I'm using Dolphin on my old computer currently setup as an HTPC. It's currently running on the following specs:
Intel i5-750 OC'd to a constant 3.7GHz
Nvidia GT630 4GB
GeIL 4GB DDR-1333 RAM
Before anyone tries to tell me, I know the GT630 isn't remotely useful for gaming but hear me out first.
I've been running Super Mario Galaxy on Dolphin and I'm quite a bit into the game already using the said system. So as far as emulation is concerned, it's somewhat playable and I'm getting 60 fps for the most part of the game. I've set Dolphin's IR to 2x for 720p output. I've tried bumping it up to 3x for 1080p but that just chokes up the poor graphics card. Audio is set to LLE for this particular game.
When running at 720p, there are parts of the game that drop the frame rate to ~45 fps. I thought at first that this might be a video card problem so I lowered IR to native. Still, the game stutters. I setup RivaTuner to give me some OSD stats and strangely enough, the GPU core, GPU memory, and CPU cores are below 100%. CPU usage was roughly 60% for all cores. I know that Dolphin can jump between cores so I tried locking it to the first two cores of the CPU. Without the core-locking option, I had to set Dolphin's CPU affinity to the first two cores and ran the game. This time, cores 2 and 3 were nearly idle while cores 0 and 1 registered between 60-80%. Still, the core usage never reached above 90%.
The reason I'm asking this is since I'm planning on upgrading the graphics card so I can play at 1080p with AA enabled. The thing is, if my system is CPU-limited as well, then there really is no point in going for the upgrade. I cannot afford to replace the entire system at this point. Any thoughts?
Intel i5-750 OC'd to a constant 3.7GHz
Nvidia GT630 4GB
GeIL 4GB DDR-1333 RAM
Before anyone tries to tell me, I know the GT630 isn't remotely useful for gaming but hear me out first.
I've been running Super Mario Galaxy on Dolphin and I'm quite a bit into the game already using the said system. So as far as emulation is concerned, it's somewhat playable and I'm getting 60 fps for the most part of the game. I've set Dolphin's IR to 2x for 720p output. I've tried bumping it up to 3x for 1080p but that just chokes up the poor graphics card. Audio is set to LLE for this particular game.
When running at 720p, there are parts of the game that drop the frame rate to ~45 fps. I thought at first that this might be a video card problem so I lowered IR to native. Still, the game stutters. I setup RivaTuner to give me some OSD stats and strangely enough, the GPU core, GPU memory, and CPU cores are below 100%. CPU usage was roughly 60% for all cores. I know that Dolphin can jump between cores so I tried locking it to the first two cores of the CPU. Without the core-locking option, I had to set Dolphin's CPU affinity to the first two cores and ran the game. This time, cores 2 and 3 were nearly idle while cores 0 and 1 registered between 60-80%. Still, the core usage never reached above 90%.
The reason I'm asking this is since I'm planning on upgrading the graphics card so I can play at 1080p with AA enabled. The thing is, if my system is CPU-limited as well, then there really is no point in going for the upgrade. I cannot afford to replace the entire system at this point. Any thoughts?