Trying to figure out if this laptop will run high end dolphin games at high settings

[AugustBurns]

I recently bought a Lenovo Y50 Touch, the specs can be found in what I listed when I registered. I was surprised and disappointed to find out that even after hours of tweeking settings based on recommendations I found on these forums and others, that I could not even get Dolphin to emulate fire emblem path of radiance or super smash bros melee without choppy audio and very very low FPS.

Thus I have been looking at the MSI GE70 from the Xotic website with the GPU overclocking package, and IC diamond thermal compound cooling package. I am looking to emulate games like fire emblem path of radiance, fire emblem radiant dawn, super smash on gamecube and wii, the last story, pandora's tower, and xenoblade chronicles (!!!). I am wondering if this system will be able to emulate these games at high settings.

The specs of the MSI GE70 with a link is listed below. So I have a few questions that if anyone would be able to enlighten me at all, it would be MUCH appreciated.

1. Is there anyway to get my Lenovo Y50 touch to properly emulate these games at all before I return it? (have 6 days left to send it back) The specs are listed on my account page for the Lenovo. Keep in mind I have no experience in overclocking and the only tech savvy I have has been obtained in the last few days of rigorous research and looking at mobile processor benchmarks and mobile graphics cards comparisons on notebookcheck.net (most of the acronyms are still very foreign to me)

2. If the answer to 1 is no, then will the MSI GE70 be adequate with the boosts to cooling and the custom overclocking from Xotic?

Though I am not tech savvy I am willing to learn so any information is appreciated and I am not too lazy to look something up if I don't know what you're talking about.

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR HELP



This is the MSI GE70: http://www.xoticpc.com/msi-ge70-apache-pro681-p-8067.html
And here are the specs:
NVIDIA® GeForce GTX 960M GDDR5 (2.0GB) w/ Optimus™ Technology
4th Generation Intel® Mobile Core i7-4720HQ Haswell Processor
Intel® HM86 Chipset
12,288MB (12GB) DDR3 1600MHz

[KHg8m3r]

Both of those computers have the same CPU, which Dolphin relies on for emulation.
Some tips to make your computer run games faster:
1) update to one of the latest dev builds. 4.0.2 is really slow and buggy
2) Make sure you have your computer plugged in and set to high performance mode in Windows and Nvidia control panel. (see how here: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-unofficial-laptop-performance-guide )
3) Use the OpenGL backend

[AugustBurns]

(08-19-2015, 02:27 PM)KHg8m3r Wrote: Both of those computers have the same CPU, which Dolphin relies on for emulation.
Some tips to make your computer run games faster:
1) update to one of the latest dev builds. 4.0.2 is really slow and buggy
2) Make sure you have your computer plugged in and set to high performance mode in Windows and Nvidia control panel. (see how here: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-unofficial-laptop-performance-guide )
3) Use the OpenGL backend

I will try all of these things on my Lenovo y50 before I stock reset it and send it in. Will let you know if it works. Do the specs of the Lenovo or MSIGE70 seem good enough to run Xenoblade and other games at 1080p 60fps and I read that Dolphin relies far more heavily on GPU then CPU is that no the case?

[DeeKay]

It's quite the opposite. Emulation in general is more demanding on the CPU. If you want to the game to run in 1080p, then you'll need at least a mid-range GPU.

[NKF98]

where did you read that? it's not true, your CPU has to emulate the GPU thread along with the CPU thread (i think) so it's a pretty heavy load in that department

[AugustBurns]

I probably misread it but I was shopping for laptops under that impression, so I am glad I was corrected. I am now looking at the MSIGE72 model which has a i7-5700HQ broadwell processor instead of the i7-4720 on the GE70.

[AugustBurns]

(08-19-2015, 02:27 PM)KHg8m3r Wrote: Both of those computers have the same CPU, which Dolphin relies on for emulation.
Some tips to make your computer run games faster:
1) update to one of the latest dev builds. 4.0.2 is really slow and buggy
2) Make sure you have your computer plugged in and set to high performance mode in Windows and Nvidia control panel. (see how here: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-unofficial-laptop-performance-guide )
3) Use the OpenGL backend

I did as you said on the Lenovo and while I was able to now run Fire Emblem Path of Radiance on the newer Dolphin the sound was still somewhat choppy at times and the Xenoblade opening was unplayable. No idea because I saw an article on reddit that came up from google saying others were able to run it. I think I am going to just return it and get a different laptop.

[Anti-Ultimate]

Use ThrottleStop.

The y50 throttles if it goes over 65°C. No idea why Lenovo did that.

[emmaus]

i can pretty much play all my games at full 100% speed (95% in really stressed areas) at 2x and sometimes with efb to ram enabled.and that is using my specs in my profile.i use d3d cause it seems to have greatly sped up since i upgraded to win 10(it is still using the same d3d11 backend, just really faster than ogl,and ogl was my preffered backend when i was using win8.1)try updating your driver to the newest drivers from nvidia,use the latest dev builds, and try d3d.also note, i dont think that my upgrade to win 10 caused my speed boost,others say ogl is faster for them on win 10.your system is way faster than mine, even the lenovo

[emmaus]

if you are noticing strange bugs when playing, check the game's dolphin wiki and forum thread to see if it is a common bug or a problem with your configuration.