Should Performance Increase After I Play A Game More?

James-Money · 01-08-2019, 10:56 AM #1

Hi, It's been a while since I've been on these forums. Last time I was here I played my GameCube and Wii games on an Android device. Now I have a ""gaming"" laptop and I decided to try out Dolphin. This system has an Intel Core i5 (Coffee Lake) and a GTX 1050. Performance started to act up and frames were dipping. I haven't used Dolphin on PC much yet, but when I play the game more should performance increase? I'm pretty sure I heard something about developing a shader cache. This is probably a stupid question, but is it true that playing more should fix performance?

**ExtremeDude2** · 01-08-2019, 11:09 AM #2

Are you running dolphin while plugged in/in high performance mode?

Kerr · (This post was last modified: 01-08-2019, 11:34 PM by Kerr.)

(01-08-2019, 10:56 AM)James-Money Wrote: Hi, It's been a while since I've been on these forums. Last time I was here I played my GameCube and Wii games on an Android device. Now I have a ""gaming"" laptop and I decided to try out Dolphin. This system has an Intel Core i5 (Coffee Lake) and a GTX 1050. Performance started to act up and frames were dipping. I haven't used Dolphin on PC much yet, but when I play the game more should performance increase? I'm pretty sure I heard something about developing a shader cache. This is probably a stupid question, but is it true that playing more should fix performance?

In The graphics settings window -> General Tab -> "Shader Compilation" Section there is a check box "Compile Shaders Before Starting" which should prepare as many shaders as possible ahead of time. Either way Dolphin will compile new shaders the first time each one is used - the first few seconds of a new level etc - where it may stutter.

Nearly every game can be played smoothly on a powerful enough computer... but a mid range computer like yours might need to make some considerations. On my PC I have trouble with Rogue Squadron games, for example. I turn down the emulated cpu and other tricks to get a smooth experience.

Note: Edited to be more accurate, per JosJuice's Correction

**JosJuice** · 01-08-2019, 10:50 PM #4

(01-08-2019, 08:26 PM)Kerr Wrote: Otherwise dolphin will compile shaders the first time each one is used - the first few seconds of a new level etc - where it may stutter.

It'll still do that even if you have Compile Shaders Before Starting enabled, since Compile Shaders Before Starting only affects shaders that Dolphin has encountered in the past.