Still can't run most games smoothly.

[JustSkate11]

I am trying to play Twilight Princess and Brawl, but I get big fps dips into the 15 - 20 range when a lot is on screen or when I load a new portion of the world. I don't quite understand why, because I can run the single-player of Battlefield 4 on ultra with AAx2 and get around 75fps on average. I have to bump it down to medium settings in multi-player though. I followed the settings walkthough that's on this website, to no avail.

Specs:

OS: Windows 8 64-bit

CPU: Intel Core i3 2130 @ 3.40ghz

RAM: 8.00gb Dual-Channel @ 665mhz(not the same brand, default and Patriot)

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2gb

[Lumbeeslayer]

Emulation and PC Games are 2 different things, dolphin requires fast cpu.
What setting are you using for Dolphin?

[vbetts]

Just to kind of note, if your ram doesn't match everything then it most likely won't be running in dual channel mode. That can have an affect.

What build are you using for TP? The speed hack as far as I know has been taken out in recent builds.

[Shonumi]

With most modern PC games, the GPU determines how fast you can run a game with whatever graphical settings. With Dolphin, the GPU determines how high you can raise things like your Internal Resolution and Anti-aliasing without slowing down. If your GPU is sufficient for your given IR and AA, the rest of the performance is generally on your CPU. Many modern PC games don't require a lot of CPU power; Dolphin does, however.

Depending on which games you're playing (The Last Story for example) your CPU is inadequate since some titles in Dolphin need an overclocked CPU (usually from the last 3 hardware generations from Intel). For most average and light games (Brawl, Melee, Wind Waker) you shouldn't have any issues. Which games specifically are your "most games"?

[ulao]

Hard to tell without seeing your settings, consider...

OS: Windows 8 64-bit -- No Idea I would not run that version of windows.
CPU: Intel Core i3 2130 @ 3.40ghz -- great CPU,however this may be your bottle neck.
RAM: 8.00gb Dual-Channel @ 665mhz(not the same brand, default and Patriot) -- over kill but make sure its matching ram in working in dual mode (use cpu Idle or another program to tell).
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2gb -- great card!

If its not the setting in dolphin and you are running a true dual channel mode, the only thing you can do is upgrade the CPU( depends on MB) or use an older version of dolphin, 3.x or so.

[JustSkate11]

Ok, I kind of figured it might be my CPU.

My settings for dolphin are the settings listed here: https://dolphin-emu.org/docs/guides/settings/

As far as my RAM being dual channel, I just copied what was shown on Speccy. I have 4gb x2 in there, but I'm not running them at 1000mhz as I should I believe. Which I believe is the setback for not having the same brand. However, I did extensive research to make sure they were the same type in every way.

Would a i5 be sufficient? or should I got for an i7?

Thanks all of you for your replies, I was just wondering what the issue was, and now that I know it's my CPU i'll be sure to get a better one.

[KHg8m3r]

An i7 is only necessary if you need the extra cores from hyperthreading

[DJBarry004]

i5-4670K or i7-4770K.

[admin89]

Just get an i5 4670k and spend the rest of money on a good mobo (such as MSI Z87 G45) , aftermarket cooler (CM Hyper 212 Evo or top of the line air cooler such as Noctua NH-D14)
You will need to overclock i5 4670k @ 4.2GHz in order to have most demanding games run full speed
Depending on the model , some i7 CPUs are actually slower than some i5 CPUs . Same generation Quad Core i7 and Quad Core i5 have the same performance in Dolphin .
Base on Dolphin Benchmark , an i3 4130 @ 3.4GHz (Stock) is equivalent to i5 3570k @ 4.4GHz (OCed)

With that said , you should not spend money on an i7 but rather invest on sth else

[NaturalViolence]

Your cpu is a bit slow but make sure to check your cpu for throttling just in case.