Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Put simply, here is my rig:
Nvidia 9500GT 1GB DDR2
AMD Athlon x64 x2 6000+ 3.0GHz
3GB DDR2 RAM
Windows 7 32-bit/x86

The only game I have managed to run sort of perfectly is Pikmin 2, which, yes is an amazing game. But my problem is that the only time it runs at full speed (which is probably because its only 30FPS) is ingame. On the menus and everything the highest it can go to is about 40FPS, in windowed mode if I'm lucky.

Here is a list of my backups and the speeds they run at:

Animal Crossing - Menus are a bit slow, the game occasionaly slows down but it is playable.

Fragile Dreams - Not playable AT ALL. The game runs at about 60% and the graphics can't even be seen very well as the screen flashes every half of a second (seizure warning?)

Harvest Moon: A wonderful Life - It's a shame, because the game DOES run perfect on my rig, but I'm sure you all know the problems with AWL. The sound skips in and out pretty much every beat, and you can't read the text AT ALL.

Pikmin 2 - Read up

Pokemon Box R&S - I downloaded this thinking I could link my GBA to it. I'm still trying to see if there is another way then the VBA-M way but the pathetic thing is that even at the part where it says (Begin adventure, go to box) it will run at 45 fps (supposed to be 60) and the sound skips in and out.

Pokemon Channel - Oh man, this game is IMPOSSIBLE to play, for me at least. The sound skips so you are unable to watch TV, which is required in the game. And the game seriously runs at 30 FPS ALL THE TIME, when it should be 60FPS.

Rune Factory: Frontier - All of the anime-style cutscenes run at full speed, which is awesome because they lag like shit on my actual wii but the sound is a bit odd, you can notice an occasional skip and sometimes a weird essence to it if you know what I mean. Ingame it will go fullspeed but sink down to about 18 fps in large areas. It runs pretty good and it'd be nice if someone could help me on config'ing my PS3 controller to a wiimote.

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - This game... It makes me Q_Q. The intro cutscene runs at only about 20 fps out of 50, menus run at about 35 fps, and ingame it runs at about ~30fps, which is playable on Sonic/Shadow levels, but not much else.

Super Mario Sunshine - Runs at ~30fps. Sound skips in and out like crazy, which is EXTREMELY annoying, hearing mario go "oowoh oowoh oo ohohoh" if one of those things jumps on you. Like frontier, the game will drop FPS to about 20 if there are a lot of objects on the screen. Although if a slime boss comes on the screen it will drop to 15FPS. I'm a bit scared to see what it'll be for real bosses =\

Super Smash Bros. Melee - The game runs at about 30FPS on menus.(Out of 60) Sound skips like CRAZY on menus, and when I go ingame it runs ~25fps, extremely unplayable. And when ingame, no sound plays AT ALL.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time pack - I got this so I could play Master Quest. The only part of the ENTIRE GAME where it goes full speed is the MENU. The MENU as in THE MENU where it asks you to choose OoT or Master Quest. I'm serious. The graphics look a bit messed up, and it runs 8 FPS. And it doesn't move.

Also, if not yet stated, I am running on Rev 6095 (which is from yesterday I believe) I simply want to run these games at full speed. I have read that I should be able to run 90% of them perfectly.

Post pics of your config.

Also note that some games just don't run smooth, even on systems like mine.

One of the big issues of your system is the 32-bit. 64-bit dolphin will nearly see a 100% speed increase, due to the 128bit nature of the Wii/GC.

64bit doubles the performance ?
I'd say this is a bit much, but I use 32bit so I don't know

My buddy has a same hardware config, and he can't emulate GC smoothly.
He can't even play SSB Melee on 800x600 with 4 Players on 60 fps WITH 64bit.

huh? that's crap.
You'll maybe get max. 25% boost on average, probably more like 10% though.

Pokemon Box R&S - I downloaded this thinking I could link my GBA to it. I'm still trying to see if there is another way then the VBA-M way but the pathetic thing is that even at the part where it says (Begin adventure, go to box) it will run at 45 fps (supposed to be 60) and the sound skips in and out. <- Piracy is not allowed on here.

I'm not 100% sure, but you SHOULD be getting better performance than that. I have a laptop that runs some of the games you said much better than that, and it should be a LOT weaker than your system. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle should run pretty well even on slow systems. Even on an Athlon II X2 @2ghz (laptop with integrated graphics card), i managed to run Sonic Adventure 2 Battle pretty much almost fullspeed all the time. I managed to get Melee running well enough as well. Unless it's your 32bit Windows OS, i can't think of anything besides your emulator settings that would give you speed issues. The Athlon x64 series is old, but it should be enough to play SA2B at least if you have it clocked that high (i believe people with much weaker systems have managed to get it working)...

In terms of settings, make sure to use these tips-
- Use the Direct3D9 graphics plugin, openGL is extremely slow
- in the D3D plugin, make sure to have the setting Copy EFB to Texture checked (RAM can cut speed in half or more)
- obviously check dual core
- if you're using resolutions higher than standard, go back to 640x480
- use the latest revision (go check the forum section for compiles)

Post screenshots of your configuration up here though.

(kind of offtopic, but which games don't even run smoothly even on YOUR rig zurginator? didn't think you'd have much issue lol)

Look up the specific game thread for better settings...
For Fragile Dreams, select XFB in DX9 settings.

(08-17-2010, 04:24 AM)JADS Wrote: [ -> ]Pokemon Box R&S - I downloaded this thinking I could link my GBA to it. I'm still trying to see if there is another way then the VBA-M way but the pathetic thing is that even at the part where it says (Begin adventure, go to box) it will run at 45 fps (supposed to be 60) and the sound skips in and out. <- Piracy is not allowed on here.

By downloaded I meant downloaded onto my computer -_- (as in.. dumped it? I guess that would be the correct term.)

Also;
I use D3D11 since my GFX can use it, plus it goes faster than D3D9 for me.
Dual core is checked.
I am now using latest revision, 6099, configured for SSE3 (tiny speedup, maybe 2-4 fps.)
I don't recall fully, but a while ago I had switched to Windows 7 64-bit just for emulators. And, I'm pretty sure it didn't help very much. The biggest problem with 64-bit for me is that normal PC games that I can run on the highest graphics settings on 32-bit at full speed would then run at much lower FPS with the lowest graphics settings. That is the main reason I switched back. It completely threw off my game. =\
Also I've since then found the game thread for Fragile Dreams and changed that, but it still doesn't change the fact the game runs at very low FPS.
Oh and I tried putting the resolution to 640x480. Didn't do anything (FPS didn't go up or down at all)

Config:

Your config make all game run slow.Must check :
Framelimit off
Select direct 3D9 plugin instead of d11 plugin
Don't use widescreen hack(may cause bad graphic )
Uncheck "Enable EFB -> CPU access"(This oftion only use for 3 games : Mario Galaxy 1&2,Zelda TP)
Do not select OpenAL (cause bad sound,really bad),select Dsound

(08-17-2010, 09:48 AM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]Your config make all game run slow.Must check :
Framelimit off
Select direct 3D9 plugin instead of d11 plugin
Don't use widescreen hack(may cause bad graphic )
Uncheck "Enable EFB -> CPU access"(This oftion only use for 3 games : Mario Galaxy 1&2,Zelda TP)
Do not select OpenAL (cause bad sound,really bad),select Dsound

Yes, this added about 6 fps and I can now go fullspeed on the menus of SA2B! I've only tested SA2B, but suckishly it still won't go fullspeed (around 41~ fps now) and sound works perfectly so yeah, if there are any other ways I could speedup please let me know