Old laptop...should I even bother with Dolphin?

[octiceps]

So do you think the 8700M GT can handle 1.5x IR when not significantly bottlenecked by the CPU? It's right between a desktop 8600 GT and 8600 GTS in terms of performance.

[mbc07]

Well, I have no idea. One thing is certain: this GPU will definitely handle at least 1x...

[octiceps]

(12-15-2014, 03:41 PM)Jhonn Wrote: Well, I have no idea. One thing is certain: this GPU will definitely handle at least 1x...

Haha OK thanks. It was a stupid question. I should just be thankful that at least it runs, never mind extra eye candy such as higher resolutions and/or frame rates.

[ZLRK]

Totally agree with mr Jhonn.

I used to have a probably very similar laptop to that of yours (Core 2 Duo T7700 2.4 GHz, Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT 256 Mb, 4 Gb RAM DDR2). It was a Dell Inspiron 1520, clearly non Optimus system, though given your specs I don't think yours is neither.

Should you bother with Dolphin? YES, you can and should give it a try. What can you expect? Well, I didn't play many Wii games, but I was able to finish Super Mario Galaxy 2 with all 242 stars. I want to believe this is one demanding game, for I usually got 50-100% speed in general, depending on area. But I played it 3 years ago, so there should be significant positive differences between today's revs and 3-year-old ones.

Another Wii game I played was Super Smash Bros Brawl. No speed issues at all (ok, let's say almost just in case). I think New Super Mario Bros Wii didn't have speed issues neither.

GC games, though I'd imagine they should be a bit less demanding than Wii games, I can't tell, since I only played Super Smash Bros Melee... Though I think I once tried a bit Zelda Wind Waker and Zelda Twilight Princess and didn't seem that bad... Perhaps could be the same luck as Mario Galaxy, or better.

But I always played at native res (or whatever default res Dolphin runs). Also I did start to experiment overall periodic slowdowns during the last year I had that laptop even with non-demanding games, but that was because it already had quite few years of use and it started to overheat more than normal. Or that's what I think.

Anyway, overall I think if you just find a way to cool that laptop a bit you won't need to spend in a new rig at all for a while.

[KHg8m3r]

A Wii game is not inherently more demanding than a GC game, it all depends on the game that you want to play.