Would this help speed up emulation?

01-02-2012, 06:45 PM #1

Currently, I can rune very few games on dolphin without major frame rate drops,so I was wondering, if I upgraded my computer by adding a new CPU and RAM, would it speed up emulation?My currents specs are below.

This is what I am upgrading to.
AMD FX-4100 - 3.60Ghz quad core (CPU)
4GB of ram (RAM)

This is what I currently have:
Windows vista 32bit
AMD Athlon 64 x2 dual core processor 6000+ 3.00GHz
3GB of ram
AMD Radeon HD 6700 series video card(Very good video card).

**dannzen** · (This post was last modified: 01-02-2012, 07:04 PM by dannzen.)

sure it would speed up...
but don't forget..
bulldozer is slow compared to sandybridge
...
really slow

**Garteal** · (This post was last modified: 01-02-2012, 07:09 PM by Garteal.)

What motherboard do you have?
What games do you plan on playing?
What is your budget?

You'll get the most speed if you upgrade your CPU to a 'good' CPU. I wouldn't recommend upgrading to the FX series of AMD.
Even the Phenom II x4 9xx series is faster in most cases than the CPU you plan on getting.

If you really want to gain performance, and actually make a upgrade, get a Sandy Bridge Intel CPU.

Dolphin does not utilize more than 2 cores, so having more cores doesn't neccessarily mean that you will gain speed.

Upgrading your RAM won't yield any difference in performance. But getting 4GB does open up the 64bit world for you.

What exact GPU do you have?

EDIT: Welcome back Dannzen Tongue

**admin89** · 01-02-2012, 07:11 PM #4

That would be downgrade for ya , faildozer quad core = Pentium 4 with 4 cores
And Dolphin uses 2 cores
Get Sandy Bridge CPU instead : i3 2100 , i5 2300/2400/2500/2500k

**Zee530** · 01-02-2012, 07:30 PM #5

You never said anything about your GPU, if you want to upgrade to sandy bridge i'm sure you'd like to play in 720 or 1080p

**dannzen** · 01-02-2012, 08:11 PM #6

(01-02-2012, 07:30 PM)Zee530 Wrote: You never said anything about your GPU, if you want to upgrade to sandy bridge i'm sure you'd like to play in 720 or 1080p

(01-02-2012, 06:45 PM)joe2459 Wrote: AMD Radeon HD 6700 series video card(Very good video card).

should be enough and if its still the smallest version

01-02-2012, 08:54 PM #7

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115078
Would that be good enough?

werewolfyman · (This post was last modified: 01-02-2012, 11:50 PM by werewolfyman.)

(01-02-2012, 08:54 PM)joe2459 Wrote: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115078
Would that be good enough?

Tell me some sort of budget and I'll recommend you something.
Is this build mostly for emulation?
Or are you going to play PC games as well?

If it is just for emulation on the cheap, the Pentium G860 is what I would recommend, as it can play roughly 75% of Dolphin's library at or near full speed. (And you save $30 that can be put elsewhere.)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116405

If this build is for PC gaming, then I recommend the i5 2400.
Emulation won't be much faster, but PC games will.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115074

If you want something good for 90% of Dolphin's library and amazing for PC games, then get the i5 2500k.(Only if you know how to overclock and plan on buying some sort of cooling system.)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065

I own the i5 2300, and I once disabled 2 cores in my bios.
Nearly every game I played in dolphin played at same speed. (Except for those reliant on LLE audio, but those never ran full speed anyway. A 2500k would be needed.)
Starcraft 2's demo slowed down considerably.

**NaturalViolence** · 01-03-2012, 04:58 AM #9

G850 is a better buy than the G860 in my opinion: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116397
100MHz lower and $13 less. 3% lower clock rate, 13% lower price. And remember to make sure your motherboard and ram are compatible (LGA1155 mobo and DDR3 ram).

And if he gets a 2500k he'll need a Z68 or P67 motherboard to overclock it properly.

The reason werewolfyman recommended against the i3 is because the pentium series cpus are cheaper and the only differences between them and the i3s are HT and IGP features, neither of which will help you with dolphin (or most applications for that matter).

werewolfyman · (This post was last modified: 01-03-2012, 06:20 AM by werewolfyman.)

(01-03-2012, 04:58 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote: G850 is a better buy than the G860 in my opinion: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116397
100MHz lower and $13 less. 3% lower clock rate, 13% lower price. And remember to make sure your motherboard and ram are compatible (LGA1155 mobo and DDR3 ram).

And if he gets a 2500k he'll need a Z68 or P67 motherboard to overclock it properly.

The reason werewolfyman recommended against the i3 is because the pentium series cpus are cheaper and the only differences between them and the i3s are HT and IGP features, neither of which will help you with dolphin (or most applications for that matter).

And if push comes to shove the bclk on the g850 can be set to 104 very easily, making it 3.0 ghz.

And yeah, Z68 would be needed for overclocking.
But yeah, i3's are like cheap i7's- Only appealing to certain crowds and usually outclassed price-to-performance by their "inferior" counterparts.
"Pentium G and i5, respectively."
Any money not spent on an i3 or i7 can be put towards better parts elsewhere, such as more RAM, better video cards, storage, etc.

Unless you plan on editing videos, I too recommend the g850 for cheap emulation.
It essentially is my processor without the extra 2 cores and the turbo boost, and cache.