PM (This post was last modified: 02-22-2014, 09:30 AM by neobrain.)
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NaturalViolence Offline
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The following thread is a work in progress designed to inform people about the video card requirements of dolphin. I am making this with the intent of having it become a sticky upon completion. Please refrain from posting in this thread until I have stated its completion. And don't worry, I will clean this up and make it more "noob friendly" before I'm done, I know how they hate reading long posts. A cpu requirements thread will be made soon as well. The other requirements threads will be extremely short compared to this one. I'm underlined things to help people skim through and read the important stuff faster.

Glossary of terms (this will be updated as I continue to work on this):: (Show Spoiler)

Video card: An expansion card for a PC that contains a GPU, dedicated video memory, and various other parts.

GPU: Graphics processing unit, the microprocessor on your video card that processes all of the openGL, d3d9, or d3d11 shader code

Integrated GPU: A GPU that does not have its own dedicated video ram, instead it reserves a section of main memory to act as its video ram. These are usually integrated into the motherboard, cpu package, or cpu die of a PC instead of being on a separate circuit board (a video card). Many laptops and modern desktops purchased from brand name companies have these and they are extremely inadequate for the kind of shader processing that dolphin requires.

Video memory: Very fast memory on a video card that the gpu can directly access. Only the gpu can access this memory.

Video Backend: A set of functions that use a particular API to emulate the behavior of the GPU on the GC/Wii. Dolphin has a openGL, d3d9, and d3d11 backend. Each is an entirely different set of functions (code) that emulates the GC/Wii GPU.

APU: A term used by AMD for a cpu that contains gpu hardware within the cpu die (one chip that acts as both the cpu and gpu).

The first thing you need to understand about the video card requirements of dolphin is that it varies a lot from one game to another, one operating system to another, one backend to another, and from one configuration of settings to another.

You must also take into account cpu bottlenecks. That is, if your cpu is too slow it will bottleneck the video card, and vice versa. If your cpu is bottlenecking your video card you must either adjust your settings or buy a better cpu. Buying a better video card won't help you if the cpu is bottlenecking your current video card. Later on in this thread I will discuss how to identify whether your cpu is bottlenecking your video card or not.

Because of these simple facts the only way that I can provide you with some idea as to what video card you should have is to assume that your cpu is not bottlenecking your video card and provide you with an AVERAGE video card requirement for more demanding games for each combination of settings. So keep in mind that the video card requirements are not the same for every game, what you see below is merely the the average for most of the more demanding games.

Having a more powerful video card will allow you to raise your graphics settings higher without reducing performance.

About this guide: : (Show Spoiler)
The following guide assumes that:
-you're using windows (video card requirements may be different on mac osx or linux distributions but the variance shouldn't be very significant)
-per-pixel lighting is turned off (this option significantly increases how demanding dolphin is on your video card)
-3Dvision is turned off
-all of the hacks in the "Other" section of the hacks tab are turned off
-you're using the d3d9 backend (we'll cover openGL and d3d11 later)
-scaled efb copy is turned on (if this is off dolphin defaults to a 1x internal resolution).

Assuming you've eliminated any cpu bottlenecks and you've done what the above paragraph mentions as far as settings go the video card requirements of dolphin then depend on two settings which both significantly increase gpu performance requirements by increasing the number of pixels rendered for each frame by the gpu. These two settings are SSAA (anti-aliasing) and internal resolution. The following is a list of what I would consider the minimum video cards required for running games at 60fps at each internal resolution. We're going to leave SSAA out for now to make things simple.

Keep in mind you should be using 1x IR for 480p, 2x IR for 720p, and 3x IR for 1080p resolution if possible.

1x internal resolution : (Show Spoiler)
(.33MP, 1x scale in each direction)
Nvidia Geforce 6 series: 6600 GT or higher
Nvidia Geforce 7 series: 7600 GS or higher
Nvidia Geforce 8 series: 8500 GT or higher
Nvidia Geforce 9 series: 9400 GT or higher
Nvidia Geforce 200 series: G 210 DDR3 or higher
Nvidia Geforce 400 series: GT 430 or higher
Nvidia Geforce 500 series: GT 520 or higher
ATI X1000 series: x1600 pro or higher
ATI HD2000 series: 2600 pro or higher
ATI HD3000 series: 3470 or higher
ATI HD4000 series: 4550 or higher
ATI HD5000 series: 5450 DDR3 or 5550 DDR2 or higher
AMD HD6000 series: 6450 or higher

Needs 12GB/s of vram bandwidth. Every card that meets the bandwidth requirements has at least 64 GFLOP/s of processing power and that seems to be way more than enough, probably needs less than 30.

1.5x internal resolution: (Show Spoiler)
(.75MP, 1.5x scale in each direction)
Nvidia Geforce 6 series:
Nvidia Geforce 7 series:
Nvidia Geforce 8 series:
Nvidia Geforce 9 series:
Nvidia Geforce 200 series:
Nvidia Geforce 400 series:
Nvidia Geforce 500 series:
ATI X1000 series:
ATI HD2000 series:
ATI HD3000 series:
ATI HD4000 series:
ATI HD5000 series:
AMD HD6000 series:

2x internal resolution: (Show Spoiler)
(1.33MP, 2x scale in each direction)
Nvidia Geforce 6 series: 6800 GS or higher
Nvidia Geforce 7 series: 7800 GS or higher
Nvidia Geforce 8 series: 8600 GTS or higher
Nvidia Geforce 9 series: 9500 GT GDDR3 or higher
Nvidia Geforce 200 series: GT 220 DDR3 or higher
Nvidia Geforce 400 series: GT 430 or higher
Nvidia Geforce 500 series: GTX 550 TI or higher
ATI X1000 series: X1800 or higher
ATI HD2000 series: 2600 XT or higher
ATI HD3000 series: 3650 GDDR3 or higher
ATI HD4000 series: 4670 or higher
ATI HD5000 series: 5550 GDDR3 or higher
AMD HD6000 series: 6450 GDDR5 or higher

Needs 24GB/s of vram bandwidth. Seems to need around 100 GFLOP/s of processing power.

2.5x internal resolution: (Show Spoiler)
(2.1MP, 2.5x scale in each direction)
Nvidia Geforce 6 series:
Nvidia Geforce 7 series:
Nvidia Geforce 8 series:
Nvidia Geforce 9 series:
Nvidia Geforce 200 series:
Nvidia Geforce 400 series:
Nvidia Geforce 500 series:
ATI X1000 series:
ATI HD2000 series:
ATI HD3000 series:
ATI HD4000 series:
ATI HD5000 series:
AMD HD6000 series:

3x internal resolution: (Show Spoiler)
(3.0MP, 3x scale in each direction)
Nvidia Geforce 6 series: nothing, sorry
Nvidia Geforce 7 series: nothing, sorry
Nvidia Geforce 8 series: 8800 GT or higher
Nvidia Geforce 9 series: 9600 GT or higher
Nvidia Geforce 200 series: GT 240 GDDR5 or higher
Nvidia Geforce 400 series: GTS 450 or higher
Nvidia Geforce 500 series: GTX 550 TI or higher
ATI X1000 series: X1950 XT
ATI HD2000 series: 2900 pro GDDR4 or higher
ATI HD3000 series: 3870 or higher
ATI HD4000 series: 4830 or higher
ATI HD5000 series: 5570 GDDR5 or 5670 GDDR5 or higher
AMD HD6000 series: 6570 GDDR5 or higher

Needs 54GB/s of vram bandwidth. Seems to need around 250 GFLOP/s of processing power.

4x internal resolution: (Show Spoiler)
(5.33MP, 4x scale in each direction)
Nvidia Geforce 6 series: nothing, sorry
Nvidia Geforce 7 series: nothing, sorry
Nvidia Geforce 8 series: 8800 GTX or higher
Nvidia Geforce 9 series: nothing, sorry
Nvidia Geforce 200 series: GTX 260 or higher
Nvidia Geforce 400 series: GTX 460 or higher
Nvidia Geforce 500 series: GTX 550 TI or higher
ATI X1000 series: nothing, sorry
ATI HD2000 series: 2900 XT
ATI HD3000 series: 3870 GDDR4 edition
ATI HD4000 series: 4870 or higher
ATI HD5000 series: 5750 or higher
AMD HD6000 series: 6750 or higher

Needs 70GB/s of vram bandwidth. Seems to need around 500 GFLOP/s of processing power.

Dual gpu cards, mobile gpus, professional graphics cards (quadro series, etc.), integrated GPUs, apus, and very old graphics cards are not included for now.

Additional data: http://forums.dolphin-emu.org/showthread.php?tid=14201
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2011-gaming-graphics-charts/benchmarks,123.html

Minimum Requirements: (Show Spoiler)
Bare Minimum Requirements for d3d9
Regardless of performance here are the minimum video card requirements just to get dolphin to run:
Nvidia: Geforce 6 series or higher
ATI: X1000 series or higher
Intel: GMA 950 series or higher, although you may still encounter problems

Bare Minimum Requirements for openGL
Regardless of performance here are the minimum video card requirements just to get dolphin to run:
Nvidia: Geforce 6 series or higher
ATI: HD2000 series or higher
Intel: GMA 4500 series or higher, although you may still encounter problems

Bare Minimum Requirements for d3d11
Regardless of performance here are the minimum video card requirements just to get dolphin to run:
Nvidia: Geforce 8 series or higher
ATI: HD2000 series or higher
Intel: GMA X3500 series or higher, although you may still encounter problems

Geforce fx has limited support for d3d9c and openGL 2.1 and will work with both backends but only SOME games will run properly.

FAQ: (Show Spoiler)

Q: What about integral (auto multiple of 640 x 528) and fractional (auto window size)? How demanding are those?
A: Both of those depend on what resolution you have set dolphin to. I would recommend that you adjust your IR (internal resolution) manually instead.

Q: Do I need a video card or is my integrated gpu enough?
A: You need a video card. Integrated gpus are not sufficient for running more demanding games even on the lowest settings. Some games may run ok but many will not.

Q: Which backend is the fastest?
A: This depends on the game, your settings, and your hardware. USUALLY d3d9 is the fastest, d3d11 is slightly slower, and openGL is significantly slower.

Q: I have mac osx or linux. Why do the d3d9 and d3d11 backend not show up?
A: Only the openGL backend is available on linux and mac osx.

Q: I have windows. Why can I not use the d3d11 backend?
A: The d3d11 backend requires windows vista/7 and a dx10 capable gpu.

Q: Why does the d3d11 backend require dx10 hardware instead of dx11?
A: Because d3d10.1 and d3d11 can be thought of as add ons to d3d10 rather than rewrites.

Q: Why is dolphin so demanding on my video card?
A: Because it's an emulator, you're not running the game directly. Also settings like internal resolution and SSAA allow you to render a much higher resolution image than you would with a PC game if you set them high enough.

To-do: (Show Spoiler)
-change video card to graphics card, proper terminology is important
-use SS post to describe identifying cpu bottlenecks
-fill out the faq a bit more
-revise the bare minimum requirements, I may need more data to do this
-add images of settings
-add SSAA section
-explain how/why to turn auto IR off
-finish the 1.5x and 2.5x sections
-add integrated gpus
-add HD 7000/8000 series as well as 600/700 series
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08-09-2011, 06:22 AM (This post was last modified: 08-09-2011, 06:24 AM by dmeagher101.)
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dmeagher101 Offline
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Quick question, how do I tell if my CPU is bottlenecking my GPU?
Also, what's the use of having 3x internal resolution if your monitor doesn't support it? Could you just set it to fractional so that it automatically fits the window size, then put the game in full screen. Would that automatically give the best image quality possible?
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08-09-2011, 06:39 AM (This post was last modified: 08-09-2011, 06:41 AM by vortextk.)
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vortextk Offline
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(08-09-2011, 06:22 AM)dmeagher101 Wrote: Quick question, how do I tell if my CPU is bottlenecking my GPU?
Also, what's the use of having 3x internal resolution if your monitor doesn't support it? Could you just set it to fractional so that it automatically fits the window size, then put the game in full screen. Would that automatically give the best image quality possible?

In this emulator, it is almost assuredly a processor bottleneck most of the time unless you're doing like SSAA with 2x+ resolutions or have a bestbuy off the shelf computer with like an i7 and a 5450 graphics card lol. It's definitely not going to be common like it is with regular pc games, but a quick ask and answer is probably sufficient to learn that.

The higher the resolutions will actually give better image qualities though once you hit your window/fullscreen res anyway you'll definitely see diminishing returns. As working AA ideas for dx9 are getting kicked around, I find 4x native resolution a decent bandage that lessens aliasing even though my tv is only 1920x1080. The downsampling helps though I've read the downsampling advantage might not be as severe as it is in regular pc games. Though I'm not specifically sure why he's calling out 3x rather than auto window size/fractional.

Oh maybe I jumped the gun in responding if you aren't done yet..delete if you need to.
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08-09-2011, 01:06 PM (This post was last modified: 08-09-2011, 01:14 PM by NaturalViolence.)
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NaturalViolence Offline
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Quote:Please refrain from posting in this thread until I have stated its completion.

Thank you everyone who listened!

I'm not going to delete your post since I want him to have a chance to see the answer to his question. What I'm going to do is simply delete all but the first post in the thread when I'm done with the OP.

By the way neobrain (the developer who made the d3d11 plugin and does a lot of work on the other two as well) is planning to eventually replace the internal resolution option with additional SSAA shaders after someone figures out what's wrong with the current SSAA shaders.

I don't have a lot of time to work on this but I should still be able to get the OP done by the end of the week. The biggest problem has actually been the lack of credible data to use when constructing the chart. I've been using some tomshardware benchmarks (they have charts that show the average results of all of their benchmarks) but looking back at it, a lot of the data doesn't match up. For example the 8800GT is averaging double an 8600GT despite the fact that I know an 8800GT has 3.5x the number of stream processors running at a 50% higher clock rate. Which means it should have 4.75x the shader throughput (in addition to having twice the memory capacity and 4.25x the memory bandwidth). I remember a few years ago I upgraded from a 7900GS, which at the time was on par with an 8600GT, to an 8800GT and I watched the performance of all of my games go up 3x-4x. I'm trying to use my own video card as a reference point (my GTX C216 can manage about a 6.0MP internal resolution at the most which maintaining fullspeed in the more intense games). We also have some credible data from our own forum benchmark but it doesn't cover enough video cards.
"Normally if given a choice between doing something and nothing, I’d choose to do nothing. But I would do something if it helps someone else do nothing. I’d work all night if it meant nothing got done."  
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08-09-2011, 05:29 PM
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I'm able to get fullspeed with Wind Waker on 9xSSAA and 3xInternal.....

Isn't Wind Waker a demanding game !?

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08-10-2011, 07:00 AM (This post was last modified: 08-10-2011, 07:04 AM by NaturalViolence.)
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NaturalViolence Offline
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Depends on the spot. If you're able to do that on the outside area of the forsaken fortress without any slowdowns THEN I'm impressed. You have an overclocked GTX 580 so you might be able to pull it off, but that's literally the only card I can think of that might be able to pull that off.

I want to be as conservative as possible with my estimates so that nobody says "but you said it would run fine!". So I'm going for the absolute most demanding situation.
"Normally if given a choice between doing something and nothing, I’d choose to do nothing. But I would do something if it helps someone else do nothing. I’d work all night if it meant nothing got done."  
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"I shall be a good politician, even if it kills me. Or if it kills anyone else for that matter. "
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08-10-2011, 03:20 PM
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What do you mean with outside ?

Do you when travelling with the boot to there, or when getting shoot by the canon ´?

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08-10-2011, 09:28 PM
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He means the first time when you're circling up the Fortress to get to the top and pass by the Moblin. That part has massive slowdowns because of the graphics.
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08-11-2011, 06:12 AM
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Don't higher resolutions require a larger framebuffer. Won't a 580 choke at higher resolutions + SSAA faster than something with 2gb ram like my 6970 (just wondering, not biased or anything because I own the card lol)

I never tried anything as high as 3x res + 9xssaa. I guess I'll give it a shot with my new gpu.
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08-11-2011, 10:17 AM (This post was last modified: 08-11-2011, 10:18 AM by NaturalViolence.)
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NaturalViolence Offline
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Quote:Don't higher resolutions require a larger framebuffer. Won't a 580 choke at higher resolutions + SSAA faster than something with 2gb ram like my 6970 (just wondering, not biased or anything because I own the card lol)

Higher internal resolution = larger framebuffer, that's literally what it means, so yes.

And yes it does increase vdram usage but dolphin requires so little vdram to begin with that even a card with 1GB would have more than enough vdram to handle the higher settings. You'll run out of shader throughput way before you run out of vdram. So shader throughput is usually more important.

We don't have a lot of data on the new 6000 series cards being used with dolphin but the data we do have so far seems to point to the GTX 580 being significantly faster at a high internal resolution (though a 6970 should still be able to handle very high internal resolutions easily with most games).

Quote:He means the first time when you're circling up the Fortress to get to the top and pass by the Moblin. That part has massive slowdowns because of the graphics.

^Bingo. That's exactly what I meant. Big areas like that require a lot of geometry to be rendered when you look out at the whole area.
"Normally if given a choice between doing something and nothing, I’d choose to do nothing. But I would do something if it helps someone else do nothing. I’d work all night if it meant nothing got done."  
-Ron Swanson

"I shall be a good politician, even if it kills me. Or if it kills anyone else for that matter. "
-Mark Antony
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