Will my pc run high quality dolphin games well?

[hanan213]

These are the specs for the computer I'm thinking of building

intel core i3 4150
4gb 1600mhz ram
AMD R9 270

Will I be able to play heavy duty games without lag? (zelda twilight princess, super smash bros melee and other wii games that are HD)
Is the processor more important or the graphics card?

[LordVador]

Is the processor more important or the graphics card?

The processor is more important for Dolphin.

Demanding games will give you trouble. Twilight Princess is one of them

[hanan213]

Is the processor more important or the graphics card?

The processor is more important for Dolphin.

Demanding games will give you trouble. Twilight Princess is one of them

if I change the processor to Intel Core i5 4430 Quad Core 3.0GHZ and keep the graphics card listed above will that be good enough to play something like twilight princess without lag?

[KHg8m3r]

The i3-4150 has a higher base clock speed (3.5 Ghz) vs the i5 4430 (3.0 Ghz), and will play more games at full-speed than the i5 since Dolphin is a dual-core program. The i3 will suffice for most of the games in Dolphin.
However, if you want the best experience, get an overclockable Haswell i5, either the -4670k or the upcoming -4690k. The i5-4690K is an upcoming refresh that has way better overclocking headroom, so it will give better performance. Pair that with a Z97 motherboard, and you'll be set.


Twilight Princess will hit major lag in every CPU once you get to a certain part of the game (Hyrule field).

[AnyOldName3]

It's theoretically possible that a 4790K won't have trouble, as it'll go much, much higher than the i5s will with the same cooler.

[Shonumi]

You guys need to add the stipulation that this is for recent revisions. It's still possible to run Hyrule Field fullspeed on 4.0.2 (not everyone uses the latest revisions, but they're just missing out).

[Garteal]

As far as I'm aware he should be able to play Twilight Princess at fullspeed mostly. I've done testing a couple of weeks ago with the latest recent then and skid+degasus' speedhack patch and I managed to stay above 30FPS with LLE and EFB to RAM on my setup.
Yes this was at endgame Hyrule Field.

[AwhsumSauce]

I can confirm that the i3 4150 will be able to run all smash bros games flawlessly, but I can't give my word on any demanding games.

Just make sure you get an H97 or Z97 board with that CPU, otherwise you'd need to update the BIOS (for H81, H87, B85, Z87 and the Q boards). This is only possible if you already have a compatible CPU though.

Consider getting the overclockable Pentium with a Z97 board. You should be able to reach 4.0+ GHz easily with just an EVO.

[AnyOldName3]

He should be able to hit 4.4GHz with the stock cooler. He doesn't even need the Evo.