What component should I replace, if any?

[kento]

Hello Dolphin Forums!

I built my PC about a year ago using the cheapest parts I could find, and it runs fairly well. I can run GameCube games, but the audio will frequently stutter and the frame rate will decrease. Games under Dolphin rarely run at 100%. I read in the Dolphin Wiki's Hardware and system requirements section that AMD CPUs are not recommended, but I just want to verify that that's the issue before shelling out for a new processor (and motherboard)

I'm running Arch Linux x64 with a AMD Athlon X2 340 Dual Core CPU, a NVIDIA GeForce GT 630 graphics card, Two sticks of Kingston RAM totaling 8gb, and I'm using Dolphin version 1:4.0.2-10 from Arch's community repo (how do I check Dolphin's version?).

I can provide screenshots of my Dolphin setup by request.

What hardware upgrades would you recommend for me?

[DatKid20]

(10-14-2015, 12:33 AM)kento Wrote: Hello Dolphin Forums!

I built my PC about a year ago using the cheapest parts I could find, and it runs fairly well. I can run GameCube games, but the audio will frequently stutter and the frame rate will decrease. Games under Dolphin rarely run at 100%. I read in the Dolphin Wiki's Hardware and system requirements section that AMD CPUs are not recommended, but I just want to verify that that's the issue before shelling out for a new processor (and motherboard)

I'm running Arch Linux x64 with a AMD Athlon X2 340 Dual Core CPU, a NVIDIA GeForce GT 630 graphics card, Two sticks of Kingston RAM totaling 8gb, and I'm using Dolphin version 1:4.0.2-10 from Arch's community repo (how do I check Dolphin's version?).

I can provide screenshots of my Dolphin setup by request.

What hardware upgrades would you recommend for me?

I would recommend upgrading your CPU. I think skylake IGPU is a GT 630 level already.

EDIT: From what I can gather from Notebookcheck, it's equal.

[kento]

(10-14-2015, 12:58 AM)DatKid20 Wrote:

(10-14-2015, 12:33 AM)kento Wrote: Hello Dolphin Forums!

I built my PC about a year ago using the cheapest parts I could find, and it runs fairly well. I can run GameCube games, but the audio will frequently stutter and the frame rate will decrease. Games under Dolphin rarely run at 100%. I read in the Dolphin Wiki's Hardware and system requirements section that AMD CPUs are not recommended, but I just want to verify that that's the issue before shelling out for a new processor (and motherboard)

I'm running Arch Linux x64 with a AMD Athlon X2 340 Dual Core CPU, a NVIDIA GeForce GT 630 graphics card, Two sticks of Kingston RAM totaling 8gb, and I'm using Dolphin version 1:4.0.2-10 from Arch's community repo (how do I check Dolphin's version?).

I can provide screenshots of my Dolphin setup by request.

What hardware upgrades would you recommend for me?

I would recommend upgrading your CPU. I think skylake IGPU is a GT 630 level already.

EDIT: From what I can gather from Notebookcheck, it's equal.

So a CPU upgrade and no graphics card required? Sweet.

I think I'd get a new graphics card as well, judging by the FAQ. Good to know that it's really just my CPU that causing the lag.

[mimimi]

I would try the latest dev builds 1st, they might be fast enough already. Also, if you have a chance to run Windows on a seperate partition, it might be worth a try. I *think* windows runs Dolphin quite a bit faster than linux does. And for linux, which gpu drivers are you using?

[AnyOldName3]

Windows and linux are fairly close to performance parity these days - a few years ago the OpenGL backend was a lot slower than the D3D9 one, so as the linux builds had to use it, they were slow (the CPU side of things has always been neck and neck), but that backend is now the fastest most of the time.