Quoting myself from earlier today:
That i5 in your first pick is not designed to run demanding things like Dolphin. Dolphin really stresses the CPU, which causes a lot of heat to be generated, so you probably won't be able to take advantage of the Turbo Boost functionality (which throttles back when there is too much heat), so you'll probably be playing at 1.7GHz most of the time unless you're very lucky. That clock is too low to adequately play most games without noticeable slowdown (Wind Waker included).
The 3230M would be a better choice, since it's lowest clock is the fastest clock of the 3317U. That would run most lightweight games easily, a number of average games, and maybe some more demanding games with acceptable slowdowns. The GPU determines whether or not HD gameplay is possible and to what extent. Anything from the Intel HD 3000 on up should be acceptable at 1x the GCN/Wii's native resolution for most games.
EDIT: About other systems, it'll basically run PSX, N64, DS, even a lot of PSP games just fine. SNES, NES, Gensis, etc, are obviously not going to be issues (I mean, I haven't run across a laptop in at least 8 years that can't emulate those systems adequately).
Shonumi Wrote:-U Intel CPU are ultra low voltage CPUs. They're designed to consume less power to generate less heat. The low clock rates often mean all but the lightest of games will even run well.
That i5 in your first pick is not designed to run demanding things like Dolphin. Dolphin really stresses the CPU, which causes a lot of heat to be generated, so you probably won't be able to take advantage of the Turbo Boost functionality (which throttles back when there is too much heat), so you'll probably be playing at 1.7GHz most of the time unless you're very lucky. That clock is too low to adequately play most games without noticeable slowdown (Wind Waker included).
The 3230M would be a better choice, since it's lowest clock is the fastest clock of the 3317U. That would run most lightweight games easily, a number of average games, and maybe some more demanding games with acceptable slowdowns. The GPU determines whether or not HD gameplay is possible and to what extent. Anything from the Intel HD 3000 on up should be acceptable at 1x the GCN/Wii's native resolution for most games.
EDIT: About other systems, it'll basically run PSX, N64, DS, even a lot of PSP games just fine. SNES, NES, Gensis, etc, are obviously not going to be issues (I mean, I haven't run across a laptop in at least 8 years that can't emulate those systems adequately).