What games can I run at full speed?

[MazTok]

I was wondering what games I could run at full speed with my current PC. My specs are on my profile, but I'll put them here too. So far I've only tried Zelda: TP and Star Fox: Assault, Star Fox ran pretty good 50-60FPS. But TP didn't run good at all 10-15FPS with LLE.

CPU Intel Core 2 Duo e7500 2.93ghz

GPU GTX 650 ti

4GB ddr2 RAM 667mhz

Yeah, it's not the best PC in the world, but it's good enough for now.

As for the games I want to play, pretty much all the popular ones. Zelda, Mario, Star Fox, Pikmin.

Also, I'm planing on upgrading my CPU and maybe my RAM pretty soon, any suggestions on parts that will run Dolphin good?

I'd also like to thank you guys for making such an awesome emulator. Even though it doesn't run very good for me, it's still fun to play games in HD. So uhh, yeah, thanks guys!

[Zee530]

An i5-4670k is your best bet for an upgrade at the moment, your graphics card is more than enough, RAM has little to no effect on performance so it's all up to you.

[ExtremeDude2]

If he upgrades his CPU to that, then he will have to buy new RAM XD

[Shonumi]

(08-30-2013, 10:29 PM)ExtremeDude2 Wrote: If he upgrades his CPU to that, then he will have to buy new RAM XD

Not to mention a new motherboard.

Wind Waker, Pikmin, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Super Mario Sunshine should run well. Star Fox Adeventures, Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 (with LLE audio) will have to wait until you upgrade.

[MazTok]

Thanks guys! I've been playing Pikmin 2, and so far it runs great with HLE. The music gets messed up sometimes, but it's no big deal.

And what about Metroid Prime? 1, 2, and 3? Will these run good on my current CPU?

As for CPU upgrades, I was looking at a Intel i3 2120. Will this CPU run TP full speed? If not I could always just go all out and buy a 4670k.

Again, thanks for the help guys. Really appreciate it.

[Shonumi]

MazTok Wrote:And what about Metroid Prime? 1, 2, and 3? Will these run good on my current CPU?

Fullspeed? Nope, although it may be "fast enough" to be acceptable to you (assuming you can deal with the stuttering audio when not running fullspeed, or if you just use 3.5 to avoid that issue).

MazTok Wrote:I was looking at a Intel i3 2120. Will this CPU run TP full speed?

Fullspeed all the time? Nope, not with Hyrule Field. It may run fine at the beginning, but it gradually gets more demanding. If you can deal with slowdowns in Hyrule Field, the rest of the game might do fine. If you want to run most games at fullspeed, no questions asked, the 4670K is the way to go. If you have the money to spend on it, and you want to play Dolphin fullspeed in nearly any CPU-bound circumstance, go for it.

[MazTok]

Hmm, in that case, I'll wait a little longer to upgrade so I can get the 4670k. Full speed is really important to me, even small drops to 50FPS are really annoying.

And what about overclocking? I've heard that can speed up Dolphin a lot, I don't have a CPU cooler, though. So I probably can't overclock very much.


I've already picked out the motherboard and RAM I want, ASRock Z87 Extreme4, and Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600. And I was also thinking of getting a new video card, maybe a GTX 760?

I'm not too sure about my PSU, though. It's only 600W, will that be enough to power the parts mentioned above? I'm well aware that there are probably better places to ask things like this, but you guys seem to know a lot about computers.

[masterotaku]

(09-01-2013, 06:08 PM)MazTok Wrote: And what about overclocking? I've heard that can speed up Dolphin a lot, I don't have a CPU cooler, though. So I probably can't overclock very much.

You will need to overclock the 4670k for some games. In The Last Story I barely get above full speed at the city (sometimes 31~32 fps). My CPU is at 4.1GHz with stock cooler, and I still get safe temps, though a bit high (around 85~87ºC in Prime95). If you're lucky, maybe you'll be able to get better clocks at lower voltage than me.


Every MHz counts, and a tiny % can make the difference between choppy audio and glorious fullspeed.

[Shonumi]

MazTok Wrote:And what about overclocking? I've heard that can speed up Dolphin a lot, I don't have a CPU cooler, though. So I probably can't overclock very much.

The i5-4670K is strong enough in Dolphin that it won't be necessary for all but the most demanding games (SMG with LLE audio for example). Even then, you'll have to OC less than an i5-3570K or an i5-2500K would to reach the same level of performance, since Haswell CPU perform so well with Dolphin. An OC around 4 GHz should be sufficient. I wouldn't advise overclocking that much with only the stock cooler. It's pretty safe to rely on Intel's Turbo Boost though, at least until you get a cooler.

MazTok Wrote:And I was also thinking of getting a new video card, maybe a GTX 760?

If you do PC gaming, go for it. If you plan to run Dolphin at insane resolutions and AA, go for it. If you do Bitcoin mining, go for it. Otherwise if you're wondering what your GTX 650 Ti can do in Dolphin, it can do plenty as is. It's already capable of running games at 4x IR. If you don't have a specific resolution or level of image quality you want to achieve, it might be a better idea to hold off on buying a new GPU so you can focus your budget on the i5-4670K and a cooler.

MazTok Wrote:It's only 600W, will that be enough to power the parts mentioned above?

That should be more than enough. You can always use an online power calculator if you're uncertain.

MazTok Wrote:you guys seem to know a lot about computers

The other folks around here are more knowledgeable than I am. I only know about hardware as it pertains to Dolphin. Don't ask me about PC gaming though; I've been out of that loop for years. I don't even read Maximum PC anymore :p

[admin89]

Quote:Intel Core 2 Duo e7500 2.93ghz

2 options :
1)
You can buy Cooler Master 212 Evo (around 30USD) + Arctic MX-4 and push that CPU to 3.6GHz or higher , you will gain huge speed up
Make sure your current mobo support overclocking though
2)
Upgrade to i5 4670k , make sure you buy Z87 mobo ; not B85 , H87 mobo or crap like that . MSI Z87 G43 is dirt cheap . And then send your E7500 to me